Got my first good taste of coal today!

[Alan DuBoff]

Well, after waiting for a few weeks, I was able to get my first instructions on being a smith today.

Started out by cleaning the forge I used, sorting out the coal/coke from ash/clinker, then chopping up my own kindlin' with a hand forged axe that was pretty cool, learning how to light the coal fire in the forge (with the coal/coke I sorted, get it going with the blower, tend it, and load it up with coal and get a nice toasty fire going. There wasn't much coal/coke left in the forge, and he said that he doesn't encourage that to his students, but it was good to do that from scratch as I may need to do that sometimes without having much.

Then it was on to cutting some 24" sections of round rod, taking one of them, and start to develop my hammer technique by making it into 1/2" square rod. This will be a fire poker when I'm done with it. Seems I'll need a rake also, was using that most of the time I was forging.

He told me it looked good, but I could see that my hammer technique can use some development and could see some moons on some of the side, meaning I wasn't hitting the head square to the stock at all times. Was using a 2.5 lb. hammer I think, along with a 1.5 for lighter work after getting it shaped.

Was so fortunate to find this smith to learn under, was a real treat. He also had a cast iron forge in the back, which had a tuyere and a clinker buster, with everything except for the blower...and seeing I got a blower not long ago, that seemed to be just the ticket for me. It was one of the larger squarish type, opposed to the smaller Champion style 18"-22" ones. He had fixed up the legs not long ago but hadn't been using it. It will be nice after I get it cleaned up and get my blower hooked up to it.

Learned quite a bit about the differences between coal, coke, and other great info. Really had a good time. I'll be looking forward to next week when I can get back there again.

I got about half of my 24" round rod forged into square rod, will need to finish that up next week and possibly finish my fire poker. The smith suggested that if coal doesn't work out with my neighbors, I could use charcoal as it smokes/smells less. He noted that it's typically not that the forges smoke that much, it's that the neighbors typically don't care for the smell, which I could understand. Hopefully they won't mind.

I would prefer to use solid fuel if possible, and he doesn't use any gas whatsoever.

[Candidquality]

Congratulations. Sounds like you're on track now. As far as fire, it's always easiest to use the same type when learning and trying to re-create the same feel at home. But trust me when I say, tis better to have a different kind of fire than no fire at all. There is so much you will only pick up when actually working the metal. Granted when you are first starting out you might develop a bad habit during the week untill you can get back to your teacher, but if it's no longer than a week or two I don't really think it's ingrained into you as a long term habit and can be changed fairly easily. Good luck, you've gotten a better start than 90% of us and should be amazing yourself every day with what you are doing for several months.

one tip. Quit chewing on the coal. ;)

[6013]

Learn to use 2 sheets of crumpled newspaper and green coal to start a fire. Using coke to start a fire is easy, but there is not always coke available.

You can smoke, just don't inhale.

[Alan DuBoff]

Congratulations. Sounds like you're on track now. As far as fire, it's always easiest to use the same type when learning and trying to re-create the same feel at home. But trust me when I say, tis better to have a different kind of fire than no fire at all.

I trust you on that, certainly, and do want to be able to start a fire with green coal, definitely for the very reason 6013 points out.

I'm not as worried about using a gas forge, and want to have one, if for nothing else but to be able to easily take it anywhere. A small mini-forge with a mapp tank would probably be best suited for that, I 'spose, not that a 20gal propane tank wouldn't be good, just that it's not as portable in the sense of heft. OTOH, I would like to have a decent mini-forge, opposed to a coffee can if possible. But I want it small and portable, so something like a piece of 6" iron pipe or similar seems in order. The good thing is that the smith is selling me a cast iron forge that will allow me to hook up my hand crank blower, and even if I need to find a place I can take that to, it is portable for the most part. Who knows, maybe a tailgate smithy is in my future!

There is so much you will only pick up when actually working the metal. Granted when you are first starting out you might develop a bad habit during the week untill you can get back to your teacher, but if it's no longer than a week or two I don't really think it's ingrained into you as a long term habit and can be changed fairly easily.

He gave me an excercise that some might consider a waste of time, and it doesn't even involve metal. It involves hitting a piece of softwood (pine for instance) on the anvil to learn hammer control. With softwood you can see the indentation of the hammer, and it is apparent if the hammer head is square/flat or not. This seems like a good excercise in gaining hammer control without letting the excitement of just hitting metal until it develops. Don't get me wrong, I do want to hit hot metal! I just thought this would be good to try at home during this next week.

one tip. Quit chewing on the coal.

