jayco

Chris, welcome to Iforgeiron! As to your question: Yes, you can forge with wood. The main problem with wood as a fuel is that , like a campfire, it puts out a lot of radiant heat. It's not so much a problem in winter, but in summer it can make forging an unpleasant experience. There is another option: to burn the wood down into charcoal.......and then use the charcoal as your forge fuel. There threads and blueprints on IFI that show you how. I prefer making the charcoal : less radiant heat, less smoke, and a more predictable fuel. As to finding coal, there are a bunch of Ga. blacksmiths who are members of this site and might be able to help. There is also a" list of coal suppliers " thread that might be useful. enjoy!

I think Irnsrgn and Coalforge have pictures in the gallery of corn being used as fuel. Also, if you use the 'search' feature at the top of the forums page and type in "corn,fuel" you will discover several threads where corn is discussed as a solid fuel.

Being that this thread is called 'cheap projects',........here's one of the cheapest I've come up with. I've been making these little Christmas theme 'outlines'. They're fun to make and really easy. As you can see from the pics, I'm not particularly artistic. I find it easy to go for the folk craft rustic look:) I made these with old metal coat hangers, welding rods, or what ever is handy. I give these away as gifts.......I sell them.......and right now I have orders for more of them that must, of course, be delivered before the holidays. One hint: I loop the stock back upon itself and shape both sides at once. Then just open up the two sides like a folded piece of paper. It makes left and right symetry much easier for me.

If you live in an older agricultural area, and can find them, the teeth from old horse drawn hay rakes are good steel. The square harrow teeth that were used before disc harrows were common are medium to high carbon steel.......depending on age and who made them. They make good punches and chisels.

Ron, welcome to Iforgeiron! I began 'dabbling' in blacksmithing as a way to fix stuff on the farm. I think a lot of other members have agricultural backgrounds as well. You'll find much in common with the folks here.... Enjoy!

Thomas, I will miss seeing your interesting and informative posts. Best of luck to you, Sir! James Flannery

One of the things I learned not to do on an anvil was to use the horn as a way to spread chain links and rings (at least not until I improved my aim with a hammer considerably.) When I first got my PW several years ago, the horn was already blunt, and I made it worse with poor hammer aim. I now use bicks for that sort of work.

bsiler, I like charcoal as a fuel. It actually starts easier and burns cleaner than most coal that I have seen. The big drawback is that it burns up quickly. When I'm lucky enough to find charcoal in the stove, I just sift out the ashes and use it. If I recall correctly, charcoal has about 1/5 the energy per volume as coal does. Pound for pound I think they have about the same heating potential. It's just that charcoal is somewhat lighter and fluffier than coal.

Nealj,there's nothing wrong with using bent nails. I think of them as 'small stock'. I don't see too many wrought iron or square nails here, but often find larger....say...#20 or # 30 nails in old barns and houses around here........Of course, these are the more modern 'mild steel' nails. When old barns are torn down and the scrap wood burned, there are usually bucketfuls of them to be collected. They can be used to make smaller rivets and.....square nails! One #20 nail will make 3 square nails(roughly equivalent to #8's) Another thing I discovered is that you can't just straighten them and use them.......especially after being in a fire..........they are far too soft for most uses. They must be packed(work hardened) by rehammering them into shape.....then they drive fine. I've used old #30 nails as links to repair smaller towing chains.

Good for you! James

Joseph, thanks for that tip on 'burnishing'........Just today I used the handles of an old pair of pliers.....rubbed a new handle I had made for maybe 5 minutes........came out slick and shiny! James

Mach2lou,there's a spray-on fire retardant for wood structures. I don't know the name or where to get it , unfortunately. A few years ago, an old wooden 'covered' bridge was restored near here. The restoration cost the historical society $750,000....a large project. As I remember, there was some concern about vandalism.........that someone might attempt to burn it down. The restorers sprayed an almost clear coating on the entire length of the 100+ ft. structure. The coating is all but undetectable. Unfortunately, that's all I know about it........

I had been using an assortment of 'cheapie' angle grinders for some years now....and going through a lot of the 'cheapie' grinding discs as well. Finally, all those 'cheapie' grinders sort of "gave up the ghost", and I bought a name brand grinder........not a real expensive one, just one with a name you would recognize. When I opened the box, I discovered there were 3 discs in there (same brand as the grinder).....and I thought "Gee, I'd better get some more discs....quick!" Funny thing is.....I haven't worn out the first disc yet.....even though I've done a lot of grinding with it. I guess that old saying is true.....You do get what you pay for! James

