Kardall

Hmm, I will have to measure for sure, but I am pretty sure that the depth is only around 2" and the tuyere is in the middle blowing up. I can't stack the coal that high and have a level insertion point without losing the ability to rest the work piece.

So I recently got my anvil, and I need to make a few tools. I want to make a hold-down for the Pritchel hole, because I only have two hands and I don't have long tongs yet. But I need to start making a couple of hardy tools.

The main one is a Fuller or a Cutoff tool. I started using the end of a railroad spike, and it was great. Problem is, is that I had to hit it carefully so as not to have it fly off the anvil cause I couldn't hold it down (no tongs  just vice grips). But I was messing around with it, and the railroad spike (canadian) is the same size *really close anyway* to my hardy hole in the anvil.

So I had an idea, if I just find a bunch (I have 3) of spikes, should I just square up the head, then upset the metal so I make a block that I can taper to go into the hardy hole and set it that way, or should I put the end in and weld right onto the head of the nail with whatever I want? Like maybe weld a 1/4" round to it or whatever for a swage, the other end of a railroad spike for a fuller or... whatever I need at the time.

Are there any cons to this like long term. Will it damage the anvil if it's loose. etc.

So, I have been working in my forge a little bit, getting used to it, and my dad asked me to try to bend/curl the ends of some angle iron for him.

I tried, and I found out that the actual firepot was so small I could barely heat up 2" of material at a time, in fact most of the heat was in about a 1" area and tapered off.

Attempting to figure out what is going on, I will try to explain it without pictures.

When I light the forge, I am using a ball of medium crumpled paper, and putting small pieces of coal on it to light. Once it gets going, I have an orange spot about 4", which is about the same size as the hole where the air comes up. My first thought was, how do I increase the diameter of the hot spot. Does it have to do with heat escaping out the top before it can heat up the surrounding coal? Is it because I am maybe burning the coal too fast, and it doesn't have enough time to catch the surrounding coal on fire before it burns away?

I have no idea Some insight would be helpful. I would like to be able to work on an area around 3" - 4" at a time

I am by no means a pro as is probably apparent. But...

I had a nylon bag lying around from a trade show, and I put some of the bigger pieces in, and then hit it lightly with a hammer to break them down into smaller pieces.

I found that putting the smaller pieces around, packed in better and kept the heat in longer as it burned. I then did not have to turn the blower as much as I used to, which meant that the oxygen was getting to the work piece, but more of the heat was staying inside the firepot area, and not escaping out the top.

The dimmer switch, I have seen people do that, and the other design I saw was just a valve that opened/closed or slid into the opening of the tube to restrict the flow of air. That works too. I am kind of lucky, as I have a hand crank blower, but also unlucky as if I want lots of air for some reason, then I have to crank it for a while HAHA

Day 2 Oct. 25th, 2015 - This was me live streaming on Twitch and I started to just focus more on simple smoothing of the surface on the other tool at lower temps, and as well trying to get more practice into feeding the fire properly and keeping it rolling along as I work. It was interesting, not too much accomplished other than knowledge.

Day 3 November 8th, 2015 - Big day. I wanted to start from scratch, working with smaller coal piece (helped immensely) and then make my first full fledged tool. I like to consider the first project as more of a learning experience on how to hit and finish and such, so it was time to actually make the first tool that I will use on a regular basis.

So I made my poker/scraper combination tool. I took the coil that you see in the first video, and un-coiled half of it and then cut it off past the start of the "U" part of the spring (flat part in the middle). When it was straightened out, it was about 14-16" long so I had a enough room on both ends to make one tool instead of the planned two. The spring is kind of narrow, so I didn't want to make it any narrower as I have big hands and anything smaller that I would have to use might get uncomfortable to hold. I chose this because though if I made two, I could make a handle (fold it over or loop with flattened end @45 degrees for push/pull motions) I just wanted a simple tool since I don't have anywhere to hang them while working at the moment, so one tool that does both jobs is all I needed for right now

I started by tapering one end to the point where it would go into the holes where the air comes out and go down about 1/2 an inch to clear blockages, and then smoothed it out so it was more rounded instead of 4-sided. Then I took the other end and about 3-4" of it, and flattened it out with the face of the hammer until it had a solid flat surface, then used the cross pein and tried to hit along perpendicular to the flat part, and try to spread it out.