Congratulations! You indeed have a good start. Sounds like a good person to learn from. Coal smoke is addicting!

I was pretty fortunate to find a historical smithy in my area that has a smith willing to help folks like me. Really was just luck, IMO.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you folks that have answered some of my dumb questions, and provided useful info here on IFI. I've had some friends tell me that I should just start bashing hot metal, and certainly there is nothing wrong with that. But I prefer to take a more structured approach, and starting off with a safe environment, and then moving into the basics of forging (i.e., hammer technique) seems like a good approach to take. Hopefully before long I'll be able to make some of the cool stuff like many of you have done. Learning to understand what is left in the forge, lighting one properly, and tend it seems like a valuable thing to learn at the start as well. I'm glad the smith had me do that.

[Candidquality]

definitely want to set yourself up for the 20 pound tanks as those little mapp bottles will eat your $$$. Bigger is cheaper for the container it comes in. but the mapp might be a short term solution for you.

[Alan DuBoff]

definitely want to set yourself up for the 20 pound tanks as those little mapp bottles will eat your $$$. Bigger is cheaper for the container it comes in. but the mapp might be a short term solution for you.

The mapp was 2-fold kind of. I figured that I could use mapp to do some light braising and/or soldering of copper pipe/sheet.

Anyone know how long a bottle of mapp will last, the small bottles that sell for $6+change at Home Depot? I'm hoping this won't be my main forge at home, but rather would supplement what I end up with. I'm hoping that coal/coke/charcoal will be my main forge, the smith mentioned to me that charcoal is not a bad solution where neighbors complain about the odor of the coal...imagine neighbors doing that? I just don't know how my stuff neighbors will be. A friend of mine lives in a much more upscale and stuffier area than I do and his neighbors haven't complained, but he doesn't forge a lot. The area I live in is comprised of mostly afluent families, and sometimes they seem to expect perfection, in my experience.

I do have a 20gal tank, and was eyeing the nozzles that Zoeller sells on his site, and he gives pretty good instructions on building one, or I could buy the whole thing from him, but the nozzle seems the most valuable. He sells the stainless nozzles for a Ron Reil style burner as well.

A small dual burner propane forge would be nice, no denying that. The small mini-forge which Zoeller has on his site looks attractive for mapp.

Comments/suggestions welcome.

[Alan DuBoff]

I wonder if you could add a little something to the mini forge toch to make it burn hot enough with propane?

Well, my inexperienced understanding, which might get corrected by one of the more knowledgable smiths around here, is that it's all based on volume to some extent. Other than propane only being able to get so hot, and mapp being able to get hotter by nature, it really depends on the amount of cubic space inside the forge.

After a given amount of space is reached, an additonal burner is needed or the amount of actual heat starts to diminish. So, in theory you can always add burners to compensate for the additional space to keep the heat up, but you end up with quad burner forges, or similar.

The other factor is the amount of pressure vs. output required to run the amount of burners, since more burners will probably require more pressure. In fact my WAG is that the more pressure you have, the more fuel you can blow into the forge, and in turn the hotter it would get. Which is why some of the commercial forges get plenty hot on propane, they're designed and built correctly.

I could be wet on this, and in that case I'm sure somone will be along shortly to forge weld an idiot sign to my profile.:o

[ThomasPowers]

I have a friend who *melted* a pattern welded billet in his home built aspirated propane forge; he got to talking at a meeting and ended up calling us over to see the molten pool in the back of the forge.

Heat in a forge is basically BTU's in vs BTU's out so more burners---you're pushing more BTU's in. More insulation you're slowing their loss, etc.

Thomas

[cheftjcook]

Alan,I run a gas forge and a while back I was asking for ways to get it hotter and a few goods folks explained to me about a coating you use on the lining of the forge. It acts in a few different ways as I understand it. One is as a reflective or refractory agent to increase the temp. A second is to bind or seal the funky dangerous fibers in the lining from coming apart and being inhaled as you are working. A third was to protect the fire brick from the welding compound as it will eat away at it. The name is ITC100, I am sure many more knowledgable people here can give you good advice about it.
TIM

[FredlyFX]

Welcome to the dark side Alan. Blacksmithing has been a wonderful hobby.

