hello,
im new ti the forms and have already got some good info. i have recently up graded my forge from a small charcoal grill with a pot in it to a real forge and a hand crank blower off craigslist ive been having a hard time starting it. any suggestions? do i start with one or the other? also i got some coal and coke from the guy but cant tell the difference. thanks for the help

daniel

The way I start my coal fires is to make a ball with about 10 sheets of newspaper, wrapping them a bit like a wonton so that there's a dense central ball and a fluffy protruding tail that's easy to light. Put the wonton in the firepot with the tail up, buttress it with coal up to the tail, light the tail. After that, move in the coal as the central ball burns up.

2 things for coal fires:

1. As the coal starts up, there'll likely be a lot of smoke
2. Once the smoke is gone, it's because the burning coal turned into coke
3. Remember to keep your fire buttressed with green (unburnt) coal to turn that green coal into coke- cuts down on the smoke a lot.

I've never forged with a coke fire.


PS!!! There's probably quite a few threads about fire starting/maintenance. The search function is your friend!!!

Cheers,
T.

You can start a small fire with paper and kindling wood, then mostly cover with coal. Once you have enough fire to take the blower keep on till you have a good sized fire in the pot.

I cheat and use a propane plumbers torch and some lump charcoal.

If you can't tell the difference between the coal and the coke then you are using metallurgical coke, built for blast furnaces and the steel industry. You need an electric blower to use that. It will not stay lit without an air blast.

Breeze coke is light and porous, and is what you get from bituminous smithing coal in your forge. Breeze will stay lit a while without an air blast.

I wonder if mixing met. coke and smithing coal can produce favorable results...I have never used met. coke, and have only used coal twice.

Phil

for my coke forge fire i start with some wood build a small fire (say a double handful of kindling )get it going good (use blower) then start putting your coal/coke on the fire .keep the blower going and add fuel (should produce smoke )in a few minutes you should have a good glowing fire!

thanks for the info guys. now ill have more ringing of the anvil and less hand cranking :lol: