Ish675

I've always wondered this same thing. I'm on a super tight budget, I only work 9 month out of the year and I go back in 2 weeks, so savings is dwindling. I bought a cheep Kobalt hammer (I know it's not for smiting, and it has a plastic handle) but it was only 16$ and it seems to do the job. I have a good, inherited, high quality vice, it's almost 150 years old, but I refurbished it and it works like the day it was bought. I've been using a pair of large vice grips insted of tongs, my forge is basically made of dirt. It all works, but I would love to see some homemade tongs and other tools. I don't have too much money to spend, and while tongs can be as low as $30, it all adds up. I need an anvil and I assume some other tools that I'm not yet aware of! Sorry I don't have pits you asked for, but I have the same interest. I have an angle grinder, which is a godsend of making some tools, and I can do some simple forging, but with that, I wonder what I can make!

I'm in Manassas as well. I grew up nearby, and it's sad to see all the development, the only plus side is with lots of new construction, comes lots of neat new scrap to play with!

I'm located in the US, Northern Virginia, to be more exact. Everyone here has given some awesome feedback, just reading this I learned a ton. I've looked into some cool clay forge designs too. Is possible to mix clay, sand, and maybe some pulverized brick to make heat resistant bricks? I would mould them in Tupper ware and slowly heat / dry them. I like the idea of an old style wood / charcoal forge made from mostly natural materials. I still need an anvil too, I found a cheep one on amazon, but I don't work during the winter so cash is tight. A friend suggested that a piece of upside down railroad track might work. I'm allready shuddering at the thought of cutting a thick a** piece of scrap railroad track though...ugh.

I was under the impression that with wood + heat = charcoal, and charcoal+ heat = coke. I could be completely wrong. You are right about the oxidizing, every time I took it out and gave it a whack a layer came off. I'm looking I to making a clay and brick forge. But I'll play around a little first to get the design right.

I used briquettes mixed with hardwood lump. The metal sat below the charcoal but it should have been turned to coke by that time ( if what my basic understanding of solid fuel tells me) it got to the metal. I noticed that I got quite a bit of ash got on the metal too (not enough to ruin anything, but a little extra polishing was required to get it off at the end). The hairdryer was complete overkill, even on low, but on the positive side, if I turned it on high real quick it blew out all of the old ash. Due to my huge access to good natural clay, and I'm willing to spend a REASONABLE amount money on firebrick or refractory mortar, but to save money, can good forges be made out of clay, spare brick, cinderblocks,k and just a few firebricks? I don't need anything much bigger than that cinderblock. Most of the designs either require welding ( I don't have access to an ARC welder, I can braze, but that only goes so far) or are large expensive solid fuel forges. As a side note, I don't like working with gas, but I have a large quantity of spent motor oil and was wondering if I could somehow add small amounts of that to a solid fuel forge to save charcoal and help the fire burn more evenly? Some kind of drip into the very end of the forced air pipe, or would even soaking just a few charcoal lumps in it?

I'm new to forging. I watched lots of videos and read plenty of material before I decided to try this. I figured a cinder block would hold up to the temperatures required, albeit only one time. Sure enough, it worked. I made a knife from a railroad spike (a fun, and simple, first project). It uses a hairdryer and steel pipe, fed into the bottom of the block, which I chipped out and sealed with clay from my yard (virginia has excellent clay in the soil). It was filled with cheep walmart charcoal. The first tie was left in the coals too long and liquefied out of the bottom of the block, but after I played with it a bit I made it work! I just wanted to share this, it was made for free. And even if you had to buy everything new it would still only be a few dollars.