Rank Badjin

His forge is a single burner "Hell's Forge." He was working on turning a railroad spike into a hatchet last weekend and I never saw the metal get above orange. He needed an extra set of hands to try and crank a bend into the piece so I was holding it for him...I still have the burns. BTW, I am from the Ozarks. What a coincidence. Answering George's question, he's 28, and we live in the panhandle.

Yep. I had sort of figured out that part already. My biggest concern isn't actually about the width/length of the box, but the depth...the dimensions of the firepit plus anything on top of that for the fuel, which BTW, is most likely going to be charcoal, there is effectively NO coal to be had within several thousand miles. I have ideas for water cooling the tuyere, and found the drawing for it on the forum already, I'm pretty certain the four inch square tubing will work just as well and eliminate at least few sources of leaks. Copper for the tuyere? We are talking a foot or two? Overkill?

Thanks Frosty. I have no idea what forums he is on, but I will pass the recommendation along. Oh, and he is actually like 28... I may perhaps have misstated on the steel, lets just leave it at he says "it doesn't get hot enough"... indeed, I have yet to see anything come out more than a dull orange. The JABOD can be made to slide into the top of the brick "grill" I posted the picture of (not my pic, and I get the tripping hazard thing.) I can get metal for him to weld the box out of easily enough, and make another similar one for bottom blown, so he can play with both. Rig the blower so that it swaps to either box. He's still learning, I don't plan to sink a ton of cash into this... What I am missing is actual dimensions for the JABOD, I have found lots of pictures on the forum, but no details. Some versions appear to be only a couple feet, some are YUGE.

That's a really nice setup. I could do something similar, i have just such a space on my property, but it's currently full of English herb garden.

Good day to everyone. I am not the forger in the family, that would be my youngest boy. But he often comes to me for advice and as a retired engineer, I do my best. I read a lot on the topic to stay up on tools and methods and rely heavily on posts from people like yourselves. Thanks for being here! Now for the question...he currently has a small single burner propane forge that I bought him for Christmas a few years ago. While suitable for low-carbon and mild steel, it does not get hot enough and is not really large enough for higher quality steels and larger projects. We live in a dense suburban area and the idea of building a "stealth" charcoal/coal forge came to me. I can construct an "outdoor grill" designed to hold a slide out firebox, similar to the JABOD featured in several threads on this forum. He is an accomplished welder and more than capable of building the firebox and tuyere himself...I just need advice on how big the JABOD would optimally be so that I can space the supporting bricks appropriately. The brick "grill" itself will look basically like this with some added fire brick facings in certain areas. I can adapt this for either side draft or bottom draft and could conceivably make the bottom table out of castable fire cement for added safety. When not in use as a forge, remove the forge firebox, put a grill grate on it...and presto! What forge? There is no forge here... Rank