dwr435

No i havent tried coal but may since i saw someone from here sells it in pittsboro nc which is like 20 mins form me, how much corn do you go through in a sesion? how deep of fire do you use with corn?

I used cowboy charcoal from lowes, and then just topped it with corn, to form a crust like coke. then feed charcoal and corn into the fire when i pull out the work. this was only my second try with solid fuels. but corn seems to work pretty well

Has anyone tried using a combo of charcoal and corn and do you think it helps?

I tried it today to test the second phase of my forge build and it seems to have worked well. I built a charcoal fire and then topped with corn, let it coke up and make a dome shell arround the fire, and then fed the fire through the "door" whenever i replace the project in the fire. Used plain clay bricks to build up side temporarily to get a deeper fire, fire bricks are hard to find around here have to order online probably. Seems like i used alot less fuel this time then my first test. But i also fixed my air flow issues getting my hands on some 2 inch iron pipe and an old hair dryer. Let it get too hot a few times and burned up some metal. Will line the fire pot on deck next week with the portland mix to get a better table and less of a heat sink.

Basic set up is, brake rotor fire pot, lawn mower body for table, hair dryer into, dryer vent tube into 2 inch iron pipe, shower drain cover over air inlet

plan to cut a pass through area to get work lower in the fire easier and get longer stock in, and line it with portland and sand mix

thanks for the tips so far, any info is always greatly appreciated

dave

Would you use a side or bottom draft for corn? And how much air, like charcoal or more ?