Pictures of a fireplace set

Here is a custom piece I delivered yesterday to a client in Louisville. The tools are 32 inches long and the entire piece is textured and shaped to the appearance of a branch. The leaves on the stand are all forge-welded on.





Upon the conclusion of this piece, which marked the conclusion of the work I was doing for this particular client, I cleaned shop. I've been working in my new shop for about three or four weeks, and the dust was starting to pile up. So I cleaned; swept dust, returned stock metal to the steel rack, swept dust, hung all the tools up, swept dust, put scrap metal in the scrap tub, and finished the day out by sweeping dust. All the fun stuff in blacksmith, of course! When the shop was clean, I decided it was time to start getting it dirty again!

During the winter is the time to revamp your set-up, and make new plans for the upcoming craft fair season. Lord willing, I am going to be making some changes such as building a different forge, selling the old demo trailer, and building an enclosed trailer for hauling our items. You know, just some "minor" tweaking!

Anyway, with a bit of spare time on my hands, I made a new anvil stand for my old faithful 86# Trenton anvil. I bought that anvil exactly 5 years ago, and it has served me well, mounted on a stump. However, if I am going to be putting it on a trailer and hauling it around a lot, I wanted something a little more practical. 

It is light, compact, but extremely stable and sturdy. I still have to add tool racks for hammers and tongs, and I'm going to put some wheels on one side. When I'm done it will get the customary red paint like my big anvil stand and my forge.

I'm also gearing up to build a power hammer! This started by getting over 700# of steel materials the other day. One piece was a 368 pound piece of 6 1/2 inch solid round stock, 35 1/2 inches long. No, that is not a misprint....it is 6 1/2 inch SOLID round stock. This monstrous hunk of metal will be what takes all the hammer blows of the power hammer. (Something like 50# blows running around 200 strikes per minute.)

The base that the hammer sits on also needs to be heavy. I got a piece of 5/8 inch thick plate metal, 45 inches square. It weighs nearly 400 pounds. I'll be sure to post pictures of the power hammer build when I start.