I started off similarly to you in that I got myself going with coal. I built a break drum forge that I could hook either a hand crank blower, or an electric blower to. I found the hand crank worked better for me. Then, I built my first propane forge after taking the coal forge out to one of the Renaissance faires I do. I ended up smoking out a lot of people, so I built a propane forge. In the last 4 years I have only used my coal about 3 times. I love being able to start it up in a few seconds, and being ready to work in a couple minutes. With coal I found I spent most of my time on fire managment. Now I spend my time beating on hot steel.

I wasn't comfortable building my own burners, so I bought the 3/4" T-Rex burner from Rex Price. They work perfect right out of the box and I can go from ideling at 2 psi to screaming at 20psi with no problems at all. I also found that the small freon tank forge I built as a traveling forge was more than large enough for the stuff I am doing.

I've put up a lot of step by step photos on my web site that show how I built all of my forges. If you don't have a welder, they can still be built effectivly with a few design changes.

[Sam Salvati]

Ahh ok. I wonder if you could operate a mini forge, but with a regular propane forge burner, but at a much lower pressure, and still get the same if not better performance than mapp?

[FredlyFX]

If your going to build a mini forge but use full sized burners, you might as well build a slightly larger forge so you can get the full use of the burner. My freon tank forge can be easilly carried with one hand when it is not on the stand. Most folks build them to sit on a table or roll around cart. If you are not planning to do forge welding you can use a single burner in it. I have done lots of welding in mind with the two burners running about 10 to 15 psi. 1 1/4" cable, 100 layer billets, and smaller pieces of mild steel have all been welded easilly in it.

[Shane Stegmeier]

Hammer drills are definitely not a waste of time, being able to hold the hammer correctly, being able to swing correctly, and being able to hit what you are aiming at are all things that are very important to develop and can only be developed by practice. There are no short cuts!!! In general work until you feel fatigued, then stop! You will learn bad habits if you try to push past your fatigue, and are much more likely to injure yourself. You need to work till you are fatigued, then a little bit more, to build your strength and endurance, but your body is telling you that it is tired for a reason, listen to your body, and if it hurts stop. I generaly start people with a lighter hammer, even strong people, because it is easier to control, and they can work longer with the light hammer. The strength will come with the hammer control, and should, who wants to be able to swing a big hammer, and not hit what you are supposed to, just makes a big mess;-)

I have always defined wisdom as the ability to learn from the mistakes of others without having to make them yourself. :-) I pray you are wise...

[Alan DuBoff]

Welcome to the dark side Alan. Blacksmithing has been a wonderful hobby.

I started off similarly to you in that I got myself going with coal. I built a break drum forge that I could hook either a hand crank blower, or an electric blower to. I found the hand crank worked better for me. Then, I built my first propane forge after taking the coal forge out to one of the Renaissance faires I do. I ended up smoking out a lot of people, so I built a propane forge. In the last 4 years I have only used my coal about 3 times. I love being able to start it up in a few seconds, and being ready to work in a couple minutes. With coal I found I spent most of my time on fire managment. Now I spend my time beating on hot steel.

Fred, thanks so much for your posts to this thread, you have really given me a lot to think about. I have spent the last couple hours surfing your site, as well as the linked sites from it, and wow, you are a great inspiration!

When I get down to SoCal, I will definitely want to look you up, if you don't mind, and at least get together with you and toss a cold one or burn a hot one. Your work is superb and I like your site. Your wealth of information and willingness to share with others is exactly what makes the web what it is. I grew up in SoCal, but up from you in the San Fernando Valley.

I wasn't comfortable building my own burners, so I bought the 3/4" T-Rex burner from Rex Price. They work perfect right out of the box and I can go from ideling at 2 psi to screaming at 20psi with no problems at all. I also found that the small freon tank forge I built as a traveling forge was more than large enough for the stuff I am doing.

Yes, I think this is a wise move, and those burners look awesome. As with most things in life, you often get what you pay for. The time and $$$s to build similar could end up costing a lot more $$$s after factoring in the time involved, and someone like Rex Price or Larry Zoeller have obviously gone through various evolutions to get the burners where they are today.

I've put up a lot of step by step photos on my web site that show how I built all of my forges. If you don't have a welder, they can still be built effectivly with a few design changes.

