Hello from the Netherlands!

[Michael73]

Hi all, I'm from Frisia in the north of the Netherlands. I enjoy being outdoors, be it gardening, looking after my bantam chickens, fishing, a walk in the woods or beating up hot piece of iron on my anvil, as long as it it outside, I'm fine.
I'm not a people's person and prefer the piece and quiet of nature. That's why I always look for more knowledge about coocking, camping, survival, fishing, tool making and what not. So I hope to find lots of info here...
Kind regards,
Michael.

 

[Deleted member 56522]

What do you make on the anvil?

 

[crosslandkelly]

Hi Michael, welcome and enjoy.

 

[John Fenna]

Hello and welcome!

 

[Mesquite]

Hello and welcome to the forum

 

[Broch]

High Michael; welcome to the forum

 

[Broch]

Deleted - misunderstood post comment

 

[Michael73]

What do you make on the anvil?

I'm planing on making smal artwork(?) for key rings. After I've mastered that: small tools like a bottle opener or some basic cuttlery, wall hooks and small stuf like that. Eventualy bigger tools, I think it would be awesome to make my own blacksmithing tools. That's the plan anyways. So far, my little railroadtrack anvil only prooved to be good for making coffee spoons, so to speak, haha. Nothing wrong with that little thing, just not enough 'mass' to do more heavy work on. I plan on keeping it though, maby make it a hardytool because it's so small compared her 'big sister'...

 

[Deleted member 56522]

I'm planing on making smal artwork(?) for key rings. After I've mastered that: small tools like a bottle opener or some basic cuttlery, wall hooks and small stuf like that. Eventualy bigger tools, I think it would be awesome to make my own blacksmithing tools. That's the plan anyways. So far, my little railroadtrack anvil only prooved to be good for making coffee spoons, so to speak, haha. Nothing wrong with that little thing, just not enough 'mass' to do more heavy work on. I plan on keeping it though, maby make it a hardytool because it's so small compared her 'big sister'...

Sounds fun! Same as my anvil ... which is an off cut of rail I found. The only serious smithing I've done with it was to make a copper axe. Good idea to make tools as I could have done with some proper tools (I used tongs from the kitchen). Big problem is I don't have the space for a permanent forge ... and more importantly cover from rain. At school we made a toasting fork - which is a simple project.

 

[Michael73]

Sounds fun! Same as my anvil ... which is an off cut of rail I found. The only serious smithing I've done with it was to make a copper axe. Good idea to make tools as I could have done with some proper tools (I used tongs from the kitchen). Big problem is I don't have the space for a permanent forge ... and more importantly cover from rain. At school we made a toasting fork - which is a simple project.

Just thinking outloud but could one of those portable forges from India be something for you? There's a video on youtube somewhere. They almost fit inside a shoebox. And a (small) tarp to keep the rain off your head? Or sun? Or a carport? Under a balcony? Friendly neighbors? Heck, you could even sit under a table, in a matet of speaking. Just thinking outside the box here. Oh yes, one mire thing: it doesn't matter what you make, as long as you have fun doing it.
;-)

 

[Deleted member 56522]

Just thinking outloud but could one of those portable forges from India be something for you? There's a video on youtube somewhere. They almost fit inside a shoebox. And a (small) tarp to keep the rain off your head? Or sun? Or a carport? Under a balcony? Friendly neighbors? Heck, you could even sit under a table, in a matet of speaking. Just thinking outside the box here. Oh yes, one mire thing: it doesn't matter what you make, as long as you have fun doing it.
;-)

I'll have a look at the portable forge.

I made my original forges/ovens using clay ... and then when that broke apart, I used clay on chicken wire ... although, somehow a big plant pot was involved ... maybe it started as a clay plant pot, that broke apart, got covered in clay, that broke, got covered in chicken wire and clay, and I suppose the plant pot just disintegrated and was cleared away with the ash. Anyway ... I can still see the spot where it used to be, which is now a discoloured "high" where the rain has washed the clay away.

And ... for the "bellows" I used one of those motors that blow up inflatable beds ... it was only supposed to be " try it and then buy something" ... but I kept using it. I think I used a 15mm copper pipe to feed the air in ... but I recall issues at the hot end ... which I probably solved using more clay. So basically, I had to rebuild it each time I used it!

Friendly neighbors ... yes on one side, but one of them (admitted downwind) isn't at all friendly and has called the fire brigade in the past (although that was for my son's fire when I was out).

 

[Madriverrob]

Hello and Welcome ......

 

[Michael73]

I'll have a look at the portable forge.

I made my original forges/ovens using clay ... and then when that broke apart, I used clay on chicken wire ... although, somehow a big plant pot was involved ... maybe it started as a clay plant pot, that broke apart, got covered in clay, that broke, got covered in chicken wire and clay, and I suppose the plant pot just disintegrated and was cleared away with the ash. Anyway ... I can still see the spot where it used to be, which is now a discoloured "high" where the rain has washed the clay away.

