Here are a few pictures of the blacksmith shop - click on the pictures to open a larger image.
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<---Our pride and joy. We built this 7 foot tall monster power hammer from scrap iron and collected junk. A true Junk Yard Hammer (JYH) with parts from 3 different scrap yards and the front springs off of a 1979 Jeep CJ5 in my yard. Inspiration comes from the now famous "Super-Rusty" of the Appalachian Blacksmith Association fame, only bigger. It has a six inch stroke and a 75 pound hammer of 2 inch square bar that hits at a rate of up to 182 strokes per minute. Interchangeable bolt on dies make tool changes easy. It really has made our shop more productive and save us all a lot of labor and elbow pain. This pic is older and shows her sitting outside near where we assembled her , awaiting the expansion to the shop to be completed. Since then the framing for the addition is up, with a tarp up to keep things drier. We are having to build around her, since our discovery upon completion that she was too tall to move inside the old part of the shop. Since her work is primarly the heavier stuff, she sits next to our coal forges and the 200# Fisher Anvil where we work on larger pieces. |
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This new to us but very old Fairbanks 25# power hammer has been rehabilitated and repainted and is ready to move inside the shop. It's taken me two weeks to rework her and two more weeks to rearrange the shop to fit her in, but the shop is now ready with a foundation for it and all the heavy tools inside completely rearranged to fit. It will take me a week or so to hook up the new line shaft to power it, we are converting/reverting to an overhead drive system, many of our tools were originally set up for flat belts and we will be reconnecting them the original way. |
| Our primary anvil is this 1919 dated Fisher and Norris 200 pounder. Very lively and quiet, a serious plus for a headache sufferer. We love working on her. She resides next to one of our coal fired forges and is used to create all of the larger work here.---> |
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<---This Peter Wright anvil resides next to our propane forge rigs and is also a much loved tool. You can hear this one ringing through out the valley when we are working. |
| Another View of our Peter Wright Anvil with some of the handmade hardy tools that we created for her. |
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Another Fisher and Norris anvil, this little 40 pound piece great for the small hooks and delicate work that we create. She lives next to our coal forge as well, on the opposite side from the big Fisher. |
| This old coal fired forge was aquired about 10 years ago and has endured rough and frequent usage here ever since. We found her in a junk pile and rescued and rebuilt her. She now has company, we don't yet have a picture, but we have just about finished building a new coal forge and hood.---> |
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<---These homebuilt propane forges are lovingly referred to as "the pigs" due to the rounded look that they have. The mini forge is about 5 inches across while the larger forge with its pass through for long work is about 14 inches across. |
| This interior shot of our forge shows the two propane forges and the Peter Wright anvil. On the left you can also see a nice little combination vise anvil that we use frequently and in the background you can see my grandfathers 1950's drill press that we continue to abuse.---> |
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| These cutting tools, an Excelsior power hacksaw from about 1925 and a modern metal cutting bandsaw allow us to cut metal up to about 5 inches in diameter out of stock up to 25 feet long. We cut thousand of feet of steel a year with these tools, they are the starting point for most of our metal working.---> |
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< ---This Classic Atlas Lathe from the 1940's has been in service for over 60 years and will probably outlive everyone here. Metal turning is often required in a general blacksmith shop an this little gem has proved to worth it's weight in gold( well its weight in iron anyway) |
| This small but heavy homemade bending jig, with its movable pins and forms, is used to create and recreate repeatable shapes for some of our production work. |
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