Tire Forge Build

[Grant]

Good morning all

The plan is to transmute the rivet forge into a tire forge using the assembled pieces. We are currently using the pictured rivet forge for our traveling forge and desire “more robustness.” The general idea for this tire forge is biased on one in “A Blacksmithing Primer” by Randy McDaniel. The pictured tire forge with the very elegant side vent is his.

I think I will cut the hole for the fire pot in the drawer and then decide which end is up. The two options I see are to use the drawer right side up sitting it in an angle iron frame or upside down covering a 1” square tube frame. Then cut the side of the drawer to the appropriate height and add support and bracing where needed. Initially I thought to set the forge on a couple of iron saw horses and eventually put it on a pair of wheels, ala Dick Nietfeld. All opinions are welcomed.

Finally, for this post, are there quick and dirty flat plate flanges for the air connections on the blower and tuyere?

Thanks for all the help with this. There are tons of your posts that allowed me to get to this point. -grant

[Grant]

Good Morning All

I laid out and cut the firepot hole. It is centered 15" from the side vent edge of the table. There is an additional 8" of table on the other side. The hole is a 1/4" oversize to allow for expansion. Here are the pictures of the process and the firepot setting in the hole. One picture has the drawer upside down the other with the drawer right side up. At first blush the one with the drawer right side up seem to make the most sense. -tks grant

[Grant]

Good morning all

Progress, the clinker breaker is now free and the fire pot is dusted off and the rusted bolts removed; some removed easier than others. The Tuyere now will bolt to the fire pot however the clinker breaker will not rotate completely under the fire pot. The breaker does not clear the domed portion of the fire pot. One can rotate the breaker over the slot on one side of the fire pot then rotate around to the slot on the other side, but not through the center. One then could use their poker to clear the center slot, this should clear the debris. Is this how it was designed to work? Also, were the carriage bolts, the ones that attach the fire pot to the tuyere, changed on regular basis? The heads on these were fairly well fused to the inside of the fire pot. –tks grant

[cvmikeray]

Cool thread. I am doing the same build at the moment.

I am still collecting parts ( will have a few extra pieces ) when I get finished.

You may want to take a look here http://www.blksmth.com/forges_student.htm before you get to far.

You may want to turn the box over and use the bottom as the top of your forge. Like this pic DfirepotUpsidedown.jpg

Deep sides will make it hard to do long stuff and if you cut the sides on the box it will weaken it considerably.

I am going to put fire bricks (insulating type) like is one of the pictures in the link I sent. I like style #1

Just some ideas for you to think about.

Also I think the clinker breaker is working correctly. It make sense it would tap on the grate to break the clinker.

[cvmikeray]

As far as the bolts you may want to get stainless steel bolts or manifold bolts (which are stainless also I think) from the parts store. The heat and rust probably did a number on the ones you took out.

[Grant]

Good morning all

Thanks CVMikeRay for the interest.

Initially I wanted to use the drawer upside down however there are stiffeners spot wielded on the bottom side that would have to be removed. Even upside down I would like to narrow the drawer for aesthetic reasons. If the 1.25" angle iron frame around the outside of the box does not adequately stiffen the table I will weld the lip of the drawer to the angle. I might do this anyway to clean up the cut lip. I like the looks of a brick floor but I want to keep the fire pot open to the lower lip. The plan is to further lower the side of the table to match the lower lip of the fire pot on both sides. -grant