Blacksmithing I Class

Recently Andy, Spike and I took the opportunity to sign up for and participate in a Blacksmithing class held at Old World Wisconsin. We found out they held classes last year and quickly decided we wanted to attend. We also found out they fill up almost instantly! It turns out they only have a class size of 4 students at a session. This makes for a challenge to get a spot but it also makes for a fantastic experience. Add to this the fact that we all wanted to go to the same class and it was a minor miracle we pulled it off.

There are three levels of class-Blacksmithing I, Blacksmithing II, Blacksmithing III each being a prerequisite for the next level. We signed up for the beginner’s course held on October 22nd. We all met in Big Bend and car-pooled out to Eagle where Old World Wisconsin is located for our 10am start time. We pulled into the lot, parked, and got directions to the building where the class was being held which was an actual 19th century blacksmith shop moved there from its original location.




Walking in to the blacksmith shop was walking back in time. It is an experience I encourage you to experience for yourself by visiting Old World Wisconsin when you get a chance! We met our instructor for the day, a gentleman named Darold Rinedollar. The three of us were joined by a fellow future blacksmith named (for the sake of distinction) Drew who I teamed up with.





After a preliminary discussion about basic blacksmithing knowledge we went to work. Drew and I were working on the forge nearest to the front of the shop while Spike and Andy worked at the rear of the shop. Outside the front door there was a guide who spoke with the visitors of the day, talking about the buildings history and describing what was happening inside. Learning a craft can sometimes be a challenge. Learning a craft as people stare at you tends to boost that challenge but Drew and I did our best to stay focused. At one point a visitor began scolding us for not being in “period clothing.” I explained we were students not really a part of the community. She explained that Drew’s motorcycle t-shirt didn’t look good in the middle of her photo. We decided she was joking and went back to work.

We worked pretty steady all day. Occasionally, we would visit one and another at our respective forges to see how things were going and compare notes. We moved from skill to skill fairly quickly.














Darold’s style of instruction was to point you in the direction he wanted you to go and watch. If you got off kilter he would stop you, explain the problem, and get you going again very rarely taking the work out of our hands. Occasionally, for times sake, he would jump in and show us how it should be done, but more often then not we did the work ourselves. Often he would stop us to say something wasn’t right and then ask how we were going to fix it. I am used to this form of teaching from my Dad so it worked well for me and the others seemed to respond well to it also. Darold is an extreemly talented man with the ability and patience to teach a skill that would otherwise be lost. All of us at Fox River Forge are truly grateful to have had the opportunity wo learn from him.

By the end of the day we had several pieces completed for us to take with us. We were all very happy with the experience we gained attending this class and will certainly be furthering our knowledge in the future by attending the other levels.

I actually edited the footage for the opening ceremony post after we attended this class and it’s amusing to see the difference one Saturday can make when given good instruction. I’m not sure we did anything right while forging that first hoop aside from having fun with each other. I have always intended for this blog to document our journey into the world of blacksmithing and as we travel we can look back to see how far we’ve come. Looking at the video and comparing it to what we produced at this class gives me a large sense of pride.




I can’t wait to see what we do next!

Opening Ceremony!

I am proud to announce that Fox River Forge is now officially operational! Spike, Andy and I lit our first forge fire on Sunday Sept 25th 2011. That day also happens to be Spike’s birthday so she got to have one of the coolest (or hottest) birthday candles ever!

I started thinking about forge designs probably a year and a half ago when I decided I wanted not only to read about blacksmith work but actually do some blacksmith work. As time moved on and Spike and Andy became part of the picture, the quality of the forge design improved. There are many functional make-shift scrap forges to be seen on YouTube but I decided that if this was going to be used by other people, it should be planned out a bit more. I began thinking about different designs, looking at different forges in videos and books. Spent a great deal of time “Plan-Dreaming” which is a method I use a lot when I’m being creative. I will sit and sort of pre-create in my mind and then eventually I attempt to pull it off in real life.

To explain what I did, I will tell you first that I saw the forge as consisting of 3 basic parts; the fire pot, the blower and the hearth. The first part would be the fire pot. The fire pot is what holds the actual coal fire used to heat the metal that the blacksmith will be working. It needs to be heavy enough to handle the temperatures generated by a blacksmith forge. It also needs to allow a device commonly called a Tuyere (rhymes with query) to introduce more air to the fire to be hooked up to it. Finally, it should have a way to dump ashes out of the fire pot.

