Micah Burgin

True, I guess I'm not that pesky. I'm going to be drawing some stuff up for it.

Thanks guys!

I think that quote is one of my new favorites! And yeah, so far, spent $0 on it and forged about 3-4 hours. Nothing useful really came out other than a drifted hole which saved me a couple bucks instead of ruining a drill bit, so I'd say I've broke even so far! And of course, all else failing, I have many logs that could be anvils too.

Alright, since I'm running lump charcoal, the tuyere can just be about an inch over the bottom, correct? So like something like this: Air in-> -U and then surround that with a shelf and such? If so, I can get this put together easy. The bricks at the bottom are a kind of heat shield for the tuyere, so could they be rocks instead of bricks, or should I use cinder blocks (Closest thing to bricks I have right now) or hold out until I can make a hardware store run? And last question, I swear, I have some decent gauge sheet metal, could I make a riveted Tuyere just to save some money or should I really go for the Schedule 40? Also sorry about the weird quote thing, I think the forum just bugged out somehow.

Yeah I'm actually homeschooled, probably getting something closer to what you guys had. For example, I'm doing my lit in the background (Or rather, suffering) and have chemistry open to study from earlier, it's all ready to happen whenever.

I feel like you'd love my work bench, hahaha! And that's all I need for the info, I have some ash-y mud from making charcoal that'd go great with that design. I'll try it out today, hopefully I can run it by wednesday and show you guys my results. Just for clarification, about how deep is the fire pot in your design? Kind of hard to tell from the angle.

Ah yes, I very much am, too much information not enough exprience. And I found myself woefully underprepared for polynomials last year, College is going to be heck on earth.

I know, I know. And not even college yet, still down in the dumps of high school! Only two more years till I move on to the next money sink, eh?

Oooh, the possibilities. So, there's a type of stainless steel (T304) that has an interesting property of not responding to heat treating but work hardening incredibly well. Could make good anvil faces. But theory and reality and their incredible disparities.

True, though doesn't wrought iron (Original anvil stock) work harden well, or am I remembering things wrong?

ooh, that gives me an idea. If that's the case with sledges, and the spike anvil is a thing,. I have an eight pound splitting maul which we don't use at all. I could grind it down a bit so it's less likely to split the log upon repeated hits, and it should work fine. And I'll look at bigger sledges at Harbor freight, the steel for their hand tool heads is surprisingly good

Sounds great to me! Just to be clear I suggested that the design was scalable, not that it needed to be 5', haha! I honestly don't want to make swords that much, so anything works as far as a forge for me. And side blast sounds good. I have an old fire pit lid, I'll post some pics so we can plan something based on that as its center.

Yeah I think I'll try using the stuff as a base packed with ash (Since ash is a proven material) in order to explore a possible usage for it as (With no proper technical term in my vocabulary) "Hogging" or general forming material in order to make a shelf and fire bowl... That way, no insulation is required and since it's just the base it could technically be done with a hole in the ground... SORRY! I'm a huge over-thinker. The blessing and curse of a STEM-oriented mind, eh?

I've never made one, hence why it says CONCEPT in the title and SHOULD work like I said, not WILL. Hopefully it shouldnt've (Not a real contraction sorry) come across as from expirience?

Okay, thanks for the info. I think that this is mainly just going to be acting as an enclosure. Any info on common refractory cement? And of course, specific heat capacity (the metric one, forget it exactly sorry) is what I'd be getting out using a normal calorimeter. Anything is useful, sorry if I come across as the aggravating newbie, always did suck at first impressions. Please realize that if I come across as against constructive criticism it's just me being defensive, feel free to bust my head in if need be. I usually do better with CC, don't know what was wrong at the time, must've been tired or out of whack or something.

What is the smiley supposed to mean exactly? Is this some odd forum tradition I am not familiar with?

Only posted it once, strange. Thanks for the help! Could a mod/admin delete the extra one? Site must have thought I double clicked post or something weird like that, only one posting was intended...

I know that youtube is full of trash, but this guy is good. And yeah, you guys do have more expirience, I'll never deny that. As far as this post is concerned, I tried (Possibly failed, but I did try) to frame it as a concept, not as an end all be all guide to the perfect enclosed charcoal forge, and hopefully people will pick up on that. And of course, the golden rule of internet forums, if there are comments, read them first! I think that there are many people who would realize that this is purely conceptual, especially from the title of the topic, and I think you might be overlooking that. Then again, this is the internet, where assuming the stupidity of some is not just safe but recommended.

While an eight-pound anvil sounds anything but ideal to me, at a cost of 0 dollars, it's hard to beat. We've got an old sledgehammer, and I don't even need to take off the head to use it like this, so I was wondering: Could it work? The edges are somewhat rounded, but I'm mainly looking at knife-making anyhow so the need for a horn is minimal, and my friend has a real anvil (Problem is, 45 minute drive away...) so if I ever do need one, I have access to one. But I want some professional opinions before spending a few hours jury-rigging and perfecting it: Could it work? And somewhat more importantly, yes, the sledgehammer in question is very good quality and does have rebound (Figure that that's important) and a hickory handle, so I could even mount it standing up as long as I avoid that and get a somewhat larger anvil face. Projects I'm looking at are some sheath knives, a set of tongs, and maybe (Far in the future) an axe head of some sort.

