If you’ve noticed we have recently added a “DONATE” button to our web site. It is there for those who wish to help us in our endeavors to keep blacksmithing and it’s traditions alive. Over the past few years we have been taking on more and more students and getting out to other places to teach. This year we were able to hold workshops at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center out in Baker City, Oregon. We look forward to more classes in the coming year there. If you feel strongly about keeping traditional crafts alive then please join us and help by using the donate button. Thank you.

Here we have the latest forge building class. My friend and previous student Max showed up for an intermediate class in tool making and forge building. We started out with a refresher on basic technique and hammer control. We then proceeded to work on building 2 axe head tools specific to Max’s business of cob construction and natural stone stove building.

Max had a design for this axe head that made it look like a small Polaski. That is an axe head on one end and a hoe on the other. However, rather than being as large as that fire tool, this one was about 10 inches overall. We started with a piece of 1 1/2″ by 3 inch solid square stock. We set up the piece to slit and drift open an eye for the handle. This required both Max and I to provide the team hammering technique to drive the slit chisel through both sides. We also decided to make two of these in case we were off with the slit chisel and screwed one up. Once we had the eye holes drifted out to the right diameter I sent Max -with some prior instruction- to work with the Little Giant to draw out the blades. There is a great feeling of accomplishment when one is able to create from scratch a workable tool. Go to our videos page and you can see a pretty satisfied Max at the power hammer.

On the second day of class we focused on building Max his own forge. This is where the student not only learns how to build a forge but makes their own to take with them. The photo at the top shows the materials needed. We were using mostly recycled materials. The burn chamber was part of an old air compressor tank, the feet left over angle iron and the air intake was a car exhaust pipe. We spent the better part of the morning running to the hardware store for the gas fittings and some smaller black pipe, then over to Harbison for our Kao-wool and fire brick, then back to the smithy and put them all together. We needed my forge to heat up the air/gas out flow pipe. This is where the mix enters the burn chamber. The 2 inch pipe is hammered or necked down to form a rectangle about 1/2 an inch wide for an opening.

Between heats we worked on the chamber. First was to weld on feet. Basically it consists of two pieces of angle iron welded on to either side to keep the chamber from rolling. Another advantage to using angle iron is that you can drill holes and weld on nuts so that bolts can be used as feet and for leveling.

Please note that if you begin to forge the air/gas mix out-flow pipe too fast you will crush or cave in the pipe too quickly. In the next picture Max needs to open the pipe at the orifice just a little.
Next up is cutting out the opening in the burn chamber to receive the mix pipe. This required the use of the plasma cutter. We placed the pipe at an angle so the when in use the air/gas flow will rotate around the inside of the chamber. Always tack weld the pipe first and check your angle.

Next up we drilled the exhaust pipe elbow for our gas pipe fitting. This is where the gas will mix with the air.

Our gas pipe consists of 1/2 inch black pipe 10 inches long. It is threaded on both ends and can be purchased at your local hardware store. On one end we placed a nipple cap. This cap has a 1/16th inch hole drilled on the end. The hole allows the gas to be compressed into a jet at the mix point.

The gas pipe is then placed in the exhaust elbow where the cap rests about an inch to two inches back from the opening. Note in the photo the hose clamp. This will allow you to connect and secure the mix pipe with the forge.Make sure you line up and center your gas line before welding.
The air/gas mix pipe can now be placed on the burn chamber. From this point on you will need to lay in you Kao-wool and set fire brick shorts inside for the floor. For the air system I use a $15.00 dollar hair dryer. If you choose this remember to disable the hot air switch so that the blower does not overheat and shut off. The blower is set at the bottom of the exhaust pipe and can be held fast with duck tape. For the gas line you will need some flexible steel pipe. The hardware store will have the one you need. They are sold for gas lines to dryers and gas stoves. A 5 gallon propane tank can be used but I use a 25 gallon tank. Remember, within the line from tank to forge you will need a stop cock for an on off switch and an adjustable regulator to “dumb” down the gas as it leaves the tank. For this forge you will need about 12 fire brick 3″ x 7″ or so needed for the doors and also 2 flats that are needed for the floor. I keep both ends available that way to either work from both ends at the same time or to be able to place longer pieces through. This forge will attain a forging heat of about 1800 to 1900 degrees.

If there are further questions on this model or you would like to take this class please write me here at the Smithy. Thanks to Max Edleson.