And I can say for myself that I truely appreciate the content and information you have put together on your website. I find your site much easier to read than Ron Reil's, yet see a similar willingness to share, and I like that. Jr. Strasil does the same, as many others.

So, tell me, I see a lot of references to freon tanks, and I'm not clear on where folks get those. Are these propane tanks cut open? I would love to have something about that size with a 2 burner on it, if possible. I like the industrial look of them, as I do the style of the Zoeller mini-forge. Your freon tank forge looks like the ticket for me, if I could put one together easily. Since I don't weld at the moment, I might modify it to bolt legs/stand to it, or get a friend to help me, I do have a friend that welds.

Hammer drills are definitely not a waste of time, being able to hold the hammer correctly, being able to swing correctly, and being able to hit what you are aiming at are all things that are very important to develop and can only be developed by practice. There are no short cuts!!!

Thanks for your encouragement, and yes, I do plan to do them. I am a fond believer in building a solid foundation, and I'm trying to approach this in a way that will be benificial for me in the end. I am a fond believe that "practice doesn't make perfect, it's perfect practice that makes perfect". There are far too many people that practice bad habits, which you point out, and this is a point that many can do themself good to heed.

even strong people, because it is easier to control, and they can work longer with the light hammer. The strength will come with the hammer control, and should, who wants to be able to swing a big hammer, and not hit what you are supposed to, just makes a big mess;-)

I couldn't agree more. A bunch of friends got together a year or so back and did some forging. Many of them complained because the gent with the forge had them using a large heavy hammer as he prefers. Most of them had sore arms after and mentioned that they were using what felt like a 40# hammer. I didn't feel bad after a couple hours pounding with a 2.5# and 1.5# hammer, used the lighter one for lighter work, and my instructor showed me the differences in light medium, and heavy hammering. Having a rack of hammers next to the forge was all too convenient, I have just about every hammer available to me. Both hammers were the same type, a flat face and a round face (I don't know if I would call it a pein, the round face was more of a slight curve. I was only using the flat face. I only have ball peins to practice with, but the flat side should be fine. I have about 8 or 9 different sizes, bought a lot of old greased up ball peins that look like they mostly came from a mechanic, since they were pretty loaded up wtih grease.

Knowing how to stand was very helpful in knowing the proper way to hold the stock, how it should be in relation to your body, having your left arm close to the body, where my feet should be pointing, and how to swing and hit the hammer to the stock (i.e., what to look for to ensure one is hitting flat). He first mentioned that if my hammer technique wasn't good, he would have to embarrass me with the wood technique practice. However, I told him I had to know so that I could practice at home, I do have an anvil, and think it's a good thing to practice.

You guys have me wanting to forget about the mapp all together and go with one of those freon tank forges, just need to know where I could get such a tank and/or if it's a propane tank which I can get at Home Depot. Good quality burners such as the T-Rex burners would appear to be the biggest investment. They look like a good investment to me though, time wise.

I have always defined wisdom as the ability to learn from the mistakes of others without having to make them yourself. :-) I pray you are wise...

I certainly try to be wise, but do find myself learning from my own mistakes instead of others, on more occasions than I would *like* to admit! ;)

[Alan DuBoff]

Fred, I see you got the freon tank from Mojave Southern Machine Works. Seems quite reasonable at $10+change with the hole cutout.

Did you buy your burners direct from Rex Price?

I see they have a couple different burners that look like a similar design, at less cost.

Your site's great, I'm still sifting through it...;)

[Sam Salvati]

I was just thinking Fredly, that you could operate a mini forge with slightly cheaper propane but with a bigger burner at a lower PSI than a bigger forge. And with the small chamber, you could do small frge welding with the one burner just turned up higher. Unless there is something I am not getting, I don't know much about gassers and stuff.

[FredlyFX]

Glad the information helped out Alan. When you come to So Cal please give a call and stop by. The contact info is on the web site. I live in San Jacinto which is about 20 miles east of Riverside & 80 miles NE of LA.

I bought my burners directly from Rex. For my first forge I bought the flare from Larry, but the second batch of burners I bought the flares from Rex as well. I really couldn't tell the difference in the way they worked. That may have been my lack of experience at the time.

