As Pretty As It Looks Kids, Don't Try This At Home

For reals, don't do this.  Breathing this stuff can be SUPER bad for you.
Sexy Photo Credits: Brian G. Marino

Building the Quench Tank

 So we're building a quench tank to go with the rest of our equipment.

 First we scavenged a 48"x24"x1" old press plate to cut our base out of.

 I made a 24" diameter circle for our base.

 Greg then cut it out, cue Greg actions shots.

 Cutting it in half.

 Kinda worked.

 Cutting the corners off.

 More corner cutting.

 Sad panda concrete.

 Mmmm slag

 More corner cutting

 Super Greg action shot!

 Another super Greg action shot!

Super hot kids, don't touch!!

 This is the 5 1/2" diameter pipe that we scavenged for the other part of the quench tank.

 I ground a bevel into the edge to make it a better weld surface.

Ooooo close up bevel shot!

 So as I was grinding the rust off of the press plate, I made a discovery.  Let's call it a happy accident.  As I ground the rust off, I found imprints of all the items that people had pressed into the top of the plate.  It was strangely beautiful as I uncovered a pair of scissors, a screw, bits of wire, safety pins and other such imprints.

 Marked center

 Placed the pipe on the base

 Super Greg welding action shot!

 Yay arc welding

And now for my answering Greg segment:
What is this device going to be used to do? 
The quench tank will be used for quenching any work after it is tempered.  It'll just be filled with normal household vegetable oil.
What had we used previously that didn't work and why? 
Previously we had used a soup can filled with vegetable oil, but it was much too small for anything larger than a small axe head.  When you use too small of a quenching container it leaves part of the work exposed to the air, which results in the surface of the oil catching on fire.
What did we add to make the device even more useful? 
In order to make the quench tank a more useful item, we added a lifting basket to it.  This makes it possible to quench things that are shorter than the tank and still be able to get them out.
And, finally, what did you think of that would prevent the tips from getting blunted?
Since the basket is just made of plate steel and some bent rod, if you dropped your blade into the tank it would chip the tips off of your piece.  I'm going to attach a scrap of ply to the plate steel so that it can cushion the tips of the projects.

What We've Got To Work With

 This is the coal forge and the smoke hood.

 Coal forge and ash can

 View of the coal forge and hood from outside the gate

Better shot of the smoke hood

 Bucket where we keep our coal

Oooo the bucket is open...
On a seperate note, this is the wrong coal.  When we went to purchase coal we didn't specify what type we needed and ended up with 160lbs of anthracite coal.  What we really wanted was 160lbs of stoker coal.  Oh well, just means Monte got free coal.

This is what you get to do when you buy the wrong coal.  Anthracite coal comes in HUGE chunks that we spent 3 hours hammering into usable sized pieces.

 This is the right type of coal.  Both times the coal was purchased from Sunnyside Ice & Fuel Co. Inc.

 This is the metal garbage can where we put the ash after we're done forging for the day.  Once it cools we can put it in the dumpster.

 Oooo shot of coal ash and clinkers.

This is the metal pail of coke.  The definition of coke from the World English dictionary is: a solid-fuel product containing about 80 per cent of carbon produced by distillation of coal to drive off its volatile constituents: used as a fuel and in metallurgy as a reducing agent for converting metal oxides into metals.  
When we're done forging for the day, we save the coke in a bucket to help get the fire started more easily next time.

 This is our 5 gallon bucket that we use for water.

This is our handy dandy rusty water ladle.

 This is a shot of our new anvil with the base we constructed.

 Shot of our old anvil with it's post base.

 This is our leg vise.  Convenient for making twists and fixing kinks.

 This is our little gas forge.  Quick and convenient, but doesn't get things hot enough for certain tasks and it's small.

 Side shot of the gas forge.

 Oooo it's open

 Open gas forge

 Fired up gas forge

 Fuel source for the gas forge.

This is our coal forge.  We made a few modifications to it this year, but other than that she's a sturdy little beast.

 Probably the most crucial modification we made to the coal forge was adding a larger air pipe and an electric blower.  First I plasma cut the original pipe off of the forge.

 The new pipe that we welded.

 Front of the blower attachment plate

Close up of the back of the blower plate

 We then welded on a new pipe and attached the blower to it.

 New air flow pipe

 New blower

 Ooo blower

 We added mesh to keep junk out of the blower fan.

 The plate is getting nice and rusty

 This is our sad makeshift damper for the blower.  Real low tech and flammable. 

 The other crucial modification we made was to give the grating better spacing.  The bars were far too close together before.

 Close up shot of the fire box on the coal forge.

 Close up shot of the open ash dump on the coal forge.