Talk about what you know about it here and ideas about various ways of getting materials or tips about the process itself.

As I'm a beginner, the forge is the weakest link in the chain at this point as it's pretty much a machine and always looking for improvement.
Railroad track anvil (no horn or anything, but it was my grandad's and I think that's badass)
It's rounded at the top and I would like ideas on how to possibly flatten it.
Not a big concern.
A knife will be the most complicated thing I've got in mind for the foreseeable future

at the moment I'm just worried about where to get coal.

4/28/2014 4:04:46 AM

holler at colter

4/28/2014 1:41:58 PM

hey, hey, Yeah I'm an artisan blacksmith/ Knifemaker by trade (sort of). If you're interested in learning some smithing, the best way is for me to show you some basics. I have a shop in wake forest, and I'll be back in the area mid june, if you want to meet up to mush metal. Another good avenue is look up the NC blackmithing association, or NC knifemaker's guilds both of which offer classes, and meet-ups once a month, with lots of good folks to talk to, and classes available through both. I really got my start up at the John C. Campbell Folk School as an apprentice, but I've worked with several bladesmiths over the years.

If you want to pm me your address, I can mail you plans on how to build a basic coal forge with a hair dryer as your blower, or a propane forge as well. As far as coal goes, I make my own charcoal with wood, but I do have a 50 pound bag of coal left over from my last NC tool order, you can have if you would like. I use propane (A NC tool and forge KNifemaker's forge) for rough forging, and a coal forge for tempering blades.

As far as your railroad track anvil- I'd take it to a machine shop and see if they could deck it flat, depending on how much needs to come off.

I would start with getting good at the basic's- taper's, making small projects like hooks, nails, etc, just to get the basic skills down before moving into a knife.

Wayne Goddard has some great books I.E. the $50 knife shop, that detail cheap ways to set up a basic forge, and make basic knives.

I myself am an experiential learner, and do better if someone shows me how, if you or anyone else too is interested in coming out and doing some 'smithing/ basic knifemaking.

ANy other questions feel free to ask, hope that helps some.

4/28/2014 7:20:00 PM

You are a cool cat, colter. Thanks

I've got a pretty good starter forge setup with a hairdryer as the blower(if i do say so myself), but this is just me cobbling together what I've learned over the years here and there and pretty respectable youtube study program (by youtube study program standards anyway). I don't even know for a fact if it will get hot enough, but I'm guessing yes based on no tangible reasoning whatsoever.

With my wonky work schedule and current vehicle situation, wake forest is actually out of the way, but by june things may have changed.
I will PM you about the bag of coal though.

I'm looking for a good sealed barrel to make my own coal but in the SUB-RURAL area I live in, metal that hasn't been shit on by mother nature and father time is hard to come by.

4/28/2014 8:24:44 PM

Just realized I know everyone at the local scrapyard by name and can score some great stuff (once I'm able to recognize what great stuff actually consists of)

I've run into a blue million indications that car springs (leaf or coil?) have great potential...if I ever get good enough to forge-weld

4/28/2014 8:49:45 PM

Finally got everything rounded up, taped down, hollowed out, poured and plugged in.

Very small setup. VERY. I used kingsford for my dry run and didn't bother crushing the briquettes. Hairdryer feeding into old vacuum hose reduced into a short piece of pipe i cut. Held together with aluminum tape but the heat stays well inside the barrel.

tossed an old spring from ...something in there just to see what color i could get into it anyway.


To me it looks OK considering no fine tuning and ect.




Still need to disable the heating element in the hair dryer so i can get some nice dense air running through there and also to keep from melting my pipe and running the power bill up.

Any thoughts?

5/11/2014 10:46:45 PM

Yeah open up the hair dryer and cut the wires. I don't know if the pre heat would really hurt anything in this application other then the power bill.

5/12/2014 7:48:10 AM

thanks. I was actually unsure how cutting the wires might affect the fan.

5/12/2014 9:16:59 AM

I've modified another hot-air blower (Popcorn popper) for a different purpose. It is possible the resistors (heating elements) are used as a voltage divider for the fan. If this is the case, it might not be advisable to cut them, and you might only be able to reduce the heat.

Find someone who has diagrammed your hair dryer and identified which parts are which or have a second one as backup and try experimenting.

5/12/2014 10:47:43 AM

dude made this out of old bandsaw blades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40pUYLacrj4

[Edited on May 12, 2014 at 12:22 PM. Reason : you would probably die of exhaustion making that blade alone by hand though]

5/12/2014 12:19:06 PM

"that was about an 18 hour day. just doing that stuff and forging it together" he says

like that's a long time for successfully forge welding three TWISTED alloyed steel bars or something

what an asshole

5/12/2014 8:09:27 PM

well looks like im all set to crank everything up and start ruining some steel.

i was so excited when I found a good buy on a dewalt angle grinder I actually called my dad to tell him he was all like "yeah that's great look I gotta go ok"

got 45lbs of mild and spring steel from the scrapyard for $6 and now all that's left to do is figure out what the hell i want to make

5/23/2014 2:33:50 AM

make me a sword

5/25/2014 7:46:36 PM

Make me a sammich...slicer.

5/25/2014 10:18:18 PM

Power hammer - totally cheating. I forge weld all my Damascus by hand. And in the video they say it wrong they saw blade steel is 15N20.

6/13/2014 3:28:33 AM