Friday, October 25, 2013

Ideas for your forge, and how to make one! AND a thermal cement resipi!!!

Ok so here's my forge,
it's out side so I don't need a chimney,  it' burns coal,

and I have an electric blower hooked up to the bottom with a switch that runs to the out side of the forge so I can turn the air on or off easily.

it's not super duper but it works very well,  it'll heat anything up I want it to and unlike my others it hasn't died (yet)  I had to tone down the blower alot cause it with out that piece or cardboard you see in the picture above it would blow all the coal away!    The actual metal I used for the base was just the steel bottom of an old pressure tank!  I liked it cause there was already a hole in the bottom for a blower and the metal was pretty thick, so I got out my trusty angle grinder with a cutting disk on it and I went to work, I sliced the bottom off and welded some legs on so it would stand above the ground, then I made the hole in the bottom a little bigger, put some metal filter over that to make sure no big chucks of coal get down in to the blower,  then I just strapped the blower on and put in the cement!

THERMAL CEMENT RECIPE!!!!
so all you'll need is some wood ash (ashes you get from burning wood)
and sand (fine and clean sand works best), it's really easy.
Take 1/2 to 3/4 of a five gallon bucket of the sand
then take about 8-15 cups worth of the ashes and mix it up
then add just enough water to get it all wet and sticky, then it's ready to apply to whatever you need it for!
NOTE: It not professional grade so it wont last forever, but it dose work very well if you can get your mixture right,  and you shouldn't have to patch or replace it too often,   and when you to, take the old cement out and put it in your new cement, it'll save you time and the stuff that's been bunt actually works better!      and when you add the water, you don't want to make it sloppy,  just enough to make it kinda like clay, if it's runny add more sand and ash till it's firm, you don't want it too dry, but not to wet either.

Now the reason for thermal cement is for insulation,  if your heat can't escape through the walls of your forge it has no other option then to go in to your metal.



if you're looking for what kind of forge you want there are quite a few options!











                                     There are Turk burners

 There's big classic forges.

 There are slightly more modern forges like mine.
                           
                                    And of course there's always gas.


              Or you can just come up with your own thing, that's what I did,   pretty much any method of heating metal will work,  it should be cheap and officiant though, that's why I burn coal.

it's all about person all preference though, if you like coal go for it, of you like gas, great!  just don't be unhappy with your forge, it's one of those things you need to get along with.
if your just starting out and you don't know what you want, I would recommend coal as a start, of you can get a gas forge that'll be fine but you need to take safety precautions and you need to know what your doing just a little bit.

as always I'll take any questions or comments and I'll be happy to give any advice I can,  you can contact me through craftsmanofmich@gmail.com or in the comments.
                                     peace out!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

How to know what you want to make, My story, and possibly some inspiration

So you'd like to Blacksmith, you don't know what you want to make, what you could make, or how serious you want to be about it.   Sound familiar?...

Well all i can say is  "no pressure!"  you should be relaxed about Blacksmithing, there's no reason to set yourself a schedule or a strict time in which you need to Smith,  by doing that you'll feel like you HAVE to do it!   that way you can't think and relax, and you need to relax to have good ideas.

As far as advice go's, mine would be a question, "what do you think is cool?"   just think, you wander through a market place or a museum or you watch TV and you see something REALLY COOL!!! made out of metal.
well that "REALLY COOL" thing is probably what you want to make?  think about it, why would you not want to make something that's "REALLY COOL"?

Another thing you might be asking your self is "can i really do that?"
Well why not?!  If you don't think you can make it but you want to,  then go head and try?  So what if you fail, that's how you learn, whenever I make something that turns out good I can look back and see that I hardly learned anything!
but if I make mistake after mistake and in the end fail miserably (happens alot) when I calm down, (trust me you'll get angry) I can look back and see that I've learned a whole lot!

