Strongback

Glenn, that's so obvious once you say it. Can't put water on the fire? Put the fire in the water.

Doh! All that writing and I didn't bother to mention that it was a new coal fire. The cracking pot thing was what I was worried about. So, without a forced airflow, coal will just go out? I burn a lot of wood and charcoal but this was my first coal fire and I didn't know if, once started, it would go out on it's own or would continue to burn all of the remaining fuel until it was all smoke and ash.

Thanks HK, I've read all of the blueprints. Though I've just got my forge built I've already used information from this site a couple of times. As for paper vs. o/a, is there a particular reason why a torch isn't favored? Call me lazy but I even use a propane torch to light the fire in my fireplace and for my barbeque/grill. Not that I can't get it going by other means (just for fun I experiment with starting fires by means of anything from a bow and drill to a magnesium block with flint) I use the torches because it's the fastest easiest thing I've found, aside from accelerant of course.

I've been lurking around here on and off for the better part of a year now and haven't felt compelled to post either because I don't know the first thing about blacksmithing or because the numerous questions I have, have all been asked and answered. Well, last night, I finished building my very first forge. I built it into what used to be my welding table by cutting a 14" hole in the top and dropping in half of a cast iron roller of some sort. I'm not exactly sure what it was but the end that I used was big, heavy, bowl shaped, had a 3" hole in the bottom and made of cast iron so now it's a forge pot. Anyway, some 2" ID pipe, and a hair dryer (I tried my shop vac but it's WWWwaaaayy to much air and restricting the flow was too much trouble.) an industrial fan for ventilation, an oxyacetylene torch to get it lit and... "It's Alive". I was only lighting it to see: 1) If it would light. 2) Would the airflow be effective 3) How hot would it get 4) How much smoke would it make. I got answers to all of my questions in about 10-15 minutes of piddling around with the set-up. It lit, the airflow, once I switched from the ridiculously over powered shopvac to hairdryer, was adequate but will of course require a bit of tweaking, it turned a piece of 3/8 round bar into a sparkler in just a couple of minutes (I didn't time it but it seemed plenty fast to me) and even with an exhaust fan a foot or two from the forge I'll need to either make a hood or do all of my smithing out doors. As I said this took all of 10-15 minutes and I was done for the night. That's when the question and the whole point of this post occured to me. I learned from you good folks how to build a forge, start and manage a fire, where to place a workpiece in the fire and a lot of other things. The one thing I didn't get from you and I haven't been able to find searching the site is...How do you put your fires out when you're done?