Ye Olde Forge

[Screwdriver]

Thought I'd share this project here since a fair few of you guys are also strangely attracted to blacksmithing...

It's more about recycling/upcycling and using found materials to build a little dedicated forge area. I am doing this to keep myself occupied while battling with the NHS and dealing with a chronic illness.

It sort of starts here:

Though I did have to chop down half a dozen huge spindly sycamores. I even did a video. Health and safety be damned...

I hate to spoil the surprise but incredibly, nobody dies.

 

[Screwdriver]

I'm just flicking back though my picture album. This all happened last year but it feels like I spent most of my youth digging out the area.

It was complicated by having a shed two metres behind me, a fence and next door garden a metre away and the trees leaning over at such an extreme angle. I had to drop them straight down so I made up a simple mechanism with posts and rope.

Cut at an angle, the support acts like a parallel hinge and the tree drops down allowing me to pull it along a path between two sheds.

 

[Screwdriver]

Still a fair bit of work to do digging out the stumps and shifting a mountain of dirt.

 

[Screwdriver]

Finally got the first one out.

But it was so difficult, it was obvious the one next to it would be even more tricky. My "little" Stihl 210 chainsaw couldn't even get through it. The embedded dirt, stones and bits of wire simply dulled the newly sharpened blades as soon as I got into it.

I even considered leaving the other one, cut it flush and use it as a stand for the anvil. Would make a great vice stand too.

But...

Weeks later (look at that pile of dirt - gone) and it's coming out.

Eventually.

The whole root ball is infested with pebble and flint.

 

[Gritineye]

My toes were curling there, please please use an under cut next time so the limb drops cleanly away, it saves lives!

 

[Screwdriver]

Down to dirt and thinking about paving.

I modeled it of course...

...and a quick test with 200x100 pavers suggests I need about 500 to do the whole area. I probably have about 400.

So I could pave most of it and have some extra special paved areas with big old paving slabs. Or I could think of something else. Tricky because there's a slope. I have nowhere left to put any more dirt. The level is going to be at least a couple of inches highr than the existing paving. I am seriously considering repaving the old path (at a later date)...

So many considerations which will be literally cast in stone when they're done. Meantime I can just play with the model and put stuff where I think it should go. I'll be working on an awning too.

S.

 

[Screwdriver]

Another change of plan.

Neighbour dead opposite me is ripping up their driveway and lobbing perfect 600x600x50 concrete slabs in the skip.

I asked if I could nab a few. "Take as many as you like mate".

They obviously have no idea who I am...

 

[Screwdriver]

Incredibly, this was only a few month ago.

It seems like a lifetime.

I nabbed a ton (literally) of pavers from yet another neighbour who had piled them up against my garage wall. "Can I get rid of those for you?" LOL.

I use sketchup for everything, working on walls and roof now.

I almost feel I should apologise for the lack of anything vaguely blacksmithing but there's a ton of stuff to do where very little appears to change...

So I had to restrain the sand base or the floor would simply fall apart at the edges. This side gets some victorian garden edging.

Where the floor meets anything solid, I used a mortar base for the outer pavers and ran the mortar up to the walls.

Then the fun part. I had this bag for some time now, I use this stuff for sandblasting.

It was probably the most fun I have had this year!. Not only am I finishing off the base, it's just amazing to watch the sand disappear into a "solid" floor.

I took my time doing it because I never wanted it to end. But it's done and the pavers which are just sitting on a layer of sand are as solid now as if they had been superglued onto concrete. I wander out there every so often just to walk around on it. It's a rally nice space...

 

[Screwdriver]

Not having a working van is no fun. > Means I need to jump on a bicycle for one stupid bag of 25kg. In this heat, that's a killer. Like I said last time, "never again" :wtf:

Anyhow, I survived and need to run a couple of brick courses to level off the body bath.

Few bits of tile at one end and four leveled off bricks at the corners, it's level now and I just need to fill it in.

Glad I took my time over this because having dug out all of the crap in there, I think I'll keep it. By which I mean keep access to it by fitting a hinged lid.

Maybe it will come in handy for storage. Maybe good for a soakaway or maybe even an acid bath for the odd occasion when I need to dispose of a body. :dunno:

That's where we're at:

I have been playing with freestanding structures based around some old bandstands I have lying around. If they're free standing, I don't need to worry about planning permission. One length is too short, two lengths of bandstand too long so I might cut them up and make some adjustable bandstands to fit in between as spacers.

Something like this.

 

[Screwdriver]

Man, these old band stands are tough!

Got it reasonably dinged but it was too awkward to bend in the press. Remembering there are two spars so you can't easily bend one at a time. So I pulled it square with a lorry tie down.

Surprisingly accurate bend all things considered. It looks bang on and it fits.

Just need to find some sheets of ply, decorate them with roofing felt and should have a lid by the weekend.

Not too far off the plan either.

 

[Screwdriver]

The idea is this needs to be portable and easily dismantled. So I made up some pins from 20mm bar.

Which fit snugly into the top of the bandstands.

Then get hammered home into a hole in some handy roofing joists. go_slow should remember this exact piece of wood - it used to be the MotoGP shed roof!

It holds the rather wobbly stand quite nicely and I can hang from the middle no problem at all (I'm not going to of course :wtf: )

The observant among you will have noticed its not square. I decided to offset one of the legs which gives me a ton of extra room with only a mild headache when it comes to roofing sheets.

