Forge Idea

[dagr8tim]

While at a yard sale yesterday I picked up a stainless double tub kitchen sink.  I was considering doing a hybrid brake drum forge and wanted to know if anyone has ever done this or has any ever seen anything like this.  I know the tub is going to get hot and lose heat fast.  I was considering building a metal stand out of some angle iron and lining it with some form of insulation, and then rivet some like 20 gauge sheet metal on the outside.

I'm playing with either cutting the tub down to not make it so deep, or finding something I could fill in the tub about halfway to take up space.  I was wondering if something like lava rocks would work if I should stack some fire bricks in it.

 

My other idea was to use the other tub for the start of a hood for the forge.

[Glenn]

Do not over think simple. A hole in the ground has worked for years. Later they put the hole in the ground waist high so you did not have to squat or bend over. 

Do a search on the 55 Forge. Quick, easy and fast to build and it can be modified in many ways.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Glenn

[dagr8tim]

Do not over think simple. A hole in the ground has worked for years. Later they put the hole in the ground waist high so you did not have to squat or bend over. 

Do a search on the 55 Forge. Quick, easy and fast to build and it can be modified in many ways.

Thanks for the sanity check.  I just ended up with the sink and faucet for $2 and was looking for something to do with this chunk of stainless steel.

[ThomasPowers]

Sink works fine if you do a nice V cut on opposing sides so you can get long stock into the hotspot.  Building up the bottom with creek clay and ashes helps too; but makes it much heavier to move.  What are you planning to fuel it with---Coal or Charcoal?

[Michael Cochran]

I've seen it done before and have a couple sinks layin around but have yet to try it. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/how-to/a4087/how-to-make-a-forge/

[dagr8tim]

Sink works fine if you do a nice V cut on opposing sides so you can get long stock into the hotspot.  Building up the bottom with creek clay and ashes helps too; but makes it much heavier to move.  What are you planning to fuel it with---Coal or Charcoal?

Charcoal.

 

I've seen it done before and have a couple sinks layin around but have yet to try it. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/how-to/a4087/how-to-make-a-forge/

Thanks, that's alot of what I was thinking.  I've done brake drum forges in the past.  I'm just looking for something a bit bigger. 

[ThomasPowers]

Extra depth helps in charcoal if you have the sides shaped so you don't waste it and it funnels down automatically. IIRC Weygers book has a picture of an adobe charcoal forge designed that way that he saw smiths in a 3rd world country using.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Popular mechanix has done two articles (about 50 years apart) on just such a forge. Tho as non smiths they mised the boat, for a bottom draft extend a pipe up and fill the bowl with sand or adobe to raise the floor of the forge so as to place the center of the fireball level with the sink rim. Simply by placing the aproriate length of 2" pipe and placing a 2" cap with a 3/4" hole in the top will do. Pack sand or adobe around it to make the extensian air tight and hold it in place. The cap acts as a bullet grate, slag slides off and formes a "donut" around it that can be lifted out.  This is a coal forge. For a charcoal forge one might want a bathtub, run the tuyeer threw the overflow, fill the entire tub with sand or adobe, quick and dirty forge with a 2 1/2x5' work table. 

Edited July 26, 2015 by Charles R. Stevens

[dagr8tim]

I'm not opposed to coal.  I just have no experience with it.  I like the sand idea.  That's sorta what I was getting at with the lava rock question.

[Craig Tallant]

Okay stupid question alert... I am brand new to researching making a forge .. I am more of a visual learner so reading all these posts sometimes leaves my eyes crossed and I gain little .. in regards to the sink forge .. I plan on starting with a small forge to play with and learn the attributes of the metal and etc .. was thinking of crafting chisels and other small simple shaped tools and the like .. can I not just clean up the sink and use refractory cement to line the whole thing .. or am I thinking too simple?  Again .. just beginning and intending on starting out small.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Its just that botom blast isnt ideal for charcoal, if i choke the air down to the right level i get the hot spot about 3 1/2-4" above the tuyeer with either forge desighn, and a 6-7" fire ball. You cant lay extra fuel around like you do with coal, you have to contain the fuel to the fire bowl and add more in the form of charcoal or live embers. Some botom blasts will alow you to ad raw wood and "coke" it but they are inherantly fuel hungry. 

Thinking too hard. Adobe (10-33%clay and the remander sand) works just fine, then again so will sand and ash. 

Edited July 27, 2015 by Charles R. Stevens

[Frosty]

Okay stupid question alert... I am brand new to researching making a forge .. I am more of a visual learner so reading all these posts sometimes leaves my eyes crossed and I gain little .. in regards to the sink forge .. I plan on starting with a small forge to play with and learn the attributes of the metal and etc .. was thinking of crafting chisels and other small simple shaped tools and the like .. can I not just clean up the sink and use refractory cement to line the whole thing .. or am I thinking too simple?  Again .. just beginning and intending on starting out small.

Welcome aboard Craig, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance.

No, you're WAY OVER THINKING it with refractory cement. Simple is finding an old kitchen table, piling a foot of dirt in a mound a couple feet wide and dishing a V trench or crater a few inches deep in it, laying a piece of pipe across the lip of the crater or in one of the trench. Hook your air supply to the outside end of the pipe and you have your forge.

A nice wooden box works a treat and when finished you can just dump the dirt out to take it home. ONCE THE FIRE IS O-U-T!!

A forge's only purpose is holding a fire, if it's flammable or susceptible to heat a little something for insulation is all it needs, a few inches of damp clay rammed tight works a treat.

The best feature of a two tub sink is the second tub, you can keep water in it or extra fuel or ice and sodas. Darned handy that second tub, yes sir-ee.

