Hi all, first time post here--felt like I needed to pipe up regarding the charcoal forge blower issues. I've only been forging for about a year, but have had great success using Tim Lively's design (with the addition of two removable refractory bricks set on top--makes sorta like an oven, and the two piece was just out of convenience). I'm usually good at scrounging for old tools and whatnots, but have been unable to find things like hand crank blowers, post vices, and other misc. blacksmith tools for decent prices which brought me to my current equipment setup. Anyhow, I've been using one of my wife's old hairdryers for my forge blower. I removed the heating element, cracked off the motor/fan/tube assembly and built a variable DC power supply with parts from Radio Shack as ALL hairdryer motors are actually DC motors that operate around 12-15 volts. My setup is capable of blowing almost all of the charcoal out of the forge when at "full blast" and can be regulated down to tiny breeze if needed.
I'll get some pictures up soon after I get my railroad rail/chunk of steel anvil finished. I've been using the lump charcoal you get at the local mega-mart as it's pretty cheap, but you gotta break it up into about 1" chunks, and it takes about an hour to bust up a 20 lb. sack of the stuff. It works really well, and the smell makes me want to throw on some hot dogs...