It will either get thin ply with a felt sheet cover or maybe even some corrugated iron or Onduline (if I can afford it).

Needs to be lightweight and I need a solution for wind. Rennies won't cut it, might use a few stage weights I guess or check the planning regs and bolt some feet into the pavers. Then I can just have some relief valves built into the big flats to stop it blowing away. Current idea is to clad the outside with clip on feather edge board, like a fence panel...

 

[Screwdriver]

Sometimes great architecture reveals itself only through the medium of photography...

The roof is on!*

*then I took it off again. Just pitching the purlins.

Rear uprights are in. screwed through the frame and into the top joist. The whole thing is now a lot sturdier than a freestanding bandstand has any right to be.

Waiting for a downpour tomorrow (?) but I'm in no rush to get a lid on it for that. We'll see. Maybe...

 

[Screwdriver]

You've got this far and finally, the plot begins to reveal...an anvil!

Awkward thing to haul out of my tight workshop

Those 77 KLGS are heavier than newfangled Kg. Damned thing weighs a ton, I reckon the base is another 50kg too.

But its too low. So I made this:

Just a few chunks of wood and some ridiculously long bolts. I drilled out the wood with a hand brace (!) and simply screwed them in. They act more like super chunky nails tbh but they ain't coming out.

It's a good height I think but I plan to fit three chunky rubber pads to the base. Probably insert them with a routed out rebate, two at the back and one under the bick. Then I will probably tie down the anvil to the wooden base. Possibly with chain to dampen the ring or just with a strap. While I'm at it, I'll probaby put in a rebate to accept the base.

I need to insulate the roof for sound deadening which is also the only reason I "need" walls. I also need to fix one of the flagstones where one of the supports is right on one (loose) corner. Need to pick it up and re-lay it. It rattles the roof whenever it is disturbed. The rest of them are fine.

 

[Screwdriver]

I thought when I lucked into a pile of huge paving slabs, they would form islands of stability in the sea of "loose" pavers. Completely wrong. The leverage from one of the frame feet unfortunately landing on a corner edge, tilted the slab and it rattles the roof like a tin bucket full of spanners.

I lifted up the frame and roof, wiggled out the slab with crowbars and choice swearwords. It was a teensy bit difficult to lift a 40kg lump of concrete straight up but I got there eventually.

Nothing really wrong with the sand base, just not enough grip or weight to stop the slab from moving a couple of mm when you step on the other edge.

So I just paved it. Just being the operative. The slabs are about 5mm smaller than the equivalent patch of pavers. Oh what fun hammering those in! Mind you they are tight!

Can't really see it now it's in. The pattern I mean. So there should be no issues of OCD breakdown. On top of that, having an individual paver under the foot actually isolates any floor vibrations. Win/win.

What have we learned? Well, install a floor first, then build your walls and roof. Don't be editing your floor after you've stuck a shed on it :thumbsup:

 

[Screwdriver]

Just in time for rainy season (remembering this was mid summer)...

Clearly this is not the final solution but it's getting there. Just shifting that bloody brickwork (which is firmly attached to a foot of concrete at the bottom) did my back in so I'm having a sofa day from now on!

It's starting to look quite cozy. I like the camo "look" which stops the walls jumping out at you in an otherwise leafy part of the garden.

The bleached blond wood shines like a beacon in comparison so it will also get toned down with some protective wood stain.

 

[Screwdriver]

Back is still killing me but my long suffering neighbour finally stumped up the other spare fence panels.

The plan is to make the narrow panel a door. I can put a rack at the back of the area for storing long stock. Having a door means I can slide it in/out easily without having to manoeuvre long lengths of steel in an enclosed space.

Hmm. Slight cop out on the side door. That can wait until I can find those gate hinges I saw just the other day. Meantime I just screwed it into the freestanding woodwork...

A few lengths of batten and the judicious use of extra long screws an zipties (!)

I still think it will look better with a bit of camo...

But it's getting to be a useable space. Soon as I can stump up £145 for a gas forge :O we'll be off!

 

[Screwdriver]

...and we're nearly up to date. In the interim, I made my first knife - ready for heat treat.

But before I could do that I needed to make a burner for a gas forge.

There's a thread on that already but before I can make a forge, I need to finish off the lid so I roughly threw up a couple of fenceposts.

and the last bit of roof is a very odd shape.

Let me tell you, I spent most of this year trying NOT to have that join right in the middle, with no overhang. But Onduline is 2m and it only just reaches and three sheets was as much as I was prepared to buy. So that's how it ended up.

There's a ridge board and the join is a strip of some sticky bitumen I found a few rolls of.

It doesn't leak and I will eventually fit a cover over that too remembering it's a fragile construction which you can't stand on. So I can't easily get to it without leaning off a ladder.

Next step is to build a back wall on that weird brick/bath thing from these lovely reclaims.

and I am planning on having a big sliding door. Might have to wait until another neighbour is throwing away a matching fence panel

 

[gaz1]

all its short of is a wood stove when not near the furnace area

 

[Screwdriver]

all its short of is a wood stove when not near the furnace area

Well I made this some time ago.

Took it out of the workshop after an incident involving a bucket of petrol...

 

[WorkshopChris]

Took it out of the workshop after an incident involving a bucket of petrol...

Maybe the heater wasn't the problem, buckets of petrol sound far more hazardous.
The heater would be easier to control the heat output, petrol fires are hard to regulate.