Chyancarrek, your advice to 'Never go and just start taking things' is excellent advice. My son does contract work (mowing, maintanance)for these cemeteries. Part of our work entails removing the older flower arrangements. We have permission. Sometimes these 'recycling' situations can get 'sticky'....... I once spotted a nearly new 55 gal. barrel in an illegal dumpsite in my community....right beside the roadway! I was out of the truck and halfway down the hill when I realized what it would look like if a law enforcement officer had happened along and seen me there. It would have been mighty hard to explain that i was there to pick up stuff and not doing some illegal dumping of my own! Oh, I held my nerve long enough to get the barrel.......but I don't do that kind of thing anymore:)

John W,I have one idea to try......don't know if it would work........to simply shovel some ashes(possibly dampened) onto the glowing bed of coals in the stove at the end of the day. I don't know if it would work, but an easy experiment to try. Larry M, thanks for the suggesting of using tin foil........should be effective at sealing out excess air.......and much cheaper than buying a bunch of the 'rope type' stove gasket material. Hmmm....would even be handy for sealing the lid on a charcoal 'burning barrel'!

ray-t, Nett had mentioned 'chairloc' earlier in the this thread. I'd never heard of it before. I haven't gotten or tried any of it yet, but it sounds like a logical solution. Quenchcrack, Yeah, that's kinda the same way I wedged my handles...except, sometimes I left out the second metal wedge........probably part of the problem. ONe thing I have noticed during this thread, is that no one else has chimed in and said they were having the same exact problem with loose handles........so I guess this is unique to me only! I've only had one hammer actually come completely off the handle while I was using it. I picked up one ball-pein and swung it about three times. On the fourth swing, the hammer head landed on the ground below the anvil. I felt it coming loose and aborted the swing. The rest of the 'loose' ones, I found on examination, that I could wiggle the hammer head on the handle........yet they've been quite stubborn about being removed from the handle. So although the handle through the 'eye' had shrunk, there was still enough flare on the wedged side to keep them from coming off. My temporary fix, has been to drive the wooden wedges deeper on my 3 or 4 main smithing hammers.

Archiphile, good job on the tongs! Now that you have basic tongs 'down', the real fun begins when you realize that with a simple modification here and there.......you can make bolt tongs,v-bit tongs, link tongs, goose neck tongs, scrolling tongs, as you need them Before you know it, you will have a collection of your own tongs!

I have an old pot-bellied stove in my shop for heat during the winter months. Since I burn a considerable amount of firewood in it.....and I also like to make my own charcoal for the forge........why not sift the ashes from the stove and use the charcoal in the forge? The 'problem' is that the stove leaves little charcoal behind........99% of what goes in the stove becomes ash. This type of stove is not very airtight at all.......this one has no gasketing. It's almost the opposite of what is required for the making of charcoal.......a well sealed barrel to keep as much air out as possible. So, the question is, are there any easy modifications that would allow me to get more charcoal from it? I can always burn wood in a barrel outside and make charcoal.Just thinking maybe I could get the old stove to do 2 things at once...... What does everyone think?

Recently, I had my son go to the local hardware to purchase a 6 in stove pipe elbow. The elbows at the back of our woodburners take a lot of heat and have to be replaced every year. They pretty much 'burn-out'. So he comes back with a silvery shiny 6 in. elbow. I told him it was galvanized and we shouldn't use it. My son explained that they were out of the black ones and that the guy at the store said it would be alright. Against my better judgement, we proceded to install the elbow. As a test, I lit a fire in the stove. Within minutes,the unmistakeable smell of zinc was in the air.......We had to shut down the stove as best we could and open the doors and windows. We were forced to leave the house for quite some time. A while later, the fire had went out.......I replaced the galvanized elbow with a 'black' one, and everything was O K. The point of all this is that, the general public may not be aware of the dangers of zinc. And I have to wonder how many other folks have bought the 'shiny' stovepipe!

Great interview! Thanks to Glenn and Mr. Hofi!

Has anyone heard of throwing a couple empty soda cans in the fire as a way to get rid of creosote? That's one of the local wive's tales thats keep getting passed around during wood burning season. I don't really see how aluminum or aluminum oxide would do anything to creosote.

muddog13,welcome to Iforgeiron! Don't let a 'lack of tools' keep you from smithing. Nearly everything you need to get started can be improvised from available stuff, or you can make it yourself. A large chunk or iron can serve as an anvil A hammer.....well, you can find one of those.... Something to serve as tongs Something to hold a fire Something to use as fuel Blacksmithing is a GREAT journey! Enjoy!

Nesto, welcome to Iforgeiron! So you're only 10 years old? Wow! It's good to see young folks here. My grandson Chris (j4jiron) is 8 and is a member also. Glad to have you. (maybe if you tell Mami that you are 'learning stuff', maybe she won't be so angry:)

Nesto, don't use galvanized metal in your forge. Any time you heat up galvanized metal, it gives off dangerous fumes.

Nice work! The branded animal tracks definately give it 'appeal' for the hunting crowd!