Light, Fire, and Bagpipes

Have you ever been at one of those points in your life when you suddenly realize the routines you find yourself in are driving you nuts? I'm not talking about family; there is nothing routine about family because they change all the time and always keep me on my toes (in a good way, certainly). I'm talking about work and things we do from day-to-day. For the last fifteen years I've focused on computers. I work with them all day and I'd come home and find new and interesting ways to work with them some more. Technical, step-by-step thinking. I like the technical stuff but there is only so much I can take of routine. How can I change from that? Retool by going back to school? Get a different job? Those just don't work for me right now. Some routines I can't really break out of but by changing track in my interests I can change how I view those dull routines. Since I've taken up photography (granted, it's expensive - but that's what a decent paying job is for) and built my forge I've challenged myself in quite a new way. Photography and blacksmithing both have their wonderful technical side which I quite like but they are also intrinsically artistic; light and angle, bend and form. I'm finding it's quite enjoyable running the extension cord out to the workshop (it's about one hundred feet from the house) and firing up the forge at night when the world is silenced by a thick blanket of snow. The heat and smell of the charcoal and iron is somehow satisfying and comfortable.

I'm now looking at the world in terms of light and form and my normal, routine job doesn't seem quite as mind numbing at the end of the day. Now I just have to make the bag for my bagpipes...

North Forge

Letter Opener, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

My forge is finally done. Well, mostly. Now I'm finding it needs a whole redesign but I'll worry about that later. At this point it's functional and I don't get totally smoked out when I light it up. The last hurdle I had to get past was some form of fume hood to keep the nasty, thick smoke under control. Initially, I cut and riveted some ridiculous monstrosity which I figured would both control the smoke and the sparks which shoot out at all angles. That was a failure. It caused the smoke to fire directly into my face so badly the shop was uninhabitable. Next, I measured the diameter of the forge and added a few more centimeters then cut some more tin into the form of a large circle which I planned to make into a large hood to catch the smoke. That was a lot of work. In preparation for the fitting of this new, fancy hood I extended the chimney pipe down lower to just above the hearth only to notice that the smoke and sparks flew up the pipe just as it was. It wasn't quite good enough to keep the shop clear but it was close. I scaled back the circle and used only a much smaller square of tin which I slit and made into a rough cone, cut a hole in the center and fitted a coffee can through to be the sleeve to fit over the stove pipe. Yay. It works. It's not perfect but it was enough to allow me to leave the shop door closed for the duration while I finished up the letter opener I was working on.

So I've dubbed it North Forge because it's in the north and it's a forge.

Forged Hook

Forged Hook, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

Another project I tried my hammer on was this oven mitt hook. It's pretty darn rough but everything I make right now is experimentation. I learn a little each time I try something new.

Plus, you can't beat that nice, warm radiant heat blasting out from the hearth when it's cold out...