Frosty

Hardwood charcoal tends to last longer where softwood charcoal tends to burn hotter. Charcoal is relatively pure carbon so any differences can be accounted for by chemistry and physics. Softwoods are more porous as is the charcoal so it has a greater surface area for oxygen to contact. This produces a "higher" temperature than the more dense hardwood charcoal. Yeah, right but so goes the old lore. I believe the preference (Ready for a little Frosty speculation?) is based on BTU/volume ratio. Weight isn't the main limiting factor to shipping charcoal, it's volume. Hardwood charcoal is denser so it has a higher BTU/cu' than softwood charcoal. If you're paying for fuel hand poled by barge up a river you're going to want the best bang per buck you can get. The barge will only hold x cu' so you want the max heat, especially if you're running smelters or foundries. Same goes if you're paying peasants by the sack full or coaling and packing your own. If you're making your own it's not such a big deal. With practice you can make it by the 55gl drum faster than you can use it unless you're really wasteful about it. If you're going to run a bloom smelt then you're going to have to be coaling a week in advance so might as well make a couple three retorts. BTU output per LB. is the same for either or any well pyrolized charcoal. Frosty The Lucky.

Ditto Thomas. If that anvil isn't good enough buy a new one or take up a craft where precision is a good thing. I'd sell my Trenton in a heartbeat to put your anvil in my shop. Frosty The Lucky.

If you learn the craft you can pick the period you wish to "work" in at will. On the other hand if you set out to learn just one particular time period and regional tech then you could find yourself stuck there. When your mental tool kit reaches a certain level it won't matter what kind of fire you use, what the hammers are, anvil, tongs, etc. it's just moving steel/iron/ ? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard SparseMatrix guy. What do we call you, S&M? It's not required, I can make something up. We love pictures: shop, equipment, tools, projects, pets, home, scenery, most anything suitable for young kids. It's a family site you know. Frosty The Lucky.

That'll work fine, just a little low for my old knees. Charles has the right of making a side blast work properly. That's a natural born side blast forge and a good size judging by the bricks in the pic. If it's possible to raise it then put the forge table even with the anvil face. It's a comfortable working height and you can use the anvil as a helper for long stock. I tend to make my forges too high like everything but my main anvil which is a bit too low. I should just use a tape measure. Frosty The Lucky.

My paternal Grandmother Frost was a professional cook in logging, mill and railroad camps. I've heard tales from other Pac. N.W. families about how she not only ran the kitchen & staff (bull cooks) but logistics and drove the housekeeping staff to near perfection. She was basically the Camp boss. One thing I definitely inherited from her is a LOVE for onion and garlic. Her biscuits and gravy was legendary. I have NO idea how Dad came to love rolled and cut biscuits with enough baking powder to make your mouth pucker. Grammy Frost's biscuits were light, drop biscuits you'd have to ask to find out what the leavening was. She used baking powder but I never did find out how she made such light biscuits with so little. Her sausage or bacon gravy is legendary too, white with fresh ground pepper, sweated onion and just enough garlic to taste. Grammy Frost wasn't a blacksmith but she sure as can be made their camp life as good as conditions allowed. Frosty The Lucky.

If it's magnetic I'd GUESS it might be a free machining steel containing a % of lead. I don't know about forging but some free machining steels aren't good for welding, not counting the dangerous fumes. Have you tried forging it cold? Frosty The Lucky.

We picked up a couple of those inflated holiday things and I haven't figured out what to use the blowers for besides maybe forcing air past the barrel stove in the shop. I'm just glad they were freebes we had to take them with the couple things we wanted. They aren't like a "normal" blower like Stephan's at all. You're going to have to figure out how to reduce that blower's output seriously Stephan but you can make it work. The price is right to put some work into it and if it can't be made to work I'm sure there are things it'll be good for. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a heck of a nice set of tools you're putting together Ethan, well done. Frosty The Lucky.

That is does brother, that it does. This is the appropriate ancient blacksmith saying I made up a while back. "Carpe Terminus Frigus." Frosty The Lucky.

Sorry Dale, I'll be good. Frosty The Lucky.

It's the blanket generality: "before machinery" that's drawing the literal replies. Were I not in a slack cutting mood I'd point out a lever is a machine that predates handled hammers by probably thousands of years. Wait a second a handle IS a lever, oh DRAT so much for that example. I understand what you're trying to say and it's your choice. Pick the time period you wish to limit your technology to and study up on it. Frosty The Lucky.

When using a hot cut remember to lay a piece of mild steel on the anvil's face to protect the cut and face. Frosty The Lucky.

I love playing along with questions like that but I don't know if I could have. The urge to laugh would've been too strong. Hope the questioner didn't take it personally, naw, you wouldn't have let her. Frosty The Lucky.

Home Depot carries Rigid tools. Frosty The Lucky.

Likable American acquitted, actions ruled justifiable self defense to the uproariously loud laughter of the courtroom audience and TV production company. Arresting and booking officers have found new career paths in the food service industry. The Australian public wishes them luck though the media will miss them. Frosty The Lucky.