We had a great trip out to Baker City, Oregon and the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. I wound up teaching both Saturday and Sunday for 8 people. Some cam from as far away as Idaho and one from Arizona! I borrowed two forges and an anvil from my Friend Chuck. Thanks Chuck! And took two of my own. We set up on the promontory overlooking the beautiful Baker Valley and the Elkhorn Mountains under canvas tarps attached to old wagons and buckboards. Part of the mission, aside from interpreting the Oregon Trail experience, is to cover some of the local history and the settlement of the area as well. Being able to set up the leather bellows and a few hand-cranked forges next to a wagon encampment sets the scene for the old west blacksmith. While we held class visitors from around the world visiting the center, came over to watch and ask questions. One lady from Germany told me her grandfather had a shop back in Germany when she was a little girl and she had participated. I told her that that made her Union and she could join in! One of the volunteers at the Center is creating a living history character based on a blacksmith. I hope to get over there again soon and do some more workshops.

We had a chance to hold a continuing education class this last week. One of my Students from about 4 years ago got ahold of me last week and asked to come take a refresher and an intermediate or next level class. John came to our shop for the beginning class from his home of Spokane, Washington. After his first class with us he went home and built his own Smithy. He added tools and a home built forge over time. He is now a full fledged member of ABANA and the Northwest Blacksmith Association.

John wanted to back up his experience, work on his chops and get some new instruction on traditional joinery. He and his wife came out to Portland on Monday and class started early Tuesday.  We decided to create the class around some practice hammer work, refresh on technique and basics and then we settled into some scroll work, mortise and tennon joinery and hot rivet work.  I came up with a few projects for John to work on during his three days here at the forge.  We ran through a few studies in castle door nails, hooks, scrolls and various hammer textures.

We combined several features to create a wall mounted sign hanger.  The kind you’d hang your shingle on.  The features included, random hammer marks with a scalloped edge; fish tail scrolls; hot puching the rivet holes, creating tendril shaped hooks for the sign; adding an arrowhead terminal to the front. Here are a few of the pictures from class.

This turned out to be a fun and good project to compose all these ideas. At the basic level it teaches you how to think ahead in the construction your iron art. What are the stages that you need to complete first before you can move on? Scroll first or rivet?  Texture or punch the holes?  These types of classes are fun for me because I have to learn all over again or remind myself of what I do all the time. Its great to see these ideas fresh from a students perspective.

This is the tendril hook that the sign will hang from. It is set up with a tenon and bradded over to secure it to the frame. After we finished this one and sat back to admire it we noticed that we put it on the wrong side!  Oh well, cut it free and try it again.  Keeps me on my toes!

I really enjoy classes like this because the student who wants to further their knowledge and skills is eager to try new things and experiment a little. Or perhaps to leave a comfort zone for new areas.  In a class like this we can discover the myriad of  projects that these techniques can be applied to.  Gates, rails, fire place screen, etc.

Thanks John for the chance to show some of the information I have learned over time and to be able to learn again myself.

If you’d like to know more about the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America or the Northwest Blacksmith Association, please check out our links page.

Black anvil rings its thunderous applause. Sparks shower the curtain’s drop. Hammers sing in melodious tones of staccato breath.  Geese fly. Leaves gently blow. Roses bloom. Tendrils twist and curl around gates closing tight. Fire secluded behind art’s fierce grip.  Life is hammered  into another living soul.

Daniel Klug

We went to the cemetery today to witness the hanging of a door.  This is a piece of work we accomplished with a fantastic wood worker named Mike Adeen for the friends of Lone Fir Cemetery in central Portland.  This is Portland’s first cemetery and to be a part of it’s history with our work is really a great and wondrous feeling.  When you walk through a place and see memorials that are over a 100 year time period and you think to yourself I am witness to the first day of this new memorial that can be here for the next 100 years is pretty daunting and awesome. What I have come to realize about our work is that it is not just for some house wife to enjoy or impress her friends, but that what we make will be around longer than I will. It, like all our works,  has become our piece of immortality.   This is Public Art without having to go through a selection committee.  Without having to sell oneself  under a pitiful means.  No selling to the lowest common denominator or just to make a buck.  What you’ve produced will be there for the public to enjoy – and I encourage you all to go see this place- as a testament to a trade and a skill and a craft.

So I am giving a workshop at the National Oregon Trail Interpretive center in Baker City, Oregon on the 12th and 13th of September.  I am going to be teaching the basic class in coal fired forge work with the emphasis on the time period of the overland migration. I hope we have lots of folks sign up and I’d like to do this on a regular basis.  I am trying to help them with building a working smithy at the site of the center.  It is hoped that we can teach there and bring folks in from around the area who are interested as well as federal staff from other centers around the nation.

Welcome to the Forge!

I love to forge iron and to create pieces of art!  Together with my wife Heidi, and her artistic ability, we endevour to create timeless pieces and grand works that please, define, and excite in the world of ornamental ironwork.