This next year I’ll be realizing a long time dream and have a blacksmith shop of my very own. Several years ago my father-in-law found someone selling a complete setup with an anvil, post vice, hand crank blower, a forge table and a collection of tongs plus 400 lbs of coal. However I was starting down the path of building my dream house on 10 acres so I had to put the blacksmith shop on hold. Now that I have the house (mostly) done I can start down the path of building my blacksmith shop. I’ll have to do some thinking about what size to make it and how to arrange things. Do I make it just big enough for blacksmithing or go for something bigger? Will I be staying with solid fuel and thus need to deal with the smoke or will I move over to a natural gas feed from the house? I don’t want to fall into analysis paralysis so I’m thinking of starting with a small structure with sheet metal sides, maybe a skid-able structure like Paul Wheaton is so fond of.
