Blacksmith tool question

[spader]

I am trying to do some blacksmith work in the back garden, forging tools and knives with scrap metal.
For the tools needed, the first thing I do need is forge.

Gas forge and coal forge. Which one is better?
I have some leftover bricks in the garden, so gather them up, and make into a small forge in front of the old wooden shed.

The 2nd tool I do need is anvil. The old anvils seem very expensive and too heavy. And new anvils are available on eBay and Amazon. The new anvil seem lower price than the old ones, and can also get the lighter ones (below 30kg).

But which one would be better option? What have you got, and are using for forging (if you are doing forging)?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Kadushu]

I read a long article about anvil types and I think generally the cheap ones are cast iron which is more brittle and prone to cracking. Besides which you could argue that if an anvil has made it to old age then it suggests it was well made (or never used!). There's a good book "50 dollar forge" which may be helpful to you.

 

[Fadcode]

A lot will depend on exactly what you intend to do.
If you will be using the tools, forge, anvil etc, on a hobby basis, and only on occasions rather than 8 hours everyday, then you need to consider cost.
A coal/coke forge complete with bellows or air machine (needing electric supply) will cost you quite a bit ,can you obtain the coal locally.
A full size anvil in good shape will cost you about £400+, plus cost of delivery etc, you need to be very careful buying an anvil, they look good, but unless you are an expert you could end up buying an anvil, which would be of little use,
The tools you should be able to make yourself, although a pair of tongs is essential from the start.

On the other hand, a small gas forge can be had for under £200, is quite cheap to run, and is portable, easy to clean and easy to stow away out of site
A piece of railway line to use as an anvil you can pick up for about £50
The advantage of a gas forge, is apart from the initial price, it is light can easy be transported about, moved to different locations easily. Once you have the burners and valves it is quite easily to then develop your own forge with the parts, go bigger, smaller etc, to suit what you are doing, it is also possible to have a range of sizes and still use the same equipment for all of them, without the expense of buying separate pipes gauges etc for each one.

It is worth while having a look at some of the Vids on YT, regarding the ins and outs of each type, then you can decide which one will suit your needs the best.

 

[Mesquite]

If you want a cheap starter anvil get yourself an old 14lb sledge hammer, clean up one face and stick it in a log. Once you have had a play with that you'll have a better idea of whether you want to progress further and invest more in your set up

 

[Broch]

I am trying to do some blacksmith work in the back garden, forging tools and knives with scrap metal.
For the tools needed, the first thing I do need is forge.

Gas forge and coal forge. Which one is better?
I have some leftover bricks in the garden, so gather them up, and make into a small forge in front of the old wooden shed.

The 2nd tool I do need is anvil. The old anvils seem very expensive and too heavy. And new anvils are available on eBay and Amazon. The new anvil seem lower price than the old ones, and can also get the lighter ones (below 30kg).

But which one would be better option? What have you got, and are using for forging (if you are doing forging)?
Thanks in advance.

Still searching for a decent anvil after many years - the cheap new ones are often soft and will yield under the hammer.

Have a read through this - some great info:

Anvils: A beginner buyers guide

Ok chaps - I can't for the life of me remember if I ever posted this here before so mods please feel to move/ remove as necessary. This is a very long read so go get a nice beverage and settle in - we seem to have a number of folks getting into blacksmithing at the minute and this is a post I...

bushcraftuk.com

 

[Stew]

If you want a cheap starter anvil get yourself an old 14lb sledge hammer, clean up one face and stick it in a log. Once you have had a play with that you'll have a better idea of whether you want to progress further and invest more in your set up

I have some lumps of metal that are larger than a sledge hammer head if you want to go the post anvil route.

 

[forrestdweller]

if you can find one a short section of railway makes a good anvil, too...

 

[spader]

Great info and advice in the replies. Thanks. I was reading the links on anvils, and learnt so much.

Forge is another item I need to set up. Seemingly there are commercial forges for sale on Amazon and eBay. They seem using propane gas for the fuel.

On youtube there are so many videos on DIY forges using Ammo cans and fire bricks. They seem work OK. I don't have any fire brick. I do have old leftover bricks for making BBQ. I was going to use them, but maybe I do need fire bricks for Gas forges? Will keep doing research and reading before implementing my own newbie forge.

 

[grizzlyj]

I think asking locally is a good route to an old anvil, especially if there is a building that used to be a forge, there may be a few big lumps lying in the grass that no-one could be bothered to move?
This US based channel I think is quite informative, anvil pages for instance;

https://www.youtube.com/c/essentialcraftsman/search?query=anvil

 

[Tengu]

The Japanese swordsmiths had a small block of metal.

If you had given one a Western anvil he probably would have melted it down for the metal.

Tengu (Not Japanese, and doesnt make swords)

Look up a guy called GINGERY.

 

[spader]

The Japanese swordsmiths had a small block of metal.

If you had given one a Western anvil he probably would have melted it down for the metal.

Tengu (Not Japanese, and doesnt make swords)

Look up a guy called GINGERY.

Come to think of it, Tengu sounds like Japanese.
I think Tengu was a character in the Japanese novel called IQ84 written by Murakmi.
Melting down anvil for metal? - Maybe there is shortage of metal in Japan?

Thanks for the info.

 

[spader]

This afternoon, I went out to the back garden, gathered and piled a few BBQ bricks, and took out my torches. One is a propane torch for burning the weeds, and the other is MAP gas for plumbing.

I dug out a scrap metal piece cut from large lawn mower blade, and did some torch heating on it.

The propane gas was useless. No matter how long it was on, the metal piece never got red or yellow. But the MAP gas torch was awesome. In 2-3 minutes, the metal piece got red, and then yellow, good for hammering and forging on.

MAP gas is expensive, but maybe worth it, and it would work for forging I thought. Maybe it wouldn't be more expensive than coal fire forging.

 

[Robson Valley]

Even a few centuries ago here, the First Nations aboriginal peoples of the eastern part of the continent were forging 6" files to make carving knives of Mocotaugan design. The forge itself was no more than a sod-covered trench in the ground.

These guys make propane forges for the farrier industry. They claim they can get a shoe yellow in 90 seconds. Local farrier runs one of them. Maybe the temp depends upon the nature of the air supply? I just sit and watch.

https://www.hallknifeandforge.com/forges

 

[forrestdweller]

Even a few centuries ago here, the First Nations aboriginal peoples of the eastern part of the continent were forging 6" files to make carving knives of Mocotaugan design. The forge itself was no more than a sod-covered trench in the ground.

how did they get the fire hot enough?! (i mean: did they have some form of bellows)

 

[spader]

Even a few centuries ago here, the First Nations aboriginal peoples of the eastern part of the continent were forging 6" files to make carving knives of Mocotaugan design. The forge itself was no more than a sod-covered trench in the ground.

These guys make propane forges for the farrier industry. They claim they can get a shoe yellow in 90 seconds. Local farrier runs one of them. Maybe the temp depends upon the nature of the air supply? I just sit and watch.

https://www.hallknifeandforge.com/forges

My propane gas was cheap cans of joblot 5 bottles of propane gas bought from eBay a few year ago, and they were for burning the weeds in the garden. I still have 2 more cans of this propane gas left in the shed, so was trying out. It was not heating the scrap metal to any colour at all.

The MAP gas torch was heating the scrap metal in a minute or two to red and then yellow.
The BBQ bricks didn't shatter or crack, as I was worried. They just got a bit reddish (they were originally sand coloured bricks).

 

[Robson Valley]

They must have had some sort of bellows/forced air supply. The HBC records selling Mocotaugan knife blades (Sheffield, UK) by the barrel. I have one. 6" files were recorded as being less expensive. Native Indians used a lot of them for knife stock.

I have only seen pictures of less than 50 of these knives with elaborate carved handles. I don't recall reading anything more about the simple forges that they used.

 

[forrestdweller]

many, many years ago as a child i read a story about a family of native americans and there was a mentioning of them forging their own butcher knives from files, sadly the book didn't go into details about the process...
would be interesting to know, though -- i've had a few occasions where i had to flatten / shape a piece of steel in a campfire (= very primitive blacksmithing) and my method of forced air supply was a fukiya (iir the name correctly as my japanese is rather lousy), which is a bamboo tube cut below a node and a small hole poked into it (=for blowing into the fire). rather exhausting after a short period of time....

 

[C_Claycomb]

For forging using gas those BBQ bricks are rubbish/garbage/useless. You need a soft fire brick, which is insulative, not just a brick that is made to withstand BBQ heat. Totally different thing from bricks you would build anything in your garden.

Look for somewhere that sells pottery supplies, they often have ceramic wool or soft fire bricks. You can make a one or two brick forge that will work just fine with a propane plumber's torch.

You could make a mini freon tank forge with ceramic wool.

Freon Tank Propane Miniforge

This page contains information to allow you to build your own top quality propane forge and propane burners.

ronreil.abana.org

Also, this is a site with a lot of info in it, from an earlier age, so to speak.

