The Shop on the Blue Ridge
Roanoke, Va, I enjoy a morning walk to the shop as the sky colors develop over the horizon. The mountains of the Blue Ridge as a back drop to my shop are inspirational. The building is a 30x40 feet one-level structure divided in two halves. One side dedicated to hot work and the other to finishing work.
Part of moving and setting up a new space includes building new forges or refurbishing old ones. I still enjoy my water tank heat treating forge and as an addition to the family I have built a tempering forge based on a pipe burner to sit atop the other one thus creating a heat treating station of sorts. Each forge is individually controlled by a regulator and a needle valve and they can be run at the same time. My old forge-welding and general welding forge based on atmospheric burners by Rex Price has been refurnished. For the sake of efficienvy and fuel savings, I plan to build separate forges for forging and forge-welding in the future.
I still have my olf screw press and hydraulic press for which I have made many dies. The new addition to the family is a brand new SayMak 60 pneumatic hammer purchased through Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spambots. Es necesario activar Javascript para visualizarla . I simply can't believe that I have been without one of these beasts for such a long time. It makes easy and fun some of the more time-consuming and physically demanding tasks of the shop.
The old wooden quench tank has been replaced by two separate steel tanks. One for water and the other for oil.
I do most of my forging on the SeaForge Robin post anvil but the 200# Peter Wright comes in handing from time to time.
I have kept my old Bader III grinder but he now lives happily in a room of its own. This room is air tight and connected to a dust extraction system.
The greatest advantage of the shop is having a dedicated finishing space where wood working, polishing, engraving and other non-ferrous metal work can be carried out.
A final shot of the hot working area of the shop.