Making the burners yourself is definetly cheaper, but for me the performance is no where near what I get from Rex's burners. I have used other forges where the burners were home made and while they worked, there was more fooling with them. Others didn't work nearly as well. As for the size, you can get the smaller burner Rex sells, but later when you get to knowing what you are doing and want to do bigger stuff you may have trouble getting it up to heat. As for wether you would use propane or MAPP gas, personally I would never even consider the MAPP. I am a cheap sob at heart, and I just couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on gas. I can get my 20lb tank of propane filled for less than $10, but a 1lb can of MAPP gas is about $6. The math just doesn't work for me. If I want a hotter flame I just turn up the pressure and I get it.

[Alan DuBoff]

Glad the information helped out Alan. When you come to So Cal please give a call and stop by. The contact info is on the web site. I live in San Jacinto which is about 20 miles east of Riverside & 80 miles NE of LA.

Yep, I looked it up on the map last night when I saw where you live, I occasionally get down to Orange County, and more often to El Segundo as my company has an office there which I end up at more than I would like (twice a year typically).

My parents live in Newbury Park, up in Ventura County just before the grade. I was down there a few months back and was able to visit the Gamble House, in Pasadena. Was really cool to see some of the great straps incorporated with the timberframe, forged pieces inside the home, and other cool stuff like the hinges on the carriage doors for the garage (now the bookstore).

I bought my burners directly from Rex. For my first forge I bought the flare from Larry, but the second batch of burners I bought the flares from Rex as well. I really couldn't tell the difference in the way they worked. That may have been my lack of experience at the time.

Making the burners yourself is definetly cheaper, but for me the performance is no where near what I get from Rex's burners. I have used other forges where the burners were home made and while they worked, there was more fooling with them. Others didn't work nearly as well. As for the size, you can get the smaller burner Rex sells, but later when you get to knowing what you are doing and want to do bigger stuff you may have trouble getting it up to heat.

This is very helpful, thanks. I will order one of the freon tanks, and decide how to move forward with it, and get the solid fuel forge cleaned up and going with my blower. In the meantime I have the smithy at Ardenwood Forge to use, can't beat that with a stick!

Thanks for writing up the process for building your freon (and other) forge(s). I appreciate it, and I will be able to learn from your mistake on putting the floor in before adding the burner holders. Someone mentioned recentely

Good point on the mapp vs. propane. I can get a 20 gal exchange at Home Depot for about $15, opposed to 1 gal of mapp for $6 as you point out. Yeah, I can get propane cheaper, but sometimes convenience is worth a premium. A freon forge with a 20gal tank seems like a decent road warrier.

[stevomiller]

Alan, who is currently the smith at Ardenwood? I learned from a smith there by the name of Jack Ladd about 16 years ago, but I know that he moved up to Oregon quite a few years back.

I'm glad to see that things are still going over there:)

Steve

[Alan DuBoff]

Alan, who is currently the smith at Ardenwood? I learned from a smith there by the name of Jack Ladd about 16 years ago, but I know that he moved up to Oregon quite a few years back.

I'm glad to see that things are still going over there:)

Steve,

Scott Thomas is the smith at Ardenwood Forge, there's some info about him and pics of the smithy, how it is today on his website. You might be able to tell if it's the same now as it was 16 years ago.

Scott has been the smith there since 1999, and I don't know if Jack Ladd was there until then, or if he had left a while before. I know that Scott mentioned on his website that they were looking for a smith around 1998.

The way it is setup now is that the main forge (station 1 on his site) is in the center of the smithy, and the 2nd station is in front by the large door of the building, which opens up and has a counter there to serve the public as such, when they're open. There's a small covered area on the side of the smithy where station 3 is setup, and it's a long narrow forge. Other assorted sand stone wheel grinders are there, and such. That is the opposite side from the larger covered area that has quite a few old wagons, hay bailers, and such like that.

Scott seems very knowledgable, and has been helpful to me in the 2 times I've been over there, once to talk with him about instructions, and last week when I had my first lesson. Having a smith who knows what they're doing is helpful as they can explain how to hold/swing the hammer, how to stand in relation to the forge, and how to hold the work in relation to your body/forge. This is all stuff I would most likely have done wrong starting out, so he is probably saving me time and preventing me from learning bad habits. That can't be all that bad, IMO.

What a cool place, aside from the smithy, the horse drawn train and other stuff around the farm is very cool indeed.:cool: