Smithing in rain

The season is changing and it is getting a bit cold (and wet) outside. We still managed to get out for a bit of fun in the shop this afternoon with our friend JB. We discovered that our roof leaks quite a bit when it's raining and it can get a bit chilly at times, but otherwise everything works just fine. As a bonus, whenever a raindrop hit a hot surface there was a nice "hissing" sound. Also, when a finished piece was left on the floor to cool, it threw off lots of nice steam!

MC and JB working on the forge, it's hard to tell from this picture but we had a nice bit of rain.

 Sadly, no pics of finished work in this post, we are working on some Christmas gifts and don't want to spoil the surprise (if we ever finish those gifts...). As the afternoon was wearing on, I was getting a bit tired of drawing out metal so JB was kind enough to lend a hand. It looks pretty awesome and it worked pretty damn well!

Here are some updated pics from our blacksmithing exploits. We've started making tools for the forge, hooks, and some artistic odds and ends... did I mention hooks? We seem to be making a lot of them since they are pretty quick, require a variety of techniques (tapering, scrolling, curling, and cutting), and are pretty useful.

We've also built a small workshop that has both bench and hand grinders as well as a drill press. These things are key for helping us clean up our finished work.

Our workshop where we go to "finish" our forged goods.

In addition to our new workshop, we've also added a second anvil to our shop.

MC with our new anvil and anvil stand.

While the two of us could both work off the same anvil, it is nice to have the second one so we both have more space. A couple times now we've also had some friends/family out to try their hand at forging and having a second anvil is definitely useful.

Our forge can be accessed from both sides so we take advantage of the dual anvil setup. Thankful MC is shorter so she can hammer away on the short side of our workshop without hitting the roof!

KM finishes off her first hook using the cutting tool.

JM draws out some hot metal.

A Small Update

Well it's been a very busy summer with work, family gatherings, and visits with friends. We've managed to spend some time at the forge, mostly practicing by making hooks or simple tools. We've also managed to rig up one of our post vices so now we can start twisting metal (amongst other things). Unfortunately, we aren't being very diligent about taking pictures, often we just run out to the forge for a bit then jump in the pool between one event or another. So the next blog will contain lots of pictures of things we're making (hooks, hot-cutting tool, hold-fast, etc.), in the meantime, here is a pic of MC working away on a nice sunny day!

MC working away!

Our Forge Arrives

So not a lot of activity recently on our blog with both MC and myself hard at work at our real jobs. This past weekend though we did acquire the final piece for our smithy. The forge! I returned from a week away to find a nice 100 pound box waiting in the garage.

Our forge in all it's tiny glory.

We purchased a propane run atmospheric forge since it provides sufficient heat for our purposes and also it is pretty simple to operate. There is no external blower so it doesn't require electricity. Really all it needs is a propane tank and an ignition source.

Since we expected our forge any day, MC also went to our local metal store and picked up some stock. We got some basic 1/4" and 1/2" round and square stock as well as some 1/4"x 1" flat bar to play with. MC also found a nice "mixer" pack that contained a whole bunch of different pieces.

Our metal stock. It doesn't look like a whole lot, but we should be able to make a lot out of these little bundles.

With this new and lovely forge in our possession, we thought that our open concept smithy really didn't do it justice. We therefore spent most of our weekend adding some lower walls to the structure we'd already built. We also added a plywood roof to prevent our roof from being a fire hazard. We setup our forge on a table made out of some concrete blocks as well as the box it had originally come in. We also added a layer of fire bricks underneath the forge since it throws out a fair amount of heat. To complete our primitive setup we also scrounged an old laundry sink to hold some water.

Our simple setup. Notice our "door-wall" in the background. It's amazing what you can find lying around and how it can make a pretty useful and I daresay fetching wall. The extra old doors on the left will eventually be made into a work table for blocking out designs.

Here's a quick pick of the forge with it's walls up and a nice sunset. Since this pic was taken we've added the tarp onto to the roof for water proofing and rearranged our forge-anvil setup. More pics to come. 

