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Hello all! I’m from Indiana and I found this place while googling how to build my first forge, stumbled upon the JABOD thread and now I’m off to the races! Everyone here seems really helpful, and I look forward to the opportunity to learn a new craft!

I’m in the USA, Indiana specifically, I have a 12 acre farm so if I build any type of forge the neighbors would have no idea lol my house is almost a 1/4 mile off the road. I was initially worried about the thickness of a leaf spring being hard to heat up, but that is not a worry now. what do you mean by real charcoal, not briquettes? Will the standard briquettes not work? That’s something I will need to look into.

Thanks so much to the both of you! I only worried if it would work with my material due to the thickness of leaf and coil springs. I plan on using a torch to heat treat just the cutting edge as the large knives I want to make are for clearing heavy brush around our property. i have a feeling all my future free time will be spent reading the massive amount of information on this forum, and if everyone is as helpful as you two have been I don’t think it will take long for me to learn! Thanks again!

I recently started researching how to build a forge and this is one of the first sites I came across, this is a very interesting thread! im curious if this would work with the materials I have available, leaf springs and coil springs from a 1970’s 4wd f100. I’m interested in making larger (12-16”) blade knives, I know I can heat the leaf springs and hammer them flat then grind my shape out, but I would really like to be able to get my material hot enough to hammer to shape. Is a jabod practical for this or would I be better off making a propane forge? From the little bit I have already read online I’m lucky enough to have most of the materials for both, would just need the insulation materials for a propane forge, and just fuel for a jabod. Also if I did go jabod would coal or charcoal be the better option for my purposes?