My Smithy...

[Rev]

Figured I would show everbody my basic forge set up. I have a coal set up but don't hardly use it. Problem with coal is it burns after your done & requires constant tending, Not to mention being harder to come by. Propane is easily available, & when your finished just throw the switch & your done...



This is the smithy.  I had the forge built for me, but I will build the next one myself. The next one will have two burners for more heat. Cost was $200, I wanted to make sure it was done right the first time. Under the bench on the shelf is a wire feed welder. $300 The pink bottles in front are those bottles you use to fill helium balloons for kids parties & such. $0 from behind a grocery store. I will cut them in half, add a metal tripod & three "S" hooks  to make off the ground fire pits. Needless to say I will burn off the pink paint!




Being a cheap son of a b**** & Scottish to boot, I get tickled by doing most everthing for nothing, or close to it as I can get. The vise was $5 at a yard sale. Anvil was $30, stumbled across it in a tire shop, (just asked if he wanted to sell it, never hurts to ask!). The workbench was built entirely out of free lumber & scrap. $0. The poles that support the roof, vice & bench came from one of those "country" style beds a customer was throwing away. $0. The quenching trough on the bottom right is one of those plastic storage bins in an old crate. Crate was free, gave a dollar for the storage bin at a yard sale. Some of the tools I bought on Ebay for next to nothin'. Hammers are easy to come by in yard sales. My 5 lb. hammer I bought at Home Depot. (When you are swingin' 5 lbs. of steel, you want the best you can get!) Scrap steel is literally everywhere, you can usually get what you need for free... The pipes on the left are going to be walk-thru targets when I get some time to weld some chain to them. They were cut offs from a mezzanine we had built at work. The smaller pipes were also cut-offs from other projects. $0 The pine stump came from a burned area where crews were clearing dead trees. $0

You get the picture...



The stand for the forge was a "found item", but could easily have been built for free.The propane bottles came from a major grocery chain that was throwing them away. I have no idea why...




The back side of the forge, for wider "flat" projects...



With this sort of set-up you can do basic iron work like this...



Or fancy stuff like this...!

[Red Badger]

Sweet -

How about plans for the forge?  I need to build one...

[Rev]

In the blacksmithing section of this forum I was just looking at some plans. Thread was called making a forge, I think...