I tired building a small furnace in the side of the hill by our house. I made a pair of bellows from some ziploc bags and composite board, they worked the best out of the whole affair
. Anyway, the furnace was a flop, but it would heat up rebar to red hot (barely). I found a hefty, reasonably firm rock, and managed to flatten the rebar out a decent (read: minimal) amount. I was hooked, and have had black boogies ever since!
Later I used an air mattress pump and burned out a depression in a stump, which I lined with tin can lids; my friend found my peter wright and sold it to me for $100 (a great deal I suppose). My grandfather traded fixing a clock for a neglected buffalo forge, which I added a brake drum to. Now I was cooking with gas! well, coal. Now I have a kind of 55 forge that I fun off of a blower/vaccuum.
That was my beginning, and now I'm looking toward the future. I've been looking to what new anvil I am going to buy, a shop, fabricating a new forge and accumulating the basic tools that will allow me to produce items for myself and anyone else. (man, I sure could use a bag full'o money!)