JHCC

As chronicled elsewhere, I've been experimenting with forging in a charcoal-fired rivet forge with a fairly deep duck's nest built up from clay and sand. Here's what it looks like right now: I've been having a hard time getting a good fire that will get steel up to forging temperature in any reasonable amount of time; I have this weird feeling that I shouldn't be spending only a tenth of my time actually hitting metal. So, in reading around IFI, I see a lot of recommendations that side-blast is a lot better for charcoal than bottom-blast, which is the current setup. Part of me is toying with the idea of tearing the clay out and building some kind of piping arrangement to convert it from bottom-blast to side-blast, something like this: (Not to scale. The crosshatching indicates clay, and isn't intended to indicate the actual profile of the firebowl. I'm open to suggestions there, too.) I'm thinking that if I do this, I can pipe the air directly from the blower to the tuyere, bypassing the ash dump, which is leaking air anyway. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks, Frosty. I think I'm going to post this over in the Solid Fuel section to see what folks there might suggest. By the way, speaking of charcoal and rocks in fires, the last time I fired up the forge, I found an egg-sized chunk of sandstone mixed in with the charcoal. Glad I was breaking up the lumps into smaller pieces; I don't like to think what would have happened if it had gotten into the fire. (Although I suppose that if it went through the charcoal making process, it was probably already pretty dry.)

Fired up again last night. Real bear getting a fire up to forging temperature; not really sure what the issue is. Part of me is toying with the idea of tearing the clay out and building some kind of piping arrangement to convert it from bottom-blast to side-blast, something like this: (Not to scale. The crosshatching indicates clay, and isn't intended to indicate the actual profile of the firebowl. I'm open to suggestions there, too.)

Yowza. Good deal. Enjoy!

Sorry, too busy; I have to go iron my smithing shirts.

Hey, at least I'm not still using a flip phone.

Who irons their smithing shirts? (I know the armourers smith iron shirts.)

This evening, a hot hardie in progress popped out of the vise grips and smacked me in the belly, in contact just long enough to scorch my T-shirt. Might be time to invest in an apron. And better vise grips.

And you know this why...?

Resin is the traditional filling for hollow handles on steel-bladed knives in fine silverware. (I know this from a memorable incident with a dishwasher.)

No. Even the dark brown paste waxes won't impart much color if they're rubbed out properly. If you're looking for a wax finish that will give some color to the steel, think black shoe polish. Remember, the color will be a microscopically thin film over the surface, not a change in the color of the metal itself.

Solid or hollow? If hollow, a BBQ grill. Or a birthing ball for the pregnant blacksmith in your life. If solid -- well, start building a cannon.

Sulfur had the unusual property that it expands slightly as it hardens; hence the uses noted above as locking anchors into rock, etc.

I'm not seeing the photos in the original post. Is this an issue at my end, or are they gone for good?

Yesterday, I was smoking a rack of ribs when it occurred to me that once the aromatic smoke compounds cook out of the wood, the charcoal that's left isn't providing anything beyond heat. If you're cooking low and slow, you don't really need all that heat. So, before each addition of more wood, I started scooping out most of the coals, quenching them with water, then setting them aside to drain and dry in the sun. By the time the meat was done, I had enough for a short forging session. Efficient? Nope. Sufficient to meet all my charcoal needs? Hell, no. Did it get the job done for now? Yup. Will I need to make myself a retort eventually? Yeah, probably. (Is Frosty going to give me crap for overthinking? Chances are good. ) And when the time does come to build a retort, I think I'm going to try to make one with a smoking chamber attached....

The good news is, you have a template for checking future work. The bad news is, those checks are going to be kind of painful.

Some heavy gauge wire makes a nice tool rack.

What sold me on the idea of the rounding hammer was something I read somewhere along the lines of "Hot metal behaves like modeling clay. Think of the rounding hammer as a giant thumb." Looking forward to seeing how that works out in practice.

Hey, at least they used something with a removable lid!

And after grinding. I've never used a rounding hammer before; does this look like a decent profile?

The local flea market yielded a couple of hammers for ten bucks. The bigger one is a 3#-ish True Temper engineer's hammer that I plan to turn into my first rounding hammer.

D'oe!

Well, if we're talking about goats now, I'll need to talk to my nanny.

Flagging is marking the back of a sheep or lamb with a colored grease crayon, to show which ones have received their medicine. Hence "drenched".