beard

I pass the Folk School on my way to work, it's a pretty cool place to just walk around and look at things.

I went to Florida for a little while to see my grandparents, came home with a nice little fan that my grandmother used in her days at Honeywell before my time. I'd like to see any fan made today last that long... anyway it fit an 8" pipe like a glove so I snagged a couple things from Lowes after work last night and got it set up. It's an 8-6 reducer and a 4-3 reducer, the 6-4 was another $8 so I skipped that, cut the 4 side of the 4-3 into fins and bent them to cradle the 6 and taped it up with some polish chrome. I drilled a couple holes in the end to ziptie the fan to it. It worked kinda alright but it was blowing more air backward than forward, I ran a some tape around the duct and overlapped the fan cage to see if that would help trap some of the escaping air and I was right on the money. I might only be losing about 10-20% of the air now but it blows plenty hard enough. If I ever want that last little bit I'll come up with a new design, or a stronger fan. I'm pretty sure the reducers are galvanized but I'm certain it's far enough away from the heat source to not be a problem for me, and the fan will be going so it should stay cool.

If I had one laying around I would, as a temporary fix though. I never cared for the way they looked on a forge.

I'm sure it could work but I would rather not have a system set up to reverse the rotation. I'll either end up using the radiator fan or getting a different motor from my cousin. The good thing about using a radiator fan is if it ever burns out, I've got a dumpster full of stuff to replace it with.

Picked up an exhaust flapper and a sack of coal from TSC this afternoon, put the flapper on when I got home from work. They were out of the flapper size I needed so I went up 1/4" and I had to tighten it all the way because it's a little oversized but it's secure on there. As far getting the forge in working order that leaves me with setting up a fan and cutting a section of tree trunk to mount my anvil to. There's a few minor things here and there like dropping some bolts with big washers through the sheet metal to stop it from curling up the way it does, replacing missing bolts in the body of the grill.... Speaking of the fan though, that 3 speed motor I have spins clockwise and can't be reversed. I may end up getting a rheostat and sticking it to one of the radiator fans... donno. I could probably have it ready to work on by the weekend but it's supposed to be pretty rainy so I may just let my laziness out for a little while.

hah yea. If I had any neighbors around. The nearest one is about a mile down the hill. I can hammer all day and all night, nobody would care about it. I don't have much of a work space or anywhere covered that I can do this in until I sell one of my bikes. I'll likely end up keeping my tools under the lid when I'm not using it so they don't get rained or snowed on.

I got out of work pretty early today so I brought a couple tools home to work on the forge. I found that I didn't need to cut the bottom out of the grill, it was just a sliding catch pan. The sheet metal has a little curve to it but I'll just drop a bolt through the corners and fasten it down to the grating underneath. Then I found this old 3 speed fan motor I saved and forgot I had so I'll see about rigging up blades to that next, instead of one of the radiator fans I originally planned on.

Alright, more updates and pictures guys. I brought the pieces of the forge to that machine shop by work and showed him what I had planned, I'm not sure if it makes any difference at all but I wanted the pipe coming off the flange at a slight angle to prevent anything from falling/collecting in the intake part of the forge. I left to get lunch and he had it all put together before I got back. I also asked him about some sheet metal and he found a piece of leftover that was just a little too big for my grill, I gave him my measurements and he cut it down for me. He also gave me some leftover steel mesh from the elevator cage he made for our shop. I think if I just use two layers of the mesh it should be enough to keep my coals in the pot, and I'm assuming that since it's so badly rusted it's likely not galvanized but I'm not experienced enough in metal to know for sure. If anybody needs a good machine shop in the Murphy NC area let me know and I'll give you some details, this guy is easy to work with and he prices his work affordably.

I forgot about this old thing.. the burners stopped working ages ago and we have been making wood fires on it to cook ever since. We finally decided to replace it so I'll use this instead of the 55gal drum. Much less cutting this way. I have some new questions though. Will that grill grate be able to hold up the rotor and withstand whatever heat it puts off? My uneducated opinion is that if I put it centered and to the left, keeping the weight even on that middle bar it would work. Or should I get rid of that and replace it with a big piece of steel.

I agree with that. $6 for a 40lb bag of coal at TSC sounds like a pretty fair deal to me anyway, plus there's no shortage of locust on my property and that stuff burns slow and HOT.

I took a bunch of pieces in a bunch of sizes and put them in my fire place last night to see what would happen. They lit up instantly, didn't produce any smoke, and after a minute or so I stabbed at them with the poker. They fell apart a little bit but didn't crumble or break. The best way I can describe it is they were coming apart in layers. I've never used actual coal before but that didn't seem to me like what should happen to coal in a fire.

I've seen more scrap horses around here than I really care to mention. I'd like to see somebody do something a little less 'majestic'... like a walrus, or a sloth glad you all liked my garbage can haha

Good stuff guys. Thats Hot, I really like what you did with the grill. I've had this old 55gal drum behind the chicken coop for about two years and I don't think anybody else is going to use it so I think I might use that as the base for my forge. I had a feeling that the first rotor I got wasn't right for me. I hit up three more garages and the steel supply warehouse today. The only actual brake drum I found was a monster, and I came across another rotor that I think might be the one. I'll put the pictures of those two below starting with the rotor. I got my flange and T from the steel supply, and about 3' of 2" pipe. The price on the T was nuts, I almost told the guy to put it back. I'm going to see the man I got the first rotor from in a day or two about welding a few things, if he's got one he'll sell cheaper then I'm taking this other one back. Here's a few more pics of the scrap that I deal with. I figured somebody might enjoy seeing it. The first one is about a week worth broken or damaged parts I pulled off the wrecked bikes. The rest of them are what has accumulated in the dumpster over a couple months. There's a bunch of oddly shaped stuff in there.

I don't mean to sound rushed but could anybody offer some input on the crack in the rotor I have pictured? If that's going to be a problem for me down the road I'll stop at a few more places and see if they have a brake drum.

I never said anything about casting an anvil, but good point about working with long stock. Thanks for the tip. Gonna take a ride to this steel supply place tomorrow before work and see if they have what I need to pipe out my cheapo forge. I never did make it up the hill today to cut myself a stump, too cold and wet.