JHCC

Too much hassle. I’ll leave gaps front and back as passes-through.

Found some thin flat stock in the drop bin at the steel supplier and decided to go with that. Here it is with two short bits bent off the long side. I’ll trim it up and weld it on some time in the next couple of days, along with two shorter pieces to go front and back on the left.

New sideblast with water tuyere and bosh:

Very nice! Is that standard brick or firebrick?

Why would you put a handle on a belt sander? Okay, joking aside, it looks like you’ve overheated the very end and ruined whatever heat treatment may have been there. That’s going to need to be redone before you put a handle on. What steel did you use, and how do you plan to attach the handle?

It's an anvil.

I stopped watching his stuff a while back, after he (in my opinion, at least) shifted his emphasis from education to entertainment. Not to denigrate his forging skill or business model (videos of him making swords and such obviously get more views); it's just that I found his earlier stuff had a lot more teaching value and a lot less dramatic music and camera work.

Yes, and yes.

Yes: it's a waste of money. Refractory cement is basically good for one thing: sticking together other materials that have to withstand heat. It's not a good flame face, and it's not a good insulator. In a JABOD, the dirt/mud/sand/kitty litter/whatever both forms the firebowl and insulates the box from the heat. If your box is big enough (that is, a bare minimum of 2-3" of dirt between the fire and the wood; more is better), you'll be fine.

Socratic. The Platonic method is all talk and no action.

A local guy is selling off his business, which got me this nice DeWalt 7” angle grinder (with some discs and accessories) for fifty bucks. First order of business is to PUT THE GUARD BACK ON!!

Welcome to IFI, Daguy. If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

EPILOGUE After over a year of yeoman service, the JABOD has been retired and disassembled. It had a good life, and it taught me a lot. I will be forever grateful. While it is no longer in our midst, its fill and air inlet live on in my new side-blast, which is documented here:

Read these two threads, and if they don't answer your questions, we'll talk further: Oh, and when you have read those threads, start a new thread with the headline "Asking for advice on a JABOD-type forge" or something like that. Makes it easier for others to find if it's not buried in a thread on CFM recommendations.

Black pipe is a good option. Also, consider a side-blast rather than a bottom blast; the latter really needs a better clinker-management system than you'll achieve in a JABOD-type forge.

That's basically what Alec shows in the video where he makes the original of this forge: the base and top are separate monolithic casts, and the walls are firebrick.

There is really only one good answer.

Hello, and welcome to IFI. If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST! Looking at your forge photo, I have to say STOP RIGHT NOW!!! By the looks of it, that pipe may be chrome plated, and you would be putting yourself at high risk of serious health issues if you put it anywhere near a fire. Look up the health effects of hexavalent chromium exposure if you don't believe me. That said, your forge is a step in the right direction. Look at the threads about JABOD forges in the Solid Fuels section for some ways you could make that into a really top performer.

It's "prusik", named for Austrian mountaineer Karl Prusik, its inventor.

Yes. In Latin, if there’s no other verb, you can assume the verb “to be”. Thus, “Art is long; life is short.” The original was in Greek, from Hippocrates. Geoffrey Chaucer similarly observed, "The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”

I found some more short pieces of bed rail angle while cleaning the shop, and it occurs to me that I could use that to both create a lip and extend the top a little bit.

Only on the dark side.

Where in CT? Your profile still says MD.

Going to have to ruminate on that one. It's rather ... Chewie.

This is definitely a one-person anvil. In other words, you'll be forging Solo.