Forgery

Here is a picture of Ben working metal on his home made forge. He read up on methods on the internet, then used the principles he learned to design and build his own set up.

He salvaged our old grill as the stand/container. He ran an exhaust tube (purchased at an auto parts store) from the side vent of the grill to the hole in the underside of a large clay flower pot (salvaged from my re-potting stuff). He stabilized the exhaust tube and flowerpot with dirt- which also insulates the grill from the intense heat. He builds a fire inside the flower pot, then attaches a shop vac (vacuum) to blow through the exhaust tube (making it an INTAKE tube, LOL). The forced air super heats the fire in the flower pot. Using tongs, he buries the chunk of iron he is working in the coals, and covers them over with more hot coals.

When the iron is red hot, he removes it from the coals to the "anvil"...

.....which is a salvaged coupler from a freight train. So far, Ben has had to purchase a heavy blacksmith hammer, and the exhaust tube. He is using old five gallon buckets that once held laundry detergent as his cooling water, to quench the iron as needed.

I thought the whole set-up was pretty ingenious. He is using almost all salvaged stuff, which has made his new hobby pretty low cost, so far. What is he making? He hopes it will be a throwing knife when he is done. For now- it is just experimenting.

Maybe one day he will be a true blacksmith!