Ten Hammers Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 I might add that if it were not for Jens Butler, there is a very good chance I would not be using charcoal with the fervor I do now. I had been introduced to charcoal several years ago but was not really happy with it. Jens re-introduced me to it and showed me a few things about it. Good coal is very hard to find for me. I don't do junk ( and I mean three 3 lb coffee cans of absolute powder in one 50 lb bag ). I have used coal exclusively for the past 20 years until last year at Bentensport Rondy and Threshers. I built my first gasser earlier this year. I now have 3. I use it all for production work but charcoal is sure nice for demos. It is pricey bought locally but it do work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 11, 2006 Author Share Posted November 11, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 " When I took the old pot out with the plasma, I discovered that the forge table is about 3/4 "thick at the edges where the new pot sets." You current setup in the forge will work OUTSTANDING with brick on the sides of the pot ( burning charcoal ). I replaced the pot because I was afraid of the forge being thin after years of use. This is my trailer forge ( for rondys and shows ). I use it 5-6 times a year. It was my shop forge for years before that. Yes it is a Centaur pot ( they call it a "bowl" ). I'm happy with it but truthfully it uses more fuel as it is deeper. The old pot ( if you call the floor drain cover over the hole a pot ) worked very well. It appears you have the original donut and tuyere with the indentation bowl in the forge table. This is the original design and works very well with brick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Salvati Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 I have a Cannedy Otto flat bottom pan forge, and If it doesn't say it on the forge anywhere wether to clay it or not, do you have to? Is there any health risks? The bottom of the forge pan doesn't even get NEAR red hot, whatshould I do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 11, 2006 Author Share Posted November 11, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 Burning through the bottom of a pan forge is more a sign of carelessness or ignorance than a design flaw. The number one way to "burn" through the pan is by letting it sit after a session where you've been watering the fire. Watering coal makes sulphuric acid as it's main corrosive byproduct but you can count on a few others as well like carbolic acid. The easy fix to this is to be easy with the water and make sure the pan is cleaned out and covered after every use. A less common cause for pan burn through is heating largish flat stock which reflects and traps the heat. Claying a pan forge whether it says to or not has it's pros and cons. The pros being; heat shielding and water barrier. The main con being; clay tends to trap moisture under it so corrosion may happen regardless. I have a buffalo cast iron pan forge "railroad forge, I think" and I clayed it with fireclay. I only moistened the clay enough so it stuck together when squeezed hard in my hand. I let it cure for a few days in a sealed container then rammed it in place with a wooden mallet. I build up a "duck's nest" around the air grate about 1 1/2" high and 4" dia. Lastly I scored the liner with a butter knife to control checking and burnished it smooth with a piece of burlap. After it was dried I covered the forge pan about 2" deep in charcoal and used a 55gl drum lid as a cover. I lit it off and put the lid on. For the first firing I kept the air blast pretty low. For the second firing I cranked it hard enough to get the clay generally red hot. It isn't perfect but it's lasted well for the past nine years. I don't use this forge very often, as my main forge is propane. Still, it's held up well. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 12, 2006 Author Share Posted November 12, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 12, 2006 Share Posted November 12, 2006 I don't think you'll have to worry too much about corrosive byproducts using charcoal but white ash is a little caustic so cleaning and covering it is still a good idea. If you make a steel cover with some cricket like vents, you can put it on while the forge is still hot and any moisture will be driven out. What I mean by a cricketlike vent (undoubtably the wrong term) is a vent hole with a water shedding cover. It would look something like a nose, or a gable roof on a dormer with the vent holes underneath. This will allow water vapor to escape while keeping rain and dew out. Fire clay is the same stuff they make fire brick from and it's frequently mixed with other potter's clays. It's reasonably cheap if you buy it from the sand and gravel or concrete plant and expensive if you buy it from the pottery supply. I can buy a 50lb sack at the local concrete plant for under $20 and we have to ship the stuff to Alaska. I've never run a head to head comparison between coal and charcoal so I'd only be guessing. However, (a lack of experience has never kept me from guessing you know. ) I'd guess you'll use maybe half again as much charcoal as coal. There are some things I do know that will effect the comparison though I do't know how much. Quality will have a big effect, the coal I have to mine (my own lazy self!!!) is of superb quality and two smiths can put in about 9 hrs on a 5gl bucket and have lots of breeze left over. If I were comparing my experience with charcoal with the "local" Castle Mtn. coal I'd say you were going to use 2-3x as much charcoal. SCA smith friends of mine who use charcoal exclusively say they can go a day on 25-40lbs of charcoal depending on quality. The quality of the charcoal has a lot to do with it as well. As has been testified to on the charcoaling thread soft wood like pine apparently makes a hotter fire but doesn't last as long as hardwood charcoal. My experience with charcoal is more than a bit different than most smiths, modern ones anyway. I spent 19 years as an exploration driller for the state of AK. taking soils samples for bridges and foundations, NOT oil. Of that 19 years I spent