Hi all, I'm in need of a bit of help and advice, I've recently setup a small forge in the garden to start learning a bit of smithing and generally to get a bit creative with lumps of metal. It is made up from 2 scrappy old farriers (?) forges I got off of ebay. My problem is that I've had to use a bit of guesswork when reconstructing it, and after the initial success of a trial run with some charcoal, now I've got some Coke, I cannot get it to light properly or hold a decent fire. I am wondering if I need to build a fire pot in front of the tuyere, or raise the base of the forge up (It is 3" from the air hole at the moment)?
I've read about lining the bottom of the forge with sand, is this right?
Any advise would be greatfully accepted, as finding pictures of the bases of forges is seeming hard.