That's kind of what I did!
Well I built my forge from an old disc brake mounted on a 55gal drum with a shop vac as a blower(using a dimmer switch for regulation of speed) the setup only cost me about $35 for the plumbing parts at Lowes, then I found the coal locally for around $7.50 for 50#.bags. So the forge costs little to build (assuming you have some things laying around)
RKS