I made me some charcoal, and started drawing out steel!

[Archie Zietman]

Hello.
Today, I started to pound an old inch thick round stock kingofallnails which is 3 feet long. Drawing it out is long, and tedious and eats up fuel, but is VERY satisfying. I am using a one pound claw hammer, and elbow grease. It's hard, but if I use my 3 pound mini-sledge, I have barely any control, and still less with my proper sledge hammer, because I have to be both striker and holder, which doesn't work very well.
I also took a helluva lot of scrap wood, and made a lot of charcoal, while grilling some cajun catfish. mmm... :D

[Ed Thomas]

Archie: The most flexible shape for a hammer face for forging is square. If you can get to old farm auctions or even household auctions, you can often find old hammers with broken handles in boxes. Look for something in the 2 pound range. Machinist hammers are good. Then grind the face squarish. Keep the edges of the square rounded off. You'll have to put a new handle on, but the hammers are generally cheap or free without them, and you'll be shaping the handle up anyway.

The reason for the square face is that you can tilt the hammer slightly so that when you hit straight down, you strike with the edge of the hammer, which draws the steel out in the direction you want. Hitting flat makes the steel try to spread in all directions at the same time. Hitting on the edge makes 90% or better try to squirt out perpendicular to that edge. And this technique works much better with a square face.

Generally, you need to pay attention to hammer control. Without someone right there to help you, one thing you can do to get a good feel for it is to think of the hammer as a ball on a string. Or as one kid immediately said as he tried it: "Like a yo-yo". You throw the hammer at the anvil, let the bounce bring it back up, and continue lifting it as it bounces to a point above your head. Then you throw it again. Throw and catch (absorb) and throw again. All one motion, grasshopper. Wax up/wax down.

In fact, one-inch round is not all THAT big to forge. So if you are wearing yourself out, you are either hammering inefficiently or not getting the steel hot enough. To draw out mild steel (or wrought iron), you shouldn't pull it out of the fire until it is just under welding heat... a bright yellow. And don't bother forging once it cools to dull orange-- heat it back up.

[bruce wilcock]

ed has it in one just get it hot, 8)

[Archie Zietman]

My chacoal forge is, it seems, too small to get the steel to a yellow heat. I shall make it taller, and the air supply larger.

[Ed Thomas]

Archie: The fire may be too small, but also pay attention to where you put the steel in the fire. In fact, before you waste a whole lot of time and coal on the 1" round, try taking a small piece of steel (1/4" or 3/8" or so) and just work with the fire. Try the piece in different positions and different places and angles. Watch how it heats. How much of it heats, how fast it heats, how much scale develops. We can tell you the best way to manage a fire in general terms, but it doesn't make any sense until you experiment. Try to deliberately burn some steel. Get a feel for when that happens and why.

In general, you should have a pot of fire. The steel should be placed across the coals. You want the oxygen coming in from the blast to be consumed by the fuel and turned into heat before it hits your iron. But exactly there! So don't push the iron down into the fire to the bottom and don't rest it above the cooler coals on the top. In a well-built mound... try 1/3" the way up to start.... laying as horizontal as you can get it. Then start experimenting with the fire and the iron until you know for sure exactly what is going to happen.

It's difficult to recommend how much coal to you because it varies by forge. Even the shape of the fire varies somewhat. But generally, for a bottom blast, it should be a mound. Big enough to heat the steel, and to maintain with relative ease.

The fire is your tool. Own it.

[Archie Zietman]

does charcoal burn steel as well?

[Ed Thomas]

oh you betcha. :P

[Archie Zietman]

I just fiddled around, and got a 1/4 inch bolt up to welding heat in 5 minutes. I need to finish my bellows and it'll take a lot less time. Right now I just pump the xxxx out of my pool toy bellows.

words edited by the site Admin.

[Strine]

Archie, you must be a Queenslander...that's how they spell "beer" on account of they can't spell.....XXXX :)

[Archie Zietman]

that was absolutely hilarious, but I changed the words back.