Hephaestus -- a mini-furnace

I really should be posting on the garden, which is my main preoccupation at this time. But I'll do that later. Meanwhile, I would like to tell you about my mini-furnace. I did not invent this thing; I got it straight out of the internet. (Google on "soup can furnace".)

One of the problems with doing mini-blacksmithing as I do is that it takes quite a long time to heat up the work. Maybe five minutes to red-hot. After that it goes faster. Still, it is time and gas wasted. You are heating the atmosphere as well as your work. So I built Hephaestus, the tin can furnace.

 It could not be simpler. A tin can. In my case a roast beef hash can. Drill three holes. Mount it on some L-brackets. Fill the tin can with equal parts of sand and plaster of paris. Use a former (I used a broomstick and neglected to spray it with Pam) for the hole in the middle. But do oil your former. Any oil will do. The filler sets up in five minutes. I had to drill it out and then burn off the remaining broomstick remnants.Silly me.

You note the propane torch at the left. This fits in a hole you drill in the can. A spreader tip works better than a pencil tip. Fire up the torch and stick it in. It is amazing. It goes from zero to orange in under a minute! That is, you stick your steel piece into the furnace and light off. One minute later start forging. Amazing! Do use vise-grips on your piece -- it gets very hot indeed.

This thing really will save time and propane. But now it's time to garden, and I have no spare time. Next post I'll get into that.

An artistic anvil

Last year I observed that the Alaska Railroad (an Alaska institution, you can Google it and I will post on it sometime) was tearing up and replacing trackage near my dwelling. After the crews had left I moseyed over. I was looking for a piece of rail that I could make into an anvil.

You have to realize that rail is very heavy. It is graded in RGU (Ridiculous Gringo Units) in pounds per yard. Thus, 85lb. rail (about as light as you can get) weighs 85 lb. per yard, about 40 Kg per meter. I finally found a piece that I could drag over to the car, barely. Maybe it was 100 lb. rail! Weyger's book has instructions on how to turn one of these things into an anvil.

While I was mulling over how to turn this thing into an anvil, friends took a hand. One day my rail went off to Eagle River, where Steve worked it over. What came back was a work of art.
As you can see, the anvil has a top, which is detachable. It fits down over the pritchel hole. The top holds hammers, formers, and accesories. There is a dragon attached to the top. The top comes off and there is the anvil (complete with its own dragon):
I still have to bolt it to its stump. The garden has been a priority, but it is starting to do its thing and I can get back to other projects. It is so nice to have friends. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Leta. I have seen stuff labeled "sculpture" in art museums that is far, far, uglier. A work of art, and it will be used.