A Jump in to the deep end with a big purchase.

Well I can say that the past week has been very interesting and I have lots to talk about. First I will start by saying that my trip out looking for a future workshop was quite positive after talking to the owner of a large area of unit buildings he was confident that he could find me a space by the end of the week for a good price. So I hope to have that sorted out very soon because I will need it after my latest purchase. I've just spent £1,250 on this helve power hammer which I found on ebay, its somewhere in the middle of Gloucestershire. To me this is a very important purchase and is also the most I've ever spent on ebay haha!

  

Over the next couple of weeks I will be planing to go up and have a go on my new hammer before it is dismantled and ready to be taken back to Bristol to which I hope to have a workshop for it to be set up in, which is going to be the hard part but I'm so excited at the moment this was a huge step to take as well as a huge investment. This is it, be a Blacksmith or fail trying, do or die time. 

This wasn't my only purchase of the week I like to poke my head around all the local car boot sales as you never know what you'll find and I managed to find a little gem, a bouncy castle fan. I've been looking for a fan to blast air into my forge and I was told that these are a great for starting out with. Yes I will need to adapt a way of connecting the two together as well as adding a way of controlling the power of the blast of air but this can be done very easily. I will be sorting all that out when I have a workshop space.   

Other purchase I made was this amazing looking bench pillar drill, Its a very old vintage drill which has had some modern touches made to it over the years I was told that it was over 70 years. I picked it up from Bargoed, Caerphilly which is west of Newport on top a very tall valley. One of the additions that I really like is the grind stone attachment for sharpening the drill bits, its fantastic and works beautifully!  

 

There are still a few more pieces of equipment that I need to get hold of and the most important on that list is an anvil once I have this and a workshop to work in I'll have all the basics to get me started.