about 3/4 of my time out of town, much of that in a tent in the bush. After making an honest stab at becoming an alcoholic like most of the guys I worked with, I decided I needed something else to do. Well, reading a couple hundred pages a night was good for a distraction but I need to do things with my hands. So, I'd sit around the campfire, heating miscellaneous pieces of found steel and beating it into. . . things. After a while I made a little RR track anvil and brought a couple basic tools: tongs, butcher block brush and borax. I didn't bring hammers, I worked on a drill rig we had hammers out the wazoo and I didn't want to risk somebody damaging one of my good ones. There were also plenty of chisels, punches, hacksaws and even power tools if I wanted to unpack the generator. After a while I upped the ante by using my Coleman Inflatall and a piece of pipe for an air blast. A Coleman Inflatall is a 12v blower intended to inflate rafts, air matresses and such. They are SUPERB 12v forge blowers. On another occasion we set up camp on a river bar where there was a prevailing wind coming down the canyon off the ice fields. In that set up I built a forge by driving stakes in the sand and filling the space with rocks and sand to a comfortable height. In the center of the forge pile I put a bent piece of casing tilted so the bottom exited the pile on the upwind side. I lined the "pan" with shale and plastered it with clayey soil rammed in hard. My air grate was a bunch of rebar fished out of the river and laid in a grid over the top of the casing. I made a funnel from found sheet metal so I could either gather or deflect the wind from my airblast. Okay, here's how my experience with charcoal varies from the norm. I didn't make charcoal then forge with it. What I always did was light a fire and use the charcoal as it formed. The Resurrection River forge (described above) had a nasty tendency to roast anybody coming within tong distance :mad: so I had to further modify it. I fished a 15gl greas barrel out of the brush and cut the bottom out of it. Then I cut a pair of opposing holes about 8" wide and 5" high. The holes were the openings to the fire. How the thing worked was pretty basic, I'd toss smallish chunks of wood in the top of the grease barrel and forge with the burning charcoal in the openings. The grease barrel was a barely adequate heat shield and decent charcoal retort. The one thing I still kick myself for was leaving the thing I found for an anvil there, sticking up in the sand. I don't know what it came out of but I found this big honkin axel laying on the river's edge. The shaft was about 4 1/2" dia and nearly 48" long. It was splined on one end and had a bolt flange on the other with 10 ea. 3/4" bolt holes around a raised center. I buried the splined end in the sand with the flange just above knuckle high. It turned out to be one of the sweetest anvils I've ever used. I wouldn't swap my 200lb Trenton and would rather die than swap out my 125# Solderfors Sorcoress #5 but that axel moved metal like you wouldn't believe. Of course it was entirely due to the depth of hard steel under the hammer and one day I'll make another. I left it there for a kind of good reason; I got distracted by several hundred lbs of smithing tools for sale and just plain spaced my axel/anvil. Anyway, after reading through that long windy tale my point is this; I'm not the best judge of how far charcoal will go, I kept my field forges fed with a chainsaw. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 12, 2006 Author Share Posted November 12, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 12, 2006 Share Posted November 12, 2006 GASP propane?!? Open a window! Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 12, 2006 Author Share Posted November 12, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 It'll work just fine Alan. Don't over think these things, it isn't magic, just knowledge and practice. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Salvati Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 It'll work just fine Alan. Don't over think these things, it isn't magic, just knowledge and practice. Frosty Hear hear, though to forget the magic that IS in it, is to forget something vital. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Hear hear, though to forget the magic that IS in it, is to forget something vital. Agreed. So long as we remember what the magic is. It's a little different for all of us but here's my image. Iron and steel are the foundation of human civilization; they are the immutable symbols of strength and durability to all who know them. A smith takes humankind's oldest tools; eye, hand, fire and hammer and makes iron and steel into whatever s/he is good enough to make. The real magic is ours. We, lowly sacks of wet minerals take dirt and refine it into ships that fly to other worlds, towering cities and machines so small and precise they can venture into our bodies and repair us. Oh yeah, there's magic alright but it takes knowledge and practice to make work. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 13, 2006 Author Share Posted November 13, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Another way to get along with the neighbors is give them some of your practice pieces. I used to live in a trailer court and sharpened knives, did light repairs and gave away coat hooks and the like. I didn't work after dinner time and generally tried to keep on everybody's good side. I also burned charcoal and later propane. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Salvati Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Cool, good thoughts Frosty. Alan, may I suggest a small chimney just to pull the smoke up and away from you, and into the air a bit so it diffuses quicker and at a higher altitude, so ground level there is little to none, and you don't have to keep moving around due to the breeze sending the smoke every which way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan DuBoff Posted November 13, 2006 Author Share Posted November 13, 2006 no need for input here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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