Man walks into a garage sale and buys a garage

Well, not really a garage, but a carport. The price was too low for me to refuse. The only catch was that I had to take it apart and move it that week.

Here's the carport as I found it.

It's bolted through the pavement. 

And here I am about to grind away one of the anchor bolts.

Joan and neighbor Stephen carefully removing the aluminum roof panels.

Two of the three minimum-wage workers.

Posing with the vehicle that I learned to hate: the world's longest truck with a bad transmission and scary brakes and sloppy steering. I glad it's safely back at the rental company.

By the way, U-Haul did not come close to meeting my minimum expectations.

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Loading steel rafters onto my 3/8-ton pickup truck for their journey into the backyard.

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Another tool

Some blacksmithing tools are made to fit into the square (tapered) hole on top of the anvil. This hole is the hardy hole. Regrettably, I did not have any of these tools. Here's what I created.






This device is a bending block for hot metal.






















The screw  heads are counter bored so they won't touch the anvil top.

Steel bars and rods can be inserted between and around the tines and bent into curves.

I've already tried it and it works. It certainly meets my minimum expectations.

Backyard forge up and running . . . kinda

Grab some scaffolding, plywood, and Harbor Freight clamps and what do you get?

You get the Backyard Forge, a secluded five- by seven-foot space with a dirt floor and a plywood roof. Otherwise, it's open to the elements.

In this photo, the roof has not been installed.

This is a test of the entire setup. I needed a place out of the sun—not just because it's so hot, but because semi-darkness is required to see the colors of the steel. The forge (furnace) is at the upper right. The anvil, for what it's worth, is at the lower left.

The anvil was a mistake I made because of my fervor to learn blacksmithing.

Math lesson
Learn this equation: Craig's List + fervor = bad decision.


Below, I'm inserting a steel rod into the forge. This is much better than yesterday's bright, sunny, out-in-the-open location.

Bending the metal into a hook.

Blacksmithing at the Goat Farm

A few more views of the picturesque Goat Farm property.

It's part of an old cotton gin factory . . .

. .  . and some buildings are covered with vines.

The ultimate storage solution

A student at one of the forges

After two evenings of basic instruction, I attempted a knife-making course at the Goat Farm. With only a 3-inch piece of 1/2" steel rod, I produced my first tool: a little Viking knife.

It meets my minimum expectations.