I started out knowing exactly what I wanted to make, Knives,  me and my best friend growing up, all we wanted to do was make swords knives a daggers!  
Our first creations where old steel pipes, that I would flatten 3 1/4 of in a vice and take an angle grinder to the tip and the flattened edge to make it sharp, we where probably about 5-6 at the time, we where obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and almost every legend of a great warrior there ever was.
Today the Turtles have been canceled (although Casey Jones is still pretty cool)  and the flattened pipes have lost there charm. 
I remember the first real knife we ever made,  it was an old bar of low carbon steel that I had cut into the shape of a bowie and I had ground some teeth into the back,  we put it in a camp fire and fanned it with a piece of foam board until it was cherry red,  then we pulled it out and stuck it in a bucket of water.
It was soooo dull and soooooooo  soft, I could bend it in my hands! 
But it was our first knife, and we loved it, till it got twisted into a pretzel by some machine we left it by, I don't really remember, but it's in the scrap pile now and we've moved on to better things.
Later I wasn't seeing my best friend Griff as much, he had moved into junior high and I had been unschooled all my life and had no desire to go sit in a class room.
and I was dating Griffs sister Greta at the time so more of my time was spent on her then it was on him. 
But we still had a passion for knives!     In the cooler days of the summer Griff would Come over and we'd heat up old sections of rebar (low carbon steel) and pound it flat with the back end of a 4 pound axe on an old piece of railroad track my father had given me, and we'd sharpen them with an old bench grinder, then heat 'em up and quench 'em in water,   oh yes, industry!
Soon Griff started football and so our time together was brought to a "maybe on the weekend" base,  so I went out on my own!    All I had was my knowledge and my experience, (witch wasn't much)  I my father let me use his stick welder and I stuck a forge together out of any old pressure tank, I hooked an old electric inflatable mattress blower to it for air and I chopped wood into small chunks for fuel,  it worked better then anything I had ever had!   I could get my metal as hot as I wanted!
I was able to mount my Railroad track anvil to a hickory stump so I could stand while I worked and for Christmas my mother got me a 3 1/2 pound sledge hammer,   everything seemed to be coming together and it wasn't long before I got some real good metal,  my dad replaced the suspension on his car and I got two old coil springs, spring steel!  I worked with those and got my knife making technique down!   If all my tools worked I could make any hand knife I wanted! 
Soon after I wanted to make a sheath for one of my knives, my mother took me to a crafts shop and I got a bag of scrap leather,  I sewed my first sheath and loved it!  that's where my leather working came from! since then I've been making leather work for knife and non knife related things,  that's also how I got started on wood working,  I made a wooden handle for a knife and loved it! I've been working with wood since then as well but mostly it's been Blacksmithing!


Well in short that's my story, since then I've gotten proper tools, a coal burning forge, and better materials, it's been a journey, but it's still only beginning. and what's happened since then and what's going to happen is really what this blogs all about!

If you have any questions please comment or feel free to Email me at craftsmanofmich@gmail.com      and thanks for reading.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

tools, what you need for what you're doing. (a basic rundown for amature smiths and beginners)

OK so the first thing you'll want to do if starting out, or just smithing in general,
is make sure you have the right tools.   Now the "right" tools are not hard to get your hands on, I personally have very few "real blacksmithing tools" but there are alot of things that can be used as "blacksmithing tools" that you probably have laying around, and if not they're very cheap.

These are some of my tools, my hand tools anyway,  I've just acquired them over time and the ones I bought where used except the grinder (the orange thing) and yes I got some of them free.
I've gotten most of my hand tools from garage sales and just word of mouth
"hey man, I'm a blacksmith, I'm in the market for some tools"  "well that's funny I've had this hammer head just taking up space for ages!"  That sort of thing.
but mostly garage sales, I personally am a huge garage sale fan, if your looking for tools a barn sale would be the place to go, drive around any populated area in the spring/summer time and there will be no shortage of sales I guarantee you that,  and the best thing about buying something used is that if it's in good shape it means it outlasted it's previous owner use and it should do the same for you, that way you know it's not cheap and junky.
Another thing is that if your buying it from a garage sale and if it's a tool, the owner might not know what they're selling  (seriously i got a $1500 anvil for $200)  and they'll practically give it away!   I've gotten hammers, tongs, steal, saw blades, spuds/chisels, and advice from going to garage sales, barn sales, and actions!
there's is no reason you should buy a hammer new!!!!!!

POWER TOOLS?
Power tools are VERY handy, there very useful and they get work done quicker! 
In my mind there's no reason you shouldn't have them on your smithy,  I know some like to do things the old fashion way and I respect that,  heck it's how I started out!   
but unless you have something against them there is no reason not to have them, they make everything so much easier!  
if you looking to get some, again I'd recommend garage sales, barn sales, or actions.    But you'll want to be careful about what you buy,
I mean if your offered a belt sander for $10 don't think, GET!!!!
But if your spending some real money, you'll want to look for a good brand name.    I personally like Craftsman, if it says Craftsman on it it's a green flag for me.  I have few of those as well but with the right combination of tools, and if you know what your doing, you wont need to many tools for what your doing.


my belt sander, it's not industrial but it gets the job done.
















My bench grinder, it has a wire wheel which is very handy for cleaning unpolished or rusty metal.









Those are the only two big power tools I have, besides my angle grinder (the orange thing in the first picture)  and you don't need these two machines, but they help, a lot.

