capnroo

if i were in north carolina, i would be trying to find coal.

search the site yet? and mine is 5 inches deep. seems like its going to be too deep, but i cant say for sure since i havent figured out how to get my corn burning right yet...

Tanngrisnir (Old Norse "teeth-barer, snarler"), andTanngnjóstr (Old Norse "teeth grinder")

google search is wonderful lol. just not for corn forging...grr.

Mjolnir is the spelling. (m is silent). aah ok, so the black clumps left over this morning probably still contain energy... Ill have to try again once i get my air supply in better operation.

I just had it sitting in front of it. I figured it would be enough to just get the corn burning,just to see if it would, in fact, work. I'll have to go ahead and work on my tuyere some more, then. Like I said, I jumped the gun because I was excited lol. The coal bed was hot enough to get a piece of 3/16 round brass cherry red, though. (Small victory) :)

This is the blower. My plant manager said to take it home, it was taking up space. Apparently, the guy had brought it up here to "fix" it but hadnt gotten around to it. I hooked it up, and it didnt come on. I rested my hand on it, and could feel the motor trying to pull. A couple squirts of WD-40 to where I thought the bearings should be, and it was blowing like a champ. however, it got weaker after I unplugged it, moved it to where my forge was, and plugged it back in. I may have to take it apart and grease the bearings.

Also, I kind of jumped the gun and bought some corn to burn. I set my weakened blower in front of my tuyere and turned it on. i was getting a pretty good draft through my air hole. I built a good bed of pallet wood coals in the bottom of the forge and added the corn to it. the corn did nothing but smolder and clump together. Am I doing something wrong? Need alot of airflow? Need to get the pallet wood coal bed hotter? what is the best way to get a corn fire started? Or is this just some kind of blacksmith joke? lol 

I fired a guy from work about 3 months ago. He had brought a small blower fan to work a year ago, but didn't take it home with him... I wonder how long it has to be on shop property before it can follow me home? Lol

Will do, Thor. I just wish I had the afternoon free to finish it up. I hate waiting lol.

Thanks, Thor. I will likely end up with a setup like that.

thomas, I dont have a 'blower', as such. ill probably just use a hair drier until ive gotten more advanced with everything. either that, or a squirrel cage blower. Im not really sure yet.

Ok, I can do that. I should be able to find some clay bricks to close it up with fairly inexpensively. Ill probably be able to get some corn and experiment with it this weekend. If I get a break from my afternoon farm work, maybe sooner. As for the ash dump, Ill just go with the "T" design you were talking about.

ash/clinker grate. Do you think that 2 pieces of diamond-shaped expanded metal criss-crossed would melt through under working temp?  

thanks, charles. I was looking at it when I cut the pipe in half and thought "man, that looks like it would be alot of coal in there". so, what youre saying is that its not, right?

and as far as the table goes, I have a huge metal table frame that I am going to use, hang the forge on one side of it and put a plate of metal on the other half. that way i will have about a 3foot square work area. Ill take pics when I can, which will probably be tomorrow afternoon.

thanks for the info on the ash situation. 1 question- wouldnt I lose half of my air flow if its just a "T" ? shouldnt there be some kind of angle to the pipe that my blower is attached to?

uggh, I did not think about that. maybe Ill cut the elbow off and fab up a weld sealed box at the end of the vertical pipe with the horizontal pipe coming in at a 90degree?

thanks for the criticism. does everything else look ok? And I just read some interesting threads about using corn for fuel. I think Ill buy a bag and try it out as soon as I get an afternoon off.

THANKS FOR THE INFO! I am going to try some corn as soon as I can run by the feed store! Also, I would like to mention that crisscrossed expanded metal may be a decent grate to use in your air hole although, I'm not sure whether it would burn through or not.

Ok, hopefully these pictures uploaded correctly. Most of these are during the manufacturing process, and there are 1 or 2 that are the finished forge sitting on saw horses. the only thing that I did not take pictures of is the grate I made to go over the tueyre hole. also, I have welded in the crack around that hole. 