Next would be the blower which, as it sound, blows air into the fire causing it to burn hotter than it normally would. This allows the blacksmith to heat the piece he’s working to specific temperatures in order to perform different functions. Now-a-days electric fans are used even in hobby forges like the one I built, however, prior to electricity blacksmiths used hand or foot operated blowers and before that leather and wood bellows. I chose to go with a hand crank blower primarily because I didn’t want the forge dependent on electricity.

The last part is the hearth. The hearth is the structure that holds the fire pot and the blower. Hearths come in all shapes, sizes and material. Most traditional hearths were made of brick and mortar. It is most common today, especially with hobby forges, to see a hearth made from a metal structure. I’ve seen them made from random scraps from automobiles, old gas grills with stovetop exhaust fans reversed as a blower, I even saw a guy who used an old push-mower flipped upside down with a hair dryer hooked up to it, and they were all productive.

The blower was purchased on line and the fire pot was bought at a blacksmith and farrier supply store in Burlington Wisconsin called Centaur Forge. The hearth was going to be designed and fabricated by Abretok Industries (me). I was able to source the plate steel for the hearth top through a donation by a good friend of mine so all I needed was to design, acquire, and build the rest of the hearth. I sat at The Steaming Cup a couple of weeks ago and drew out the plans for the hearth frame based off the steel plates I got from my friend and the images in my mind. I came up with the following drawings.








It might be obvious to some that I never took a drafting or mechanical drawing class while in high school. I can read electrical and hydraulic schematics created at the place I work and that’s about it. These were not meant to be blueprints anyway. Instead they were a way for me to decide how much and of what kind of steel I needed to build the hearth. Once I had it laid out, I was able to come up with a shopping list of steel which I promptly submitted to my supplier. Next I had to secure a location with the proper tools where I could assemble the hearth. I got permission to use the service shop I used to work in. My 40 hour work week is Monday – Thursday 8:30am to 7pm allowing me off on Friday so it makes sense that I will build this on one of the Fridays I have off. There is no 2nd shift in the service department and company policy states that there must be 2 people on the floor when work is being done so I can’t work on it during the week after my shift. This means I have to complete this project in one day or wait an entire week to complete it. I also needed to wait for payday to roll around so I could pay for my end of the fire pot. I needed the fire pot as I was building the forge to determine what size hole to cut to allow the pot to sit down in the deck. Friday, September 23rd 2011 was the day that fit all the necessary criteria for this to be successful. I scheduled this with the shop leaders and Jeff, a mechanic who I have a great deal of respect for and whose area I would be sharing, stating that I would start at 6am work until about 10 am when Centaur Forge opens, drive out and purchase the fire pot, drive back and finish work.

So

Due to some poor planning and judgment on my part, I didn’t get to bed the night before until about 2am so waking up at 5:30 was a bit of a struggle but I got to the shop right around 6am. After a trip up to my favorite coffee machine, I unloaded my gear, got set up on a worktable and got to work. Working on personal project in the shop opens you up to a great deal of questioning, ribbing and general harassment. I am no stranger to this. The most common questions that day seemed to be “What the hell are you building now?” and “A forge? What is that?” The only real exception was a guy who jokingly wanted to know if I’d make him a cannon.

I declined

I made pretty good progress and around 9:45 I headed out to Burlington to pick up the fire pot. Everything went smoothly there and back and with the exception of the 2 hours out of production time it took, it was an enjoyable little break. I got back to the shop right around 11:30 and went back to work. I started welding and was getting some awful results. It looked like I was out of shielding gas. I checked the tank and sure enough the meter read empty. I changed out the bottle (which is a time consuming and heavy task since some the tanks can weight over 100 lbs ea) right around Noon. Shop etiquette when working on your own time generally calls for respect of people’s lunch time meaning no grinding, hammering, or welding. So I went and paid a couple of bills, got my own lunch a got back around 1pm to get going again. I set up and started welding and got more crappy welds! After a stream of frustrated language, I checked to see if someone turned my bottle off as a joke but nope, the bottle was empty again. In about a half an hour and entire bottle of shielding gas leaked out. I had Jeff check the machine to make sure I didn’t overlook something when I changed out the bottle and we agreed that the machine was faulty. After a few minutes, I get my hands on another welder and away I go. I have now essentially lost 3.5 production hours and getting this done by 4:30 when the shop closes is starting to look like a potential problem.