Frosty The Lucky.

[dagr8tim]

Okay stupid question alert... I am brand new to researching making a forge .. I am more of a visual learner so reading all these posts sometimes leaves my eyes crossed and I gain little .. in regards to the sink forge .. I plan on starting with a small forge to play with and learn the attributes of the metal and etc .. was thinking of crafting chisels and other small simple shaped tools and the like .. can I not just clean up the sink and use refractory cement to line the whole thing .. or am I thinking too simple?  Again .. just beginning and intending on starting out small.

I'm by no means an expert, but this is what I am picturing in my minds eye.  A simple angle iron box to sit it on and you're cooking.  Here's a simple (not to scale) diagram of my understanding of the setup.

If I'm missing anything, hopefully somebody with more experience will set me straight.

[Charles R. Stevens]

That set up works for coal, i suggest changing your tuyeer to a single 3/4" hole in the center, and making a bowl about 6-7" across around the tuyeer. Leaving it proud as you have so if you use coal or exeptinaly dirty charcoal (nails and sand) the slag will find its way down below the air

As Glenn pointed out in his 55 forge series 2" exast tubing works just as well as 2" pipe (exept for the bulet grate) and has the sdvantage of easaly addapting an exast flaper as a ash door (just add a counterweight to keep it closed) one also needs a valve or sliding gate to controle air if your bower cant be regulated with a reostat

[ThomasPowers]

Dagr8tim  in Columbus Ohio go talk with Adlai and Terry over at the Idea Foundry about forges and smithing; tell them that Thomas Powers sent you. (Ask Adlai about the time he made a forge from a semi brakedrum!)  Start going to the SOFA meetings---we used to carpool from Columbus to Troy to hold down the cost of going.

[dagr8tim]

Dagr8tim  in Columbus Ohio go talk with Adlai and Terry over at the Idea Foundry about forges and smithing; tell them that Thomas Powers sent you. (Ask Adlai about the time he made a forge from a semi brakedrum!)  Start going to the SOFA meetings---we used to carpool from Columbus to Troy to hold down the cost of going.

Thomas, I took a blacksmithing class at CIF many years ago, and Adlai is the one that got me interested in smiting.  Infect he lives about a mile and a half from me.

If you are talking about the Terry, I am thinking of.  I used to work with him.  He talked me through setting up my aluminum smelting/melting furnace.

[Craig Tallant]

okay, I have read over the 55 forge concept and it is really very simple .... but I still think I am going with the sink idea for this reason .. I have almost all the material including a large sink about 20 feet away in my shed and with the 55 forge I would have to go out and either buy a drum or scout one out .. for me the simple way is to just use the sink.. I really like this idea in the pic .. it is the concept I have been really looking for.  If anyone can find any flaws or have any ideas for improvement they would be appreciated.  

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

Over kill/ over complicated/ mor trouble than its worth. Honest, run a pipe up threw the hole in the bottom to with in 4" top and place a 2" pipe cap with a 3/4 hole in the middle. Fill in up to about an inch bellow the top of the cap. Fill in around the hole to form a bowl. All the way to the top for charcoal or about an inch from the too for coal. Hybred is to build a rim around the bowl so as to hold charcoal and to provide a place to hold extra fuel for coal. Sand and ash work great, as dose adobe ( about a third clay and the rest sand, sand and silt or sand and ash) brake drums are a PITA. They certainly work but its a lot of work for the gain. With a sink just use make a duck nest. Why fight with brick and a brake drum?

[Craig Tallant]

so basically what Dagr8tim was planning but with a lipped bowl ( and your pipe specifications)  ... This got me thinking .. if clay is just as efficient for a firepot/bowl as metal what is the attraction to metal firepots/bowl

?

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Brake rotors work better than drums, as they are shallower.

Why the fascination with metal forges - that is what the internet says you need 

But seriously, look at what third world country smiths use for a forge. They use a lot of clay based materials. It gets down to if you want it portable, or more stationary as to how you build it. I have vintage cast iron forges... Why?  Because they were either given to me, or they ran around $75 complete, and ready to go.

55 gallon drums are pretty easy to find , if you know where to look. The main concern is what they held, and if there is any left in it. I have seen drums for sale at a food plant by the pallet load, $4 each.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Portability, a all steal/cast iron forge is a lot lighter than a box full of dirt. A box full of dirt is cheap, and easy to fabricate. 

I belive the original "brake drum forges were based on old model "A" or model "T" drums with riveted in hubs. No need to fabricate a plate and bold a pipe flange to it. Mobile home and trailer breakdrums give you the same deal but the pot is just to big for Effecency. 

As to the "55" forge. The drum is just the container. Glenn is trying to show you how simple forge building can be. A meatal drain pan from Autozone will work, a sink or wastup full of dirt, a wodden box, a big flower pot,etc. 

in the tread about how much air a forge needs Glenn posted an exert from an old manual showing the relationship between the tuyeer size and deapth below the table for a coal side draft forge. For charcoal just use the 3/4" specs. Futher more in Everything Mac's thread about another portable thread Alan added a very nice illistration of a side blast forge cutaway. 

With thise two peices, one is on their way. I find that placing two hard fire bricks in the middle of the pan keeps you from digging down to far and burning up your box when remaking your fire (Alan i belive recomended this) i also find that either welding a plate an the end of your tuyeer of in my openion making a belows stone

 

 

 

Out of two fire bricks by cuting a notch between them so that there is 1" between the bottom bricks and the tuyeer (you need this space for slag, but if you don't have a way to keep it from geting under the tuyeer its a PITA) a water cooled Tuyeer has a large face and this isnt needed.