And ... for the "bellows" I used one of those motors that blow up inflatable beds ... it was only supposed to be " try it and then buy something" ... but I kept using it. I think I used a 15mm copper pipe to feed the air in ... but I recall issues at the hot end ... which I probably solved using more clay. So basically, I had to rebuild it each time I used it!

Friendly neighbors ... yes on one side, but one of them (admitted downwind) isn't at all friendly and has called the fire brigade in the past (although that was for my son's fire when I was out).

Haha, what an awesome cool story!!
My first "forge" was a zinc bucket filled with sand and a few patio bricks... I drilled a hole in the side, inserted a metal pipe (with little holes drilled in it) from a former coat rack, conected an electric weed burner to it and voilla: a forge was born! lol! And believe it or not but it worked amazingly well! Now I have an old 'refurbished tool trolley' from work (management and maintenance in a medical rehab centre) as my 'mobile' forge. On the worktop is my firepot and self built chinese bellows. Google it, if you don't know what it is, you'll love it! Below the worktop a tuyere with ash dump, welded by me... welding... 'baking' would be a more fitting description but hey, who's counting, right?! It works and I'm happy with it! Haha! All done with scraps and left overs, didn't cost me a thing exept a bottle of wine and a cacke, so to speak. As for my new anvil, I'm almos embarrasst to tell but that was a totall steal as well: 336lbs, london pattent, forged between 1820-1850, maker unknown (still working on that) and payed only £233,75 for it, that's £1,44 per lbs... can you believe it??? I thought it was a joke at first but it wasn't so I played the dumb/ignorant guy and picked it up the very next day. I think I won't tell you about the condition of the anvil because you won't believe it anyways...
it hasn't got 'sharp edges anymore but it also has no chipping whatsoever, exept for a tiny one on the table.
An exeptable amount of 'sway' on the face and table and a 'blunted' horn. Probably by a blacksmith with a bruised thigh...
It can't get any better then this you say? Well, there is more: About 4 weeks ago we had a 'tree inspection' (?) were I work and this 200+ years old oak tree proved to be a safty risk so it was decided to cut it down... it was one of the biggest trees on the whole estate and I got permission to take a piece from one of it's branches to mount my new anvil on...
Ok, let's get back down to earth: my life has never been easy and I had to fight for every penny... nobody had heard of adhd or autism when I was a kid so you can imagine my childhood days were not realy a walk in the park, so to speak. Don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic childhood. School, on the other hand, was a different story. Work same thing. Couldn't keep a job... money, relationships, mental health etc etc... seen it, been there, done that.
Honestly, nowadays I'm doing great: amazing wife, 3 kids, good job, house, car, chickens... and my childhood dream fullfilled: a real ANVIL !!! I feel like I won the lottery and I'm the richest man on the planet!!!! I want to shout it from all the rooftops (is that an english proverb? It is in dutch)... I'm totally stoked...
Only thing left to do is build a little shed/workshop for her. Then I'll have to smuggle her in after nightfall for I fear that my neighbours will run me out of town with torches and pitchforks... hahaha... (something with chickens and a noisy rooster, ahum*cough*) so, I'm not gonna tell a soul, lol!
Goodness, I only wanted to make a small comment, now look at this...
Please forgive me but I'm so over the moon by this... after almost a whole year of nagging, begging and driving my wife completely mad, it finally happened: i got my anvil. I initially thought it was a small one, 150lbs-ish, the seller had no idea about it's weight but instead of a nice 'carp' I caught(bought) myself a whale without even knowing it...
My initial point was: be patient, opertunity will present itself in due time, just look at me for proof.
I'm going to stop now, hope you'll still want to talk to me...
again, apologies. Normaly I'm not this extravert... at all!
Good night and kind regards,
Michael.

 

[Deleted member 56522]

Haha, what an awesome cool story!! ...

I'm envious! My anvil is literally a bit of old rail track about 10kg.

My oven was built to try to produce copper from "natural ore". I climbed up a mountain to an old mine, spent hours scrabbling around for "greenish" material, which I assumed was a copper mineral, spent ages grinding it down, building the oven and then ran the oven-smelter for much of a day ... the oven disintegrated and at the end all I found was a 10p piece size of something that wasn't copper but looked like steel. It was only years later I realised it couldn't be iron ... because that would have flaked on the outside.

Unfortunately, I'm currently back in the stone age ... there are bags of flint and other stones in every nook and cranny, but I'd love to get back to smithing.

 

[Brizzlebush]

Welcome along Michael.
I've read your first posts and they've made me smile. Thank you for bringing so much to the forum already.

 

[Michael73]

Welcome along Michael.
I've read your first posts and they've made me smile. Thank you for bringing so much to the forum already.

Oh dear...
I'm not going to be excomunicated now, am I??
Come on, I'm sure it wasn't that bad, was it?
Just joking and thank you. Always nice to make someone smile because that one smile could change the outcome of an entire day.