HEAVY METAL.
There are quite a few heavy metal tools you'll want to have,  the first of which is an anvil.
 Another is a Vice.
you don't NEED either but at least an anvil is VERY helpful.

for a substitute Anvil or just a cheap pounding surface you don't want to dent up you can use an old railroad plate
these can be found all over the place and are made of a mid carbon steel that is nice for hammering on, still an Anvil in way nicer but for the first 4 1/2 years of my Smithing career I used a plate just like this.  in a later post I'll show you the best way to use one of these plates,  it's pretty easy and it's SUPER cheap!
You can find then along old railways, garage sales, scrap yards, and if you can find somewhere (there no real place for it) that someone has dumped some old railroad ties that's perfect, mainly cause the ties are rotting away and there should be more plates then you can carry, and there should be alot of spikes as well (spikes a VERY handy I work with them constantly, you should pick them up)   IMPORTANT!!! : picking up plates or spikes or any other part of the railroad track from a working railroad is against the law, it sucks and it's stupid but you should try and find and old one that your sure is not working, or find a place where some one has dumped some ties.
That said i think that's about the basic, bare-bone rundown of simple blacksmithing tools,  if you read this and still are a little confused about what you need for what your doing, here's a couple tips the help

1: If your going to be making horseshoes you probably don't need a Vice or a belt sander, or a grinder or any big power tools. However an Anvil will be VERY nice and a set of different hammers raging from "ball peen"  to "sledge"  would be very nice.   there's websites all for the blacksmithing of horse shoes so a quick google search will provide a good bit of info for beginners

2: If your making knives (which is what i specialise in) you'll want an Anvil, and at least three different hammers, a grinder, and a sander (if you have an angle grinder like the one in the picture above there are sanding wheels you can put on those that will work just as well as a belt sander)  The hammers you'll want will be a big sledge (4-8 pounds), a ball peen, and a and smaller sledge (2-4 pounds) it's a good idea for your sledges to have a rounded end to move the metal easier.  I'll cover that in a later post along with how to choose an Anvil. NOTE: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY HAMMERS!  get as many as you can!!!

3:  If your making art, and you never know what you'll want to do next (I specialise in this too)  you'll want every tool and metal you can get your coal-blacked hands on!  EVERY tool,  go to garage sales and barn sales! if you don't have it (or even if you do but have a great deal in front of you)  GET IT!!

4: If you don't know that you'll be doing and you just want to try it out, sit down, close your eyes an imaging your first project, what it'll look like when it's done and how you'll go about making it,  don't imagine the tools you'll use think purely of what you'll do to it to make it what you want,  then think "what kind of tools could be used for that job?"   and the ideas will fly!    see the trick to this is if you think of the tools doing things to the metal in your head you'll only think of the tools you've seen, if you imagine what you need to do and then think of what could do that you'll have a better understanding of what kind of tool you need even if you don't know what it is or if you've seen it before, when you see it though, you'll say "oh, that'll do it!"     yea, I know,  that was a bit confusing.


Well that's about it!   If you have ANY questions I will be more then happy to answer them you can contact me through google+ or you can Email me at
craftsmanofmich@gmail.com   I'd love some feedback,   Thanks, Eric.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

First post!!! And about me.

Hello world!!!     This is the first post I'll put on my blog, I hope to be successful in my blogging and I hope to be very informative on my subjects.



What this blog is about:  This is a blog I've been wanting to make for quite some time and now I'm just getting around to doing it.
It's main focus, blacksmithing!   I mostly do knives and tools, but I do art on occasion, I'll be showing you how to make what I make and I'll also give you tricks of the trade as i go,  so there's no wondering "what happened" if what you make doesn't turn out like mine.  
I also work with leather and other metals (brass, copper, anything I can get my hands on)   so I'll have posts on that as well.
I'll be giving tool reviews and suggestions from time to time and I'll fill you in on my life as a 21st century blacksmith!

About me: I'm a lot of things,  mainly a blacksmith, I also work with leather, I make knife sheaths and bracelets, some armor every now and then and just REALLY cool stuff!     I'm a unicyclist and a fencer, (I have done both a the same time!)    I'm a linux guy, I used to carry a live usb where ever i went!
I've been blacksmithing for about 5 years now,  only the last two have been serious though.   If you want some of my smithing specs I burn coal, I use mostly hand power tools, and I use both old and modern techniques,  to get the best blade possible, and all of my knives are made from recycled material, but i make sure my blades are top quality!   How ever if you want current info, please go to the "About Me"  gadget.   Thanks