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Hi, I've made a couple of knives via stock removal, and I want to try my hand at forging one. I'm planning on building a wood forge using a gas grill lid. I'm using wood because I have an unlimited, free supply of it, and coal is hard to get cheaply in my area. I know that wood has a number of drawbacks, like it has to burn a while to get the coals burnt down to forge with, but I'm still going for it. My question is this, do I need to line the inside of the grill lid with firebricks? I'm 90% sure the lid is stainless steel, and I'm using black iron pipe with holes drilled in it for the air supply. Most of the coal forges I've seen don't have firebricks or insulation, but there's also usually a huge bed of coals which I'm assuming provides insulation. Will the forge get hot enough without firebricks to forge with? Or will the stainless steel get too hot and deform causing the whole thing to fall apart? I know Whitlox's wood forge uses kaowool and firebrick for insulation, which makes me wonder why wood needs insulation, but coal doesn't. On a side note, I know coal forges need a hole in the bottom to push the burnt ashes through, should I cut a hole in the bottom beneath the air supply pipe for the wood ashes to fall through? I'll probably have more questions coming. Thanks for the help, Luke

So to start off hello everyone, I've been trying to start, but i'm having some worries about how i can build my forge, at the moment i was going to use the box forge that's pinned but i haven't had time to build it, so my father decided to do it but it seems like he went a bit overboard this thing is absurdly large something like 3ft x 3ft and a foot deep and he used what i think is treated wood (I know treated wood had arsenic in it and couldn't be burned im not sure if its still like this today, but is it safe to heat it? aka being the box? ) now in the last few days someone heard i was trying to start blacksmithing and gave me a whole bunch of firebrick he had from a chimney or something, so i'm wondering is the box safe to use, or should i just do something with the firebrick? or line the box with it? sadly i don't have access to many tools or cash or i would have probably just rebuilt it or made something else but im hoping someone can let me know what i should do or at least give me an idea of a direction to head

Hello folks, this is my first post on here. To give you a quick background: I don't have much internet access (phone only for now) so excuse me if I've missed other threads with similar specifications. Up to now I've only worked with coal forges, but due to my recent move, it won't be possible to run coal SO I've decided to build a gas forge. I've seen tons of options on here concerning size, shape, and number of burners. Now I don't know exactly what info you need to answer my questions, but I work with mostly round and square stock from 1/2" to 1", and do lots of scroll bending and twisting. With my current forge I am working with up to 12" of material at a time with multiple pieces in the fire because sometimes I have more than one person working in the shop. Here is my plan so far: I have a surplus of 8"x8"x10" refractory blocks. I will be cutting them in half to use as my lining. I also plan to build frosty's T burner plan as the burner(s). My questions are A) how many burners should I run and B ) how big should I build the forge? Thanks in in advance for any input.

I'm up in Vermont for a for weeks at my parents' place, and thought I would build a small side-draft charcoal forge. We've got a bunch of firebrick that have been sitting out in a field, and they are very wet and moldy. Do any of you guys know whether they're ok to use?

So, I've been learning how to use my forge, with some trial and error and disappointing heats. I'm using lump charcoal because I am in town and plan on making my own. From what I've read here I needed a deeper fire, but I didn't want to burn a whole bag of charcoal at a time. So, I got some firebrick and made a firepot with an angle-iron frame: I've had a chance to use it yesterday and today and feel like it is working out well. I think a big part if it is just learning how to run the fire. Today I made a wall hook, hot chisel and round punch.