I found a large table frame made from tubing in the woods behind my workplace, and the plant manager said I could have it. I plan on mounting the forge to the frame on one side and welding a large piece of plate to the unused end to form a workbench right next to the forge itself! Let me know if you cant view the pictures above.

Also, any suggestions are still welcome. :)

Is there a way to add pictures from a mobile phone to my posts? I'm about halfway done building now and want to post a few.

I didn't try the feed n seed store ... about how much does a loaded 55gal drum weigh??? I may have to use charcoal in the long run if the wiregrass coal is too expensive. At least I have a starting point now, though. I live with my mom n dad because of a lengthy and expensive divorce, so it's really up to them if I can make charcoal lol. xxxx lawyer bills... ugh.

The tubing is meant to be the forge. I am just beginning, so my first projects will be tools, such as tongs, hotcutter, etc. eventually I would like to be able to make knives, etc. but I will be focusing on the basics of smithing with this forge, so I will build a purpose-built forge later on or modify this one if this one doesnt cut the cheese.

Quick question- is there a standard or time tested size for the teuyere hole to be? (im pretty sure im spelling teuyere wrong, please bear with).

I plan on building a coal forge out of a piece of 10.5inch O.D. 3/4inch wall tubing 12inches long. My plan is to cut the tubing in half and weld endpieces on each end, then cut a hole in the bottom for the tueyere (air pipe). then, build a stand for it at whatever height should be comfortable. It should end up looking like a pipe grill without a top half on it. Are there any reasons this design would not or should not work? Does anyone have suggestions? if so, shoot away!

Update- I got in touch with Cliff Ohlenburger from the Alabama Forge Council. He is going to send me an email with directions to the Wiregrass region monthly meet in Enterprise, Alabama. They have coal available to members, and membership is only $25/year (I believe thats what he said). I will join the group reguardless. If the coal price is fair, I will be going the solid fuel route. I will update everyone on the price as soon as I can after the meeting, which is on the third weekend of the month in Enterprise.

Thanks to all who have replied to my posts and bared with me. You have all been very helpful! I am going to begin building a solid fuel forge this afternoon after work!

i will post a thread on what I have in mind for a forge setup shortly. I plan to modify the gas forge which I had begun building.

Again, thanks to all!

If all else fails, you can always make charcoal. Lots and lots and lots of charcoal. 

 

Put some holes on bottom of a 55 gal drum, stand on cinderblocks, light a fire in the bottom. Add wood. Add more wood. (preferably hardwood, but scrap wood'll work, just less dense.) Prop lid open a couple of inches with a brick, a rock, or as the side of the MRE wrapper famously says, "or something".

 

When the smoke (and there's a lot of it at first) dramatically changes color/more or less goes away in about an hour- ish....., shut top, take off of cinderblocks. Put cinderblocks on lid. Don't get burned by hot can or flames shooting out of bottom, especially while taking off the cinderblocks. (alternately, can dig a hole under it instead of propping up, then cover edges later).  Spread sand around the bottom edged to prevent air getting in. And wait a day to open. If it relights on opening, soak it with water.

 

Even if you only end up with around 15 gallons, it's easy to do, and adds up fast. Made around 90 gallons that way this summer for a bloom. Easy peasy. Very little smoke in da forge. Even in a coal fire, I like to toss in a handful over the paper when I light it to get it started easier. Don't like my way, lots of other fun ones floating around the site and the interweb. Retorts are fun too.

If I cant find any good sources of coal, Ill look into making charcoal. I have heard that it's you normally  put more energy into making charcoal than you get out of it in the forge. But, if there are no other feasable options, I will go with it. thanks for the reply, man. Just wondering- with you being in marietta, do you have trouble coming across the black stuff???

Rusty, that's a great idea! We have a station that does phone ads from noon to 1:00, so I'll try them on lunch break. Thanks for the reply!