Ron's Forge Page

This page contains information to allow you to build your own top quality coal or propane forges and propane burners. It also has information on many of my tools, as well beekeeping, and my family.

ronreil.abana.org

This is how I started out for heat treating blades in my kitchen. I am fully aware of how poor this arrangement was. Those white bricks on top are soft fire bricks. The beige ones are hard fire bricks. These were all salvaged from my work when they tore the building down.

I think you should be clear about what it is that you are aiming to do and why you want to do it. If you want to learn to re-purpose scrap into something somewhat useful, or whether you are aiming to learn to make quality cutting tools. Not saying that amazing things cannot be made with basic tools using salvaged steel, but it is a hard road with a lot of challenges to overcome. Not least that mystery scrap steel won't help you learn to forge tools as well as using known material that is in a known starting condition. I have seen others start on a similar path without actually understanding what they were setting themselves up for.

Example. You don't have prior experience, you get a piece of lawn mower blade or truck spring hot in your DIY forge that uses a weed burner, hammer it against your post anvil, and find that it does not move. Why? Is it that the forge isn't hot enough, that you didn't leave the steel in long enough, that you weren't hitting hard enough, or that the steel has alloy content that makes it resistant? Same when you try to harden a finished tool. It gets hard-ish, but not great. How hot was the forge, how hot did the steel get, how long was it at that temperature and how consistent was it, did the atmosphere cause de-carb, does the steel actually have enough carbon to harden, was it the right type of quenchant and was the quench at the right temperature?

All the best

Chris

 

[spader]

Managed to forge a tiny scrap metal from the old lawn mower blade yesterday, did grind, and filed to a small EDC shape (kiridashi, awl, parcel opener, whatever ...).

That was from the MAP torch heating and BBQ brick improvised in 5 minute forge in front of the shed. Tomorrow, it will be heated, quenched and annealed before sharpened.

 

[spader]

For forging using gas those BBQ bricks are rubbish/garbage/useless. You need a soft fire brick, which is insulative, not just a brick that is made to withstand BBQ heat. Totally different thing from bricks you would build anything in your garden.

Look for somewhere that sells pottery supplies, they often have ceramic wool or soft fire bricks. You can make a one or two brick forge that will work just fine with a propane plumber's torch.

You could make a mini freon tank forge with ceramic wool.

Freon Tank Propane Miniforge

This page contains information to allow you to build your own top quality propane forge and propane burners.

ronreil.abana.org

Also, this is a site with a lot of info in it, from an earlier age, so to speak.

Ron's Forge Page

This page contains information to allow you to build your own top quality coal or propane forges and propane burners. It also has information on many of my tools, as well beekeeping, and my family.

ronreil.abana.org

This is how I started out for heat treating blades in my kitchen. I am fully aware of how poor this arrangement was. Those white bricks on top are soft fire bricks. The beige ones are hard fire bricks. These were all salvaged from my work when they tore the building down.View attachment 72416

I think you should be clear about what it is that you are aiming to do and why you want to do it. If you want to learn to re-purpose scrap into something somewhat useful, or whether you are aiming to learn to make quality cutting tools. Not saying that amazing things cannot be made with basic tools using salvaged steel, but it is a hard road with a lot of challenges to overcome. Not least that mystery scrap steel won't help you learn to forge tools as well as using known material that is in a known starting condition. I have seen others start on a similar path without actually understanding what they were setting themselves up for.

Example. You don't have prior experience, you get a piece of lawn mower blade or truck spring hot in your DIY forge that uses a weed burner, hammer it against your post anvil, and find that it does not move. Why? Is it that the forge isn't hot enough, that you didn't leave the steel in long enough, that you weren't hitting hard enough, or that the steel has alloy content that makes it resistant? Same when you try to harden a finished tool. It gets hard-ish, but not great. How hot was the forge, how hot did the steel get, how long was it at that temperature and how consistent was it, did the atmosphere cause de-carb, does the steel actually have enough carbon to harden, was it the right type of quenchant and was the quench at the right temperature?

All the best

Chris

Sure. What I am trying to do is just trying to learn about the old traditional skills, and one of them is forging. Because I have quite a few scrap metal pieces lying around the garden and in the shed, I thought I could try to recycle and make them into something useful.

I think I must get some fire bricks from somewhere for the forge, as your advice. But the beige coloured bricks in your photo look exactly same as my sand coloured BBQ bricks. They didn't shatter or crack, and just turned to red after the heating with the MAP torch and Weed burning torch. So I thought, maybe they can do the job. In fact I don't know what type of bricks they are. They had been in the garden for at least 15 years just lying in the corner.

I have done some knife making before when the British Blade site was available. Sadly the site is no longer existing. But that was at least 10-12 years ago. I am just returning to the hobby.