Bumping this to once again thank everyone! With all your advise I got my forge working wonderfully! Definitely was hot enough. I wasn't leaving enough coals on the bottom in my initial attempt and it was taking so long to heat that I thought I was doing something wrong. (Of course I was) After reading your posts I actually was surprised at how much faster the metal got to working temp. In fact it surprised me it worked so quickly that I melted a piece on the first spike I put in there. Learned something right there as well.
I made my first knife today and although it's not close to perfect it was a great practice run in which I learned a lot from the hands on aspect. And man am I loving it!
Thanks everyone and happy forging!