Had my brother and cousin come over, fired up the forge.

[JWCarlson]

This is only my second forge fire (my cousin and brother have never) and we didn't really know what we were doing. But we had fun... heated up some metal, pounded on it... Here's some pictures of the day. My brother is in the Packer's shirt and my cousin thinks he's funny wearing Viking garb around us since we're huge Packer fans. Was great besides the fact that they wouldn't quit constantly pumping the blower... I guess that's part of the fun!



















Thanks for lookin'!

[Alec.S]

nice...

keep it up


alec :)

[Rob Browne]

Looks like a great day. Now for you to work on your fire control, that's an awfully big fire for such a small job.........

[CurlyGeorge]

JW is that a charcoal fire? Looked like pretty big chunks of fuel for coal. Just curious. :)

[JWCarlson]

JW is that a charcoal fire? Looked like pretty big chunks of fuel for coal. Just curious.

It's coal... some junk coal I bought from someone. Few hundred pounds for $20. Doesn't break up into chunks but mostly breaks into "sheets".
Once it cokes up you can break it up pretty easily with a poker into ping pong or smaller pieces.

And the size of the fire is directly proportional to the two goofballs cranking on the blower. We were also heating up (to anneal) some rail road clamps and spikes so we had some pretty good size chunks of steel in the fire that you can't see.

[Frosty]

It does my heart good to see a new addict working on making it a family addiction!

Your coal WILL break up, you just need to apply our favorite tool to it. I used to hammer it till it was about 3/4" minus and then run it through a 3/4" sieve. In use I coke the batch, usually a 5-6gl plastic bucketfull at the start of the session. I light it with a coil of cardboard 3/4"-1" wide rolled from a strip oh about 12-18" long, depends on how large a batch I'm coking up. So with the coil rolled tight I lay it over the air grate and let it slip open a little so there're gaps around 1/8"+ between cardboard layers for air flow. I stop it expanding by piling coarse 3/4" coal against the outside of the coil to keep it in place, for 1" to several inches depending, again, on show much I want to coke up. Nnow there's a crater shaped pile of coal with a caldera floor of open coiled cardboard so I tamp the outside of the crater with wetted fines sometimes several inches deep, again depends on how much coke I need. So now I'm ready to drop a couple wood matches into the coiled cardboard, sometimes I've been known to lay a couple shavings of wax on the coil where the matches are going as a safe accelerant. Do NOT use an accelerant, B-A-D things can happen! So, I light a couple wooden matches and give the blower a very gentle turn so there's a slight airflow, a match does NOT need much air unless you WANT it to go out. As soon as the cardboard itself is starting to burn I increase the blast a touch and empty the small bucket of sieved 3/4" coal over the crater filling it into a heaped hill and NOW increase the blast to a moderate low level till I start seeing coal smoke.

When the mound starts smoking smartly I cover it with a couple four inches of wet fines and tamp them down leaving a crater in the top of the mound and increase the blast to a medium heavy flow. The coal is going by now so the smoke turns ugly yellow green gray and billows out of the crater in the fines. I control the smoke by poking down through the bottom of the crater in the fines till I reach burning coal which almost immediately lights the smoke on fire and that's the last of the really ugly stinky stuff. Sure, there's still going to be smoke but it'll be oh so much lighter and black so there won't be so many complaints.

So why did I lay the fire that way? Well, the coiled cardboard forms a flame jet like a torch up through the coal. Why cardboard? Cardboard burns at 650f and turns into rather short lived coals before turning into fine white ash, this means it's a LOT hotter than paper which burns at 451f and is then gone. So, there's a 650+f torch flame being forced through the coal and that's why I sieve it through a 3/4" sieve. Now we come to why the heck I cover the whole sheebang with wetted fines. The wetted fines won't let air let alone flames flow through them so the wetted fines make a dandy fire cap keeping all that HOT goodness inside the mound. The only place there's an exhaust channel is up through the center of the mound at the crater in the fines so that's the only place smoke escapes making it easier to control.

As the mound starts to coke the internal fire spreads sideways because the coarse coal above the center is starting to expand and stick together. This process will eventually start to burn through the sides of the mound but so long as there are open flames on top any escaping smoke just ignites heating and coaking the outside of the mound. After a little while I've reduced the blast to medium +/- mostly because I'm cheap and more air means more coal is actually burning up and I only want to coke it. Oh okay, I don't like to breath more smoke than necessary. So after a bit you'll notice the mound, now flaming all round is starting to act like hot asphalt and being gummy sticky saggy, at this point I shear the mound off the air grate with my shovel (you know a square point, NOT a spade!) and turn it over on the grate. A while longer with a reduced air blast will complete the coking, a little practice will tell you when it's ready. I call it "Eye training." So, when it's coked simply shovel it off the air grate and put it out with the watering can and you're ready for a day's work.

An ex associate and I worked the blacksmithing demo at the state fair for the 9-10 days it ran and both of us working used just one plastic bucket of coal a day and we were there working from 9:0am to 9:00pm. The best part was not having to work in the smoke all day like we would were we using a green coal fire method.

I'm not saying the way I do it is actually better, there are plusses and minuses to everything, it's just how I burn coal.

The best way I know to get new guys to lighten up on the air blast is to #1 lead by example, show them the right way and lastly make THEM dig, pack and process the coal. There is a decommisioned coal mine about 50 miles from here and spending a day digging, prying, loading bags, rolling them down to the truck and transfering the coal into the truck with breaks for food and beverage, sure beats paying shipping to alaska.

Frosty the Lucky.