A sneak-peak at my Turbo Forge. More Power!! rwha-ha-ha

http://www.centercross.com/shop/tour/mv07.jpg

In January I built my first forge. I am getting ready to build #5 soon. I thought you might enjoy a peak at #4 before I retire it. (NOT!)
Twin fuel injection ports, exhaust/preheat, turbo circulation piping system w/drain,1/ 2 hp blower that runs dual squirrel cages at 3450 RPM.
It has riffling spirals inside to direct the volume of air and a hydraulic vise built into the back for twisting large pieces of cable (in the heat).
This machine does everything except the fluxing and pressing.
This one can't be blown out (the flame) either. It just gets faster and hotter. I can weld with 2-3 pounds and forge at 1-1/2 to 2 pounds once it is hot.
This turbo kicks!

Gene,

Very nice setup. Enough power to satisfy even Tim Taylor. :)

Brett

Gene, that is amazing! (Almost looks alive...)

It does SO much of my work for me, sometimes I think it should be on my payroll too. :)

And Kids, Remember that these are not TOYS !

This one will melt my cable in 1/2 if I don't watch it. :)

OK Gene, you left out the breakfast bar!! :)
That is one impressive piece of equipment! :eek: What more can I say?

Quit giving away all my secrets for #5. ;)

Bet it doesn't take long to toast a piece of bread in that Baby. :lol:
Very nice rig Geno.
Mike

Are my eyes deceiving me or does that thing have a double blower?
Nevermind. It pays to read the post instead of just drooling over the picture!

Last winter was my last cold one too.
This winter,I'll have a pretty good shop heater.

Owoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Very nice, Gene. You might be more Neo-Tribal than you think, Bro. :)

as if Texas was not hot enough?

My neighbors blame me for the heat anyway. :)
Dana, exactly what does NEO-TRIBAL mean anyway?
I do kinda like pioneering with stuff, I guess.
Who sets the limits?
We do. :)
BE BLESSED.

Neo-Tribal is one of those concepts that has many definitions--and any or all of those definitions singly or combined are Neo-Tribal. It combines ancient and modern, as well as cross cultural methods to produce our work. We are in touch with smiths in other parts of the world and are trying to incorporate their methods and tools into our work where appropriate and productive. Some of those who we call "primitive" can and do produce some amazing work with next to nothing to work with.

There have been emphases within Neo-Tribalism on recycled materials, home made tools, more reliance on self and what's around instead of reliance on man made products and utilities. For example, to my way of thinking, you could have gone out and spent mucho bucks on a new forge, which would have, I'm sure worked very well and done you just right. But you chose to gather some parts and construct your own--to me that's right in line with neo-tribal.

Many of us burn home made charcoal in our forges, which we make ourselves. We scrounge and collect and make do with what we have at hand. Sometimes instead of buying epoxy, we make our own adhesives out of melted pitch combined with something as an aggregate for strength. We sort of go by the maxim, that if everything that constituted comfortable, New Millennium, American life went south tomorrow, could we still make knives? Some of us really aim at that mark, so the answer could be a resounding "YES" even if there were no more electric companies, gas companies, UPS's, Admiral Steel's, Koval's or WalMart's. That might be a post-apocalyptic stretch more in line with "Mad Max" than reality, but you get my point. Lord willing, I'd like to retire to a small Indian village in the mountains of Southern Mexico. With the exceptions of nuclear toxicity and hordes of evil beings running around looting and pillaging, I might as well be in "Mad Max." Most likely where I go will have limited electricity if electricity at all. No stores--nada. Even the possibility of mail order lies somewhere between a feverish hallucination and a bad joke. So if I intend to keep making knives, I'd better have my Neo-Tribal skills down to an art. So in some cases it isn't a stretch at all, but a reality.

Community knifemaking or metalworking is also important to us. We have full moon parties and monthly hammer-in's where lots of folk of every conceivable stripe and background get together to beat steel and make whatever it is that we feel like making--usually knives. Everybody does something in concert to get the finished product out, whether it's a bar of damascus, or a special blade, or cutting up leaf or coil springs to usable lengths, or small projects like neck knives that everybody can take home at the end of the evening or day. But it's the working together that's both fun and a good way to both teach and learn. So often, and most often knifemaking is a one man show. Once and a while it's fun to break out of that mold.

Another emphasis that parallels the "hand work" aspect of Neo-Tribalism is getting in touch with the "process" of knifemaking. With the market emphasis on getting things done quickly and cheaply in order to put more product out and to make greater profits from it (which I'm not knocking at all) we tend to lose touch with everything that went into making that "hand made" item in the first place. Slowing down, doing more by hand--even the making of the tools and machinery and products with which to make one's knives is a good and positive experience. Granted it might not be the most expedient or appropriate thing for those in a full time knifemaking business with lots of work staring at them, but it's still good to get back to basics once and a while, so as not to forget, and to simply enjoy doing things with one's own hands and wits and little else. That's why so many like to get into our Iron In The Hat drawings. Many times a full time maker cannot back up into the 18th century to make his or her knives, but for something like our drawings, they can afford the time and energy to do so for one piece.

Other NT types could add much more to what I've written, but that's just a sketch from my perspective. We're into high quality in whatever we do or how we do it. We have NT guys who are totally primitive and many who are not, and some somewhere in between. We're not big into rules and regulations. We are a loose organization who borrows from all times and cultures in hopes of not so much making a better knife (because we all try to do that anyway), but "making a knife better." We've got guys who practically sharpen their knives in the forge with a hammer, and guys who use files and grinders. We're more into sharing information and spreading the craft and new/old methods than we are into judging someone because they do things differently.

I hope this helps clarify things a little.

P.S. You don't have to look like me to be Neo-Tribal, but it helps. :)

If N/T means that I am a visionary, junk man, inventor, then I am N/T.
That is part of what makes me feel so good about what I do.
I find stuff (junk) that no one else wants, and make something useful out of it.
This forge for example, has railroad spikes as braces welded in, busted forging dies from an old pipe bender as the vise jaws, an old hydrolic car jack from the pawn shop($5.00), a brake rotor for the end cap from an old Lincoln, pipes that went to our old church sign that got ran over by a drunk, the cart is an old bed frame found on the side of the road.
Need I go on?
One mans junk is another man's treasure.
I suppose one has to be a visionary to see an old bed frame on the side of the road, and visualize a new cart for a turbo forge that hadn't even been built yet.Right? :)

I LOVE WHAT I DO !

Gene, if everything went south overnight, I have no doubt that you could still make a knife. See, I told you you were more Neo-Tribal than you thought. :)

I have made a couple without power tools, but don't plan to anymore as long as I have power. I get spoiled to the convenience.
But that don't mean I can't.

WOW Gene that is awesome! Sounds more like a car or an jet engine, twin injected etc. Looks like fun!!