My first mistake was not working from the end in. I should have. Going from the inner part and working out was kind of difficult since the end of the piece was still round and not flat on the anvil. So every time I hit it, it bounced around a lot. After the 2nd heat I was done the inner part, and 3rd and 4th heats were making the end the same thickness, straightening it out and making it a little smoother.

Then I bent it at a 90 degree angle right where it goes round, and the last 1 / 8" of the tip, I bent into a tiny crook at a slight angle so it acted like a 'scoop' so pieces would be stuck on the flat face of the scraper rather than rolling off the tip. It works pretty good actually. I am satisfied.

Ya, I am going to attach the rake to a stick or something. I worked on it for a little bit today, but I was really just trying to fix the bottom part of it so it was wider to curve around a dowel or something else later on.

I have access to so much of that spring steel. This farmer that I got the forge/anvil from has a shed with probably 50-100 springs like that + misc. pieces from farm equipment over the years. It just sits there, so he said I can come take it when i need it  yay 

I thought about the coal, making it smaller. I will try that next time. Right now I was trying to get some smaller pieces for starting up during the week.

October 24th, 2015 - Saskatchewan Canada

For the last few years I have lurked this site, I have read and I have dreamt. Well today, I got my coal in the forge I fixed up, and I have actually fired it and hit some metal!

It has been about 6 months in the making to this stage, from organizing what I am going to need, securing products/base tools, and getting to it.

I did a recording of my first day and put it on my youtube, so if you want, you can check it out

The forge was sitting outside in the bushes on a farm here for over 40 years, and had rusted away in the middle of it, but there was enough steel around it that we could utilize something to bolt to it and make things work again.

We took an older heavier gauge steel drum lid and cut a circle out of it. Then drilled through the center of it 5 times to where the blower intake was.

Bolted everything together.

As you can probably hear from the blower, it has some kind of rattle, and that's probably due to being well used and being left outside. We did manage to take the cover of the gearbox off, and the fan blade housing. It was clear and the gears were still really well greased, so I am not 100% sure on what the actual cause of it is. It does rattle, but not all the time, it just did it bad in the video cause it knew I was recording...

The only tools I have right now, are a pair of vice grips, a really small ball pein hammer that is just far too small for what I am doing, but it is going to have to do until I can get a 2lb hammer or so.

The anvil has no markings visible other than the markings from inspectors etc, that they all do, but I figure it's around 30-40lb anvil. There are a lot of chips around it, and I will probably be putting some pictures up to see if someone can help me out with it, if there's anything I should fix on it. The edges on the top seem pretty good in most parts so I think it'll be good for now. The base it is on is metal, and I wasn't happy with it. It isn't bolted to the ground (Is it going to hurt the vibration back into the work piece if I put it on the ground outside so it doesn't jump around?

That piece I made, I am going to use it until I can actually make proper tools, but I have to get good at working with the coal forge. I have been researching it and I think I was doing it wrong. I burned through almost 1/3 of a 5lb bucket of coal. I think it was in too big of chunks, and I was just feeding the coal right into the fire, instead of converting it to coke first :/ But you live and learn.

I was given two 5lb buckets from a friend who heats his house, so I know it's not the right stuff, but I think it'll help me get started and at least make the basic tools.

If there is any questions or comments/suggestions please leave them here. I will be checking and updating this as I go.

This is really intriguing. I have seen the induction stoves on TV and such, so this works similar to that. So when the machine runs, and no metal is in it, they are cool to the touch?

I live in a 4-Plex without a patio or anything, but I do have a garage for storage. I am not even allowed to store a BBQ in the garage (Propane tanks are a no-no apparently), so I can't really have a coal forge, because it would take forever for the heat to come down.

This might be the answer to my problems!

I am going to have to watch and wait like the others I guess :D