So after all the woodworking we did this weekend there wasn't a lot of time to work with metal. Hopefully we can remedy this soon and start posting some pics of what we're making! In the meantime here is our first piece of hot metal coming out of the forge!

It works!

Other Equipment

A little while back we were very lucky and came across an add on Kijiji about some blacksmithing tools that were for sale. The smith selling the tools was downsizing and she was very helpful and supportive of our plans.

A collection of hammers that we managed to acquire. Lots of different sizes and weights for us to play with.

We picked up two post-vices, they are missing mounting brackets but that is top on our list of things to make once the forge arrives. These vices can hold hot metal and also take a good hammering!

Building Our Workshop

Now that we've managed to start collecting some equipment (i.e. our anvil), we needed a place to house it. We pondered lots of different options ranging from full-scale construction of a building to a small mosquito tent and settled on something in between. We are fortunate to have some wonderful family members who have a bit of land and were happy to let us set up a small workshop at the back of their property (thanks P & K!).

This area was basically a meadow, so to prevent sparks from igniting the grass underneath us, we trucked in a bunch of stone-dust to act as the floor of our workshop. Thankfully we had lots of rain during the two weeks it took us to move all of the stone-dust. This helped to pack down the dust so that we didn't have to do it!

The start of our floor.

For the workshop, we opted to keep it simple and put up a basic shade structure. We used fencepost spikes to secure the posts and just ran some roof rafters between the two sides. For right now we've just used a tarp to cover the structure. We're not sure if this is going to work in the long-term, but we can always replace it with something more permanent.

Putting up the posts.

Finishing off the structure.

Since we live in Ottawa, we will have to make some modifications if we want to keep the workshop running in the winter. For the summer and fall, we are going to enjoy our open workshop with a lovely view.

The final workshop.... with nothing in it.

Our Anvils

There are lots of pieces of equipment that are necessary, but the two critical ones are an anvil and a forge.

We started hunting for an anvil right away, scouring the internet (Kijiji is a good source), looking for auctions, and checking out antique stores.

Our English pattern anvil.

We got very lucky and found an anvil in pretty good condition at Rideau Antiques in Lombardy, ON. I believe it  is an English pattern anvil that is on the smaller side (~100 pounds), but it should get us started. This is a good time to mention that there are lots of great links on the internet that provide advice about what to look for in anvils (see http://www.beautifuliron.com/gs_anvils.htm as an example).

We've also managed to pick up a smaller anvil that likely wont be able to handle any heavy work (it dents easily) but will be good for lighter work.

Our small anvil (~30 pounds).

We managed to mount our anvil on some 6"x 6" posts using some heavy chain and some large spikes. We copied the design from anvil mounts that we've seen in a couple blacksmith shops. A big log would also work, pretty much anything that is heavy and wont move around when you start hammering. Our mount seems pretty stable, the whole thing is pretty damn heavy so it shouldn't move around too much!

Our anvil on it's new wooden mount.

Our Intro to Blacksmithing

In mid-April we took an introductory blacksmithing class with David Robertson (http://www.artistblacksmith.com/). We were both curious and excited to get our hands dirty. During the class we learned how to make hooks, fire pokers, tongs, and a chisel. We also had 4-5 hours at the end of the class to work on a personal project, this was a great time opportunity to explore and play with all of the techniques that we learned during the class. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time with David and we were both so inspired that we immediately started making plans to set up our own workshop.

A selection of hooks.

Our fire pokers and tongs. These are the only tongs we have so far so they will get lots of use in our new workshop.

Chisels (we learned how to temper the steel to ensure it would hold an edge).

Introduction

Hello all,
 I've decided to set up this blog to track the progress of myself (JM) and my partner (MC) as we setup and create our own blacksmith workshop. We are both very new to blacksmithing (having only taken a weekend long introductory class), but we have decided to setup our own small shop in the Ottawa area. We've already managed to make some good progress, so over the next couple of weeks I will bring the site up to speed!

"No one is a blacksmith when they are born" - Finnish Proverb