Ditch the cement whatever it is. Safe or not it's a heat sink and radiator on a device you want to contain the heat in a small location so you can use it, not heat the room evenly. Frosty The Lucky.

If you want a frightening face take a look in Palaeontology books at the theropod carnosaurs. They typically had long relatively to very narrow skulls and jaws. Almost beak-like in fact. In the past year or two I've been contemplating a dragon head with a fanged beak based on an eagle beak. For the general steps, shoulder, draw out and split the horns without finishing. Then fold a short length back to form the mass for the head, the horn blanks will be pointing backwards now. Depending on the head/horn profile you want, fold it shoulder up OR down. A gentle weld won't hurt but, unless you want the jaws agape, isn't really necessary. With the head mass made and isolated forge and carve as you wish: dragon, goat, sheep, cape buffalo, snake, etc. all start with the same thing. The only real difference between type is, with /without horns and horn length. IF you want to do it the easy way. Some folk will upset the head or draw the whole thing down from the head back. Carve out the horns, etc. Personal preference. Before you start playing in the fire try to determine the steps you want to follow with modeling clay, it'll save you a LOT of time, fuel and steel. Frosty The Lucky.

Being volcanic islands Japan has never had a reliable source of coal and they're very much into "traditional" method. Bamboo grows frighteningly fast and makes fine charcoal. Their forges are typically long deep and narrow. Frosty The Lucky.

Back when I thought I knew where good smithing coal was and planned a side blast forge I drew up a simple easy design for a water cooled tuyere/tue. The drawings are pretty hopelessly lost on the drive of that dead old computer but I think the text description will be enough for the mechanically inclined out there. I'm NOT suggesting the pipe sizes I'm using here are the ones to use, I'm just using these dimensions for the purpose of discussion. One ea. 2" dia pipe coupler, two ea. 1"x 2" bushing reducers. How it works goes like this. The 2" coupler is the water jacket and the bushing reducers allow the 1" air blast pipe to feed through the center of the water jacket. OR and I liked this idea a little better, use a 2" close nipple to connect the coupler to a 2" floor flange which connects directly to a water tank. The air blast pipe is then easy to plumb through the water jacket and to the blower. The open to the water tank radiator version would work nicely with a pipe nipple rather than a coupler and a bell reducer rather than a bushing reducer. The water reservoir tank should extend mostly above the water jacket inlet so convection will cause the heated water to rise in the tank and cool water from the bottom will replace it. A tall, wide, thin tank to maximize surface area would improve radiant cooling. Heck if a person didn't mind dialectric connections an aluminum cooling tank would be better still. Of course copper would be even better and look really cool. Shoot, if a person wanted to get carried away you could use an automotive radiator and radiator hoses. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a linear burner based on Ron Reil's EZ. You need to follow the directions, it'll work as well a linear will. Do NOT ask Ron questions unless you have followed his directions to the letter. He became so disgusted with people just asking questions instead of reading the directions and FAQs he stopped responding at all. UNLESS someone had come up with something he hadn't seen. I'm afraid your question falls into the didn't follow the directions category. Just print out the directions and follow them step by step. Better still if this is the type burner you want then go to Ron's archived directions on the ABANA site, the link is in the article you linked and follow Ron's directions to the LETTER. Okay, I'm going to address your too rich statement against my better judgement. The device you built can NOT draw enough combustion air PERIOD. It's so far out of the operational range of an induction device it can NOT be MADE to work. My large shop forge runs four 3/4" T burners, the gas supply to the manifold feeding ALL THREE is 1/8" pipe and I can run them all wide open without starving any for fuel. That is 1/64" SMALLER diameter than what you drilled for the gas jet! Just off the top of my head a jet that size would need a 12" diameter burner tube to function at near neutral. If you can't follow directions better than that then you need to either buy a burner or NOT play with flammable gas, it's just too dangerous. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Mad Tinker, glad to have you. 9/64" gas jet!? How big a burner did you make 2" dia tube or? I haven't DRILLED a jet since the mid 80's. You're going to have to post the link to the plans to have any hope for help. Your question doesn't provide enough information to have a clue what kind of mistakes you're making. That's like asking, "I have 300gls of gas. Is that enough?" Heck, I can save myself the hassle of trying to figure out those plans. Search IFI for the T burner or Side Arm burner. They work. It shouldn't be too long and I'll have the new T burner build plans ready to post. It'll be a week at least though. Frosty The Lucky.

Just cause the R&T are right next to each other eh? It would be nice if we had a LITTLE longer to edit, sometimes I don't get a chance to read all the way through before time's up. At least I have a dent for an excuse. Frosty The Lucky.

You can shovel it into a bucket of water instead of all the hassle of trying to smother it. Coal and coke don't care about being wet, let it drain for a while before lighting the fire again is about all. Frosty The Lucky.

You've talked to them too eh Steve? Glenn called last week and I guess I understand why we're still using IPS people off and I have no comment. What do you know, I've gone all day without being Forbidden. Frosty The Lucky.