Around here it doesn't get cold enough often enough for a "heating system", but I'm sure some CSX guys will be listening, or someone else that may know something. :-)

Dsw. My common sense when hauling a huge load is to not drive faster than 15 or 20mph lol.

Frosty -I have a friend who is a farrier. He says everyone around here uses gas. I have done yellow pages also. I will now add my location to the header if I can. Although, I thought south Alabama coal was general lol.

I left the guy from the alaforge websites wiregrass region a voicemail earlier, but he hasn't called back yet. I'll call him again tomorrow.

You researched for weeks but the top item I got when I googled "blacksmith organization" was the ABANA homepage;..

never searched for organizations. My search terms were "where to buy coal in south Alabama", "Coal Supplier Alabama" etc.

Check out the Alabama Forge Council site I've linked below. Their is a list of all the local forge council groups around the state on the Contact Us page. I was able to buy coal at the Phenix City forge in July and they may still have some available. It was $18 for a 50lb bag at the time. Their may also be a forge closer to you that has coal to sell. Call and see. Good luck! 

 

 

http://www.alaforge.org/

Thanks for the Info, Neal. I will follow up ASAP!

There's the Bay Area Forge ~ Bill Williamson ( no relation ) is the contact. Sorry but I can't seem to find his info . He goes over to Mississippi occasionally to pick up coal for the group. Try getting his info from the Bicentinal Park in Stockton, and ask them when the next meeting is too !

When you say Stockton, you mean just north of Mobile, right? If so, that would be only an hours drive from me! I will definitely follow up on this info also!

Hahaha... Yeah most guys don't have a clue how much some stuff weighs. Good news is that most 1/2 and 3/4 "ton" pickups have actual load ratings well above the number values. Last time I looked even a small Ranger had a 2000 lb payload rating. You don't even want to know how much I've had loaded in the "small" 3/4 ton truck before we redid the suspension. I sort of ignore that sort of stuff since I bought the F550 work truck. You know your suspension is heavy duty when the guy at the roofing supply puts in 3 ton of shingles and then asks you what the suspension on the truck is, because the truck didn't even move when he sat it down. :P

 

Rough gestimate. I can get about 13, 5 gallon buckets of coal in a 55 gallon drum. Rough weight on a 5 gallon bucket is between 45-60 lbs. So figure a 55 gal drum weighs in at 600 to 800 lbs. 3 to 4 drums roughs out at about a ton. A 55 gal drum is about 7.3 cf so the math roughly works out right.

 

From a chart I found:

Anthracite coal :   1536 lb / cu yard.  .76 ton per yd.

Bituminous Coal : 1275 lb / cu yard.  .64 ton per yd.

Coke:                     837 lb / cu yard.  .42 ton per yd.

 

Typical skid steer bucket is between 1/3 to 1/2 yard heaped. A typical backhoe bucket is between 1 yd to 2 yards.

 

 

This site has some good rough numbers for bulk materials for those who aren't familiar with stuff like this. I'm often amazed at the kind of loads homeowners put on small trailers. I've seen loads of dirt on 7K and smaller trailers that would have gotten us red tagged by the DOT with the 6 wheel Mack.

 

http://www.harmonysandgravel.com/charts.htm

I find this funny because I have hauled my grampas F350 dually on a car hauler with my 1500 Dodge. I still give him XXXX  about it lol.

Thanks for all of the info, guys. I will follow up on everything that I can as soon as i get a free chance!

I don't even know what ABANA stands for. (Bout to look it up)

Just searched. I'll call them tomorrow on lunch break.

I'd love to go to that convention, but it's too far to drive on short notice...

I guess I'll have to make charcoal if nobody can chime in... and I couldn't find coal on my stretch of RR tracks. I hardly ever see coal cars come through here any more. Whereas when I was a kid, every train had at least 5 cars of the stuff ... I even called the local CSX office to see if they had any spills that needed cleaning up... no. Lol