New welder in place, I get back to welding and within an hour I have the frame assembled and the deck plates welded on. I now have to measure out and place the support for the leg vice that will be attached to the workbench portion of the forge. Once that is trimmed and welded in place, the time has come to cut the hole for the fire pot. I had a discussion with Jeff on the best way to cut out the hole and he suggested plasma cutting the hole out. I told him I had not experience with that machine and he offered to do the cutting himself. I marked out the area to be cut and in a few minutes he had it cut out. I set the fire pot in the hole the first time and grinned. I could see the forge for what it was going to be! I thanked him a great deal for helping me out and got back to work. With the fire pot in place, I began working on the pipe joining the blower to the fire pot. I hadn’t done any planning on that because I wanted to see how the fire pot sat in the hearth and where the blower could go. I studied it for a bit and then headed for the scrap steel bin. I couldn’t find a section of tube that was close to the correct length but I found two pieces I could weld together and make work.

It was already 3pm and time was flying. I got back to my area and started fabricating the flanges that would bolt up to the fire pot and the blower. Both faces were different so I had to make them individually. I had no success using a holesaw to cut one large hole in each of the flanges and was forced to drill several holes in both flanges to allow the air to move through them. After fabricating the flanges, I prepared to weld together my scrap for the tube when a different colleague walked up and asked what I was doing. I quickly explained about welding the scrap together and he was surprised I couldn’t find a piece long enough and insisted we could find one that would work rather than half-assing it with scrap. While I agreed what I was planning wasn’t ideal; I was desperately low on time and didn’t want to bend any rules about obtaining material. However, I hold this man in high regard and know very well how resourceful he can be. Another 40 minutes pass as we search the plant for the tube scrap I’m looking for. We find it after consulting with a friend in the body shop. Scrap in hand I head for service with 45 minutes to go. I check the length of the tube to make sure it is long enough and weld on my flanges. After gathering some hardware, I set the fire pot in place, bolt on the adapter tube, bolt on the blower and discover that the system is left side heavy. Since the fire pot is not bolted in place, the weight of the blower and the adapter tube causes the fire pot to teeter-totter on its left side. I quickly decide to weld a support bracket between the adapter tube and the hearth frame. I put the last weld on the support bracket at 4:19 pm. I now have a forge that is usable. The only thing left to do is mount the leg vise, weld some feet on the leg tubes and weld the angle iron around the fire basin all of which can be done on site at a later date. It was done! The Fox River Forge has been created!!

I picked up Andy and went out to get the trailer so we could transport the forge to the site. I removed the blower and the fire pot and we loaded the hearth on to the trailer, cleaned up the shop where I was working and headed out to deliver it. By the time we arrived at the home site, it was after dark. We discovered that carrying this hearth over uneven ground in the dark was going to suck so using the trailer as a large wheelbarrow, we rolled the forge back into the area where it needed to be and unloaded it there. We then placed it in position, tarped it and left.

Sunday rolled around and we all met at the forge site for the “lighting ceremony”. The idea was to light our first fire and work our first piece of “iron” together. Spike’s fiancé Mike was also there to help with some of the camera work. We assembled the blower and fire pot, dumped in some charcoal and light the forge. Charcoal is not an ideal fuel for this type of forge because it burns so fast but for our purposes that day, it was a fine choice. Once the coals got going we got working. I suggested our first item be a loop formed from a piece of scrap round stock. As you watch this clip please be aware that the forge itself still needs some finish work on it and our anvil is just sitting on a bench. The anvil will be moved closer to the forge and securely mounted to a stump or stand.



It was a very good weekend. Due to my schedule, it’s taken almost a month to put together this update and in that time a lot has happened. Editing this footage, I saw a variety of things we need to improve on, but that’s how life works. You try to improve on things you do. I look back at building a forge and it kind of felt like one of those reality shows where they build motorcycles or guns “blah blah deadline, blah blah if this don’t work we’re screwed, blah blah dammit Mikey, I don’t have (bleep)ing time for this (bleep)!” It was really fun though. I’m very proud of how things turned out and look forward to seeing what we can produce. If you have any questions please send an email to foxriverforge@gmail.com and I will reply to you as soon as I can.