While an eight-pound anvil sounds anything but ideal to me, at a cost of 0 dollars, it's hard to beat. We've got an old sledgehammer, and I don't even need to take off the head to use it like this, so I was wondering: Could it work? The edges are somewhat rounded, but I'm mainly looking at knife-making anyhow so the need for a horn is minimal, and my friend has a real anvil (Problem is, 45 minute drive away...) so if I ever do need one, I have access to one. But I want some professional opinions before spending a few hours jury-rigging and perfecting it: Could it work? And somewhat more importantly, yes, the sledgehammer in question is very good quality and does have rebound (Figure that that's important) and a hickory handle, so I could even mount it standing up as long as I avoid that and get a somewhat larger anvil face. Projects I'm looking at are some sheath knives, a set of tongs, and maybe (Far in the future) an axe head of some sort.

Yeah, this will obviously be revised post build. If nothing else, the mixture would serve very well as a structural concrete-like substance, and essentially make a good base to put refractory on. As far as flux goes, yes, that's not really an issue for me. and if you look at his steel crucible, it's reached yellow, and my aluminum casting expirience (Which is not vast, but I'm pretty well-versed) has shown that to get aluminum to flow properly and expel impurities, it needs to be at or above iron forging temperatures. You can tell when it's reached them because the molten metal will glow like solid iron does, and as you can see from the video, his does. Note that aluminum hits dull red when steel hits orange or yellow (Depending on the distance from the fire, obviously, with such a large crucible worth) so that should be fine. I'm going to put a little disclaimer at the end of the post, :3 Yeah, it can, but if you're running it in a curing burn, I'd highly recommend just blocking off the front and standing away from the back outlet port, should dispel any toxic fumes. Also, remember, it's only going to be about a cubic inch worth of PVC burning at most, so you should be fine. Anyways, I'll quickly revise the post to include info on pre-coating with refractory or using refractory bricks as the arch for the top. I think I'll try both (Got plenty of plaster and sand, and bricks are really cheap anyhow) to see what's best. Thanks so much for the help guys! The info is very useful! (BTW, I think I'm going to do a test on the insulating properties of the stuff. Any recommendations on how? I'm thinking a calorimeter and trying to measure it's specific heat capacity but that's tricky because of the water involved....)

Yes, it is, but mixing it with sand actually fixes that problem. Here's a video of someone using it with charcoal to melt aluminum, and he gets steel yellow hot in there, without even positioning it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHD10DjxM1g I've worked with it and it's both a good insulator and a decent refractory material. Cures fast, too. Just to be clear, it's a fifty-fifty mix of plaster and sand where the plaster acts as a binding agent and takes on the properties of sand for the most part, and is capable of both insulating and taking a beating.

So, kicking around some ideas lately has led me to try and figure out a way to use an easy and cheap refractory-ish material that can be obtained for relatively little in the way of both time, and money. First off, the 3D model concept included here is in no way final. If you want, I can upload it, but the dimensional breakdown is as follows anyhow: base: this is essentially totally scale-able. anything from a general use forge effective from rivets and nails to axes and tongs to a charcoal fired sword forge. basically, what you want to do is line up bricks from 3-wide to 5-wide and 5-long to whatever you want, for the base of it. then, make a second layer of bricks on top of that one with the row in the middle missing, and one or more side bricks missing in order to allow the air porting. (Either one in the middle, or two with one brick in between) Next, you'll need to add the plaster sand mix to the fire pot. place some cinder blocks or bricks to block off the ends of the trough and then lay a PVC pipe of any thickness into the air trough (1/2 inch would be best) and either cut it so that it ends in the middle or at the end of the air trough. now, you'll need to mix 1 part sand, 1 part plaster, and 1 part water together. try not to make too much, but if you think you have, use it as mortar for the bricks in the assembly. Once the mixture is partially solid (The consistency of mud, almost) pour it into the trough over the PVC pipe and cut a V into the center. Make sure that the PVC segment is covered with the mixture (At least 1/4 inch worth) so that it's somewhat shielded from the heat (Don't worry if it melts or burns though, the plaster mix will hold its shape perfectly even if the stiffener is gone.) and leave to dry.Once dried, you'll need to start work on the cover. There are many options for the cover, but here's the basics: you need some form of U shape with the back enclosed. You can close off the back with steel, so don't worry too much about that. it'll also need a hole in the back to vent out hot gasses somewhere other than your face. It can be made with a mold, or with something to prop it up (A bucket, piece of sheet metal, etc., will work great) and you can make it on top of the base this way. The 3D model has my approximation of the location of the fireball (Just guessing) and most of the concept for you, but the above information should help you make one. I'm going to be making one soon, but the basic cost for the normal size one would be about 10 bucks for the bricks if you use the 2x4x8 ones that come anywhere around 40 Cents each., plus a bag of plaster and a bag of sand ends up at about 40 bucks (Assuming you're getting 50 pound bags of plaster and sand) total, with enough left over to make a Re-bar grid for the air outlets, which you can just build into the plaster to anchor. Not too bad as far as costs go! If you are not a fan of stooping down to your forge, make sure that it's on a table when you're making it where it can have a permanent residence, or use bricks to build up a base and then place some plywood or other sheet material on top of it. This is the concept for the forge. Orange ball = approximate location of the fireball. Air in and out ports as well as the air inlet are visible. This is intended to have a metal sheet or baking tin used as a front cover to hold in heat, but can just as easily be used without. you may also want to add in a hole over the air outlet so charcoal can be dropped in from above, but be sure to make something to block it up if you do.