Steve Voigt

Hi all, it's been a while, but I wanted to update my post with some good news--victory! I wanted to follow Twisted Customs and Thomas Powers' advice, and raise up the muffle pipe, but I already had the deep cutouts in the brake drum. I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I clayed the drum, inserting mending plates between the clay and the cutouts. That allowed me to raise the muffle pipe about two inches. I am not sure which made a bigger difference, the height adjustment or the clay--maybe you guys can tell me. But it is a big difference. In addition to getting plenty hot enough, fire management is easier--when the fire gets hollowed out, I just push a little and fresh coals slide down the sides of the cone to where they're needed. And, I'm probably using half the fuel I used before. It's like getting a free drink with a free meal. If anyone wants to waste 15 seconds of their life checking it out, I posted it on my Instagram feed, embedded below. Thanks again, so much, to everybody who helped out!

Hi guys, thanks for the feedback so far. Frosty, you're right of course, I meant muffle and somehow turned it into baffle. Frosty, I'm having a hard time picturing what you mean with the bricks. Are you saying I should build an enclosure around the brake drum with the bricks? Thanks again.

Hi all, I could use a little help here. I've been using the charcoal forge below, powered by a woodstove fan, for a couple years. It's a pretty big drum, 14" diameter, and the the inlet in the bottom is 2-1/2" pipe, so there's plenty of air and a good sized hot spot. I use this for heat treating woodworking tools and don't have much trouble getting up to critical temp. I decided to try adding a baffle, as shown in the pic. It's a piece of 2-1/2" sched. 40 with 1/4" plate welded to one end. I tried to heat up a planemaker's edge float (1/8" thick O1, and similar in size and shape to a knife). I was completely unable to get up to temperature. The best I could get was a dull red. After half an hour and half a bag of charcoal, I gave up, knocked out the baffle and just heated the work on the coals. Is there any way I can get things hot enough to make the baffle work with the set up I have? Or do I need to ditch the brake drum? Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks all.

Nick and Frosty, thanks for following up. Thanks to you guys, I think I've got a plan now: - bigger inlet for the firepot. - clay/sand mix to make an inverted pyramid in the pot. - a deck for charcoal reserve, build up the deck a little with the clay. That should be a nice improvement. Thanks again for the help! - Steve

Thanks for the replies. I will skip the inswool. A couple follow-up questions: - What is the recipe for fire clay? I see so many different mixes. Would something like 1/2 clay, 1/2 sand work? - Will increasing my pipe diameter to 2.5" (nominal) make a big difference? It's definitely true that the "hot spot" in my my fire seems to concentrated, so maybe as Nick says I have too much pressure and not enough volume? Thanks again!

Hi all, I would like to make some improvements to my charcoal brake drum forge, and I need some help. The drum is 13" diameter and 6" deep, so pretty big as drums go. It's bottom blast with 1.5" pipe and a grate. The air supply is a wood-stove fan, plenty of power, with a gate valve for control. I'm very happy with the air supply. Here's what I propose: 1) wrap a single layer of 1" inswool around the inside (1 ft. will be enough) and coat with...what? I'm not sure. But the coating will be applied heavier at the bottom, so the firepot becomes an inverted cone shape, rather than the straight cylinder I have now. 2) set the fire pot in the top of a 30-gallon oil drum (like the 55 forge). Because of the lip on the brake drum, it will sit about 1" above the top of the oil drum. So, I think I will need to build up the top of the oil drum about an inch (with ???), so I can sweep charcoal off the deck and into the pot, without having to negotiate it over the lip. My questions: 1) Is the inswool overkill? It's only $10 plus shipping for a foot, but if I don't need it, I'll save my money. 2) Do I need to coat the inswool (or just the sides of the firepot, if I skip the inswool) with satanate, or is there a cheaper or better alternative? 3) what should I build up the top of the oil drum with? 4) Finally, does this sound like a good plan? Will this improve my ability to get up to welding temps? Thanks in advance for any help! - Steve

Thanks very much for the advice everybody. I'm definitely going to try this out with some 1018 before I do the real thing.

Charles, How do you isolate the blade from the bolster?

Hi Thomas, Yes, a tanged chisel. I'm including a sample image below. Do you have any thoughts on forming the bolster? I have the Weyger book but haven't found anything on forging a bolster. Thanks for your help!

OK, thanks. Sounds like it is worth a try anyway. I will experiment with some 1018 before I go screwing up a piece of tool steel.

Hi Thomas, Thanks for replying. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't really asking about the dimensions--I worked that part out*--but about the technique, if edge-hammering will produce the desired result. But it sounds from your reply like think it will work, so that's encouraging. * (a 1/4 x 1 cross section has the same area as a 1/2 x 1/2 cross section, so the dimensions should work, and they are just approximate anyway.)

Hi all, Please forgive a stupid newbie question. Can you click on the image below and tell me if this is possible? If I take the bottom 2" of a piece of 1/4" x 1" stock, can I edge-hammer it into a square section roughly 1/2" x 1/2"? It seems like going the other way--taking a piece of 1/2 square stock and drawing out the top 6"-- would be much more labor intensive, but I don't really know that. The goal is to make a tang chisel with integral bolster, but I'm just trying to think about the first step. Thanks!

Frosty, thanks for the welcome and especially for the advice. I will try HT just before dark and see how that goes. I've updated my location; I think there are a lot of blacksmiths in this area.

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone. Frosty: I should have mentioned that heat treating is probably the number one thing I'm doing. Given that I can't work indoors, when should I do it? Right before dark? Thomas's point about working in the dark being dangerous seems like a good one. Also, thanks for the tip about dragging the work across the edge of the drum--I will definitely try that.

Hi Folks, First post here. I'm a woodworker and toolmaker, trying to learn some basic smithing so I can make my own plane irons and other types of cutters for woodworking tools. This summer, I built the simple little forge pictured below, and have had a lot of fun getting my feet wet with it. I have a question that I haven't found the answer to; sorry if this is already posted somewhere else. What is the best time of day to forge outside, in terms of light and being able to see the colors most accurately? Working inside is not an option for me. Should I actually work at night, or at sunset, or ? The question came up because yesterday I was working during the day. It was cloudy, but still somewhat bright. I had a really hard time seeing colors accurately, and I probably got things hotter than I should have. Oh well. Anyway, thanks in advance for any answers. I have already learned a ton here, just from lurking. - Steve