The first quarter of 2010

It's been a while between drinks and a very busy year. It's always busy. I thought I'd better get a few words down before it evaporates from the grey matter.
I started off the year, and Christmas gone, up at Alice Springs with my son. We had a good time during my stay and I spent three weeks looking after a friends place while he was down south in Adelaide. I headed back south to home with my brother and his wife and got back into the swing of things so to speak.
The secretary work of the A.B.A.S.A keeps me busy through the days between meetings and I have finally got Issue 3 of 'The Bellows' away to all the members. I had a lot of input from the guys interstate including Keith Towe, Brian Keenan and Mick Dowdall. If it wasn't for these fellas, we'd never know what is going on interstate.
One of our woman members helped out with an article as well, bless her heart.

Angaston has had a busy quarter so far and during April, had a swath of buses packed with elderly tourists coming through the forge. The volunteers up there must have been run off their feet. Chris and I have done a few shifts up there and have met a couple of interesting visitors. One from the U.S. who is traveling around the country. Just the other day we took another U.S. Blacksmith, Steve Christensen, up to Angaston for the day. Steve taught us and the crowd a few tricks and it turned out to be a busy afternoon with the crowds passing through. We hope to catch up with Steve again when he returns.

Easter was a great time as I went back to Alice Springs with my younger brother to help a friend celebrate his 50th birthday. We had a great time getting looked after by Andy and Katie. The part y was packed with all my long lost friends , and Andy's, from the past. It was great to meet them all and reminisce.
I got myself into a bad situation after Christmas of almost running out of beer. I put down five kits over a fortnight and the supplies are looking a lot healthier. It's getting cold now so I don't have to worry about keeping the brew pots cool. The only thing I worry about is a small ring tail possum, rummaging around my shed at night knocking everything off the shelves. I guess the next project is to build some possum boxes and stick them around the yard. It's still no guarantee that the bugger will move out and take up residence though.

Marge...the rains have come....
We have had a couple of heavy downpours of rain but the rain doesn't seem to fall as long as it did. The garden is greening up and the tanks are full so I can't complain.

Blacksmithin'
I haven't been as active as I'd like in the forge. I have made a few pairs of tongs and played around a bit but I will have to pull my finger out and get forging, or the rust will settle in to my bones as well as my iron work.

A New Forge
I had an email from a colleague who had his forge up for sale. Jen took one look at it and rang him up to grab it. She wants to have a crack at being a blacksmith and have her own forge. Anyway, the guy dropped it off and it weighed a ton. I saw straight away that it wasn't going to fit between the gate posts, so I stripped it down to the basics and got it around the back. It came with a hood, that I can't really use in my forge, so that came off. The fan stuck out one and a half feet as well, so I relocated it below the forge and placed a heat shield over it. Tomorrow I get to fire it up and see how it goes. Thankfully, one of my older brothers is an electrician because the wiring fell out of it's mounting points and was confusing, to say the least. The fan works through a variable speed switch and when it's flat out it will blow the fire onto the floor. It's going to be a ripper for forge welding. Here's a shot of what it looked like when I got it.

As you can see, it's mobile. That means we can take it to workshops and with its current shape, we can have three people using it at the same time. Very handy!
I'll take a photo of it's current condition later on and update the blog.