Ironwolf159 Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 I have just started to build a forge of clay ,i will burn a wood, and i have a question - what size i need inside the forge , and how much wood i need to burn ,could i get a iron smelting temperature ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son_of_bluegrass Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 First, if you put a general location (city, state or country), there may be someone close by who is willing to help in person. Next, I think you'll be better off turning the wood into charcoal before using it as forge fuel. You can reach smelting temperatures. If you post more details on your plans for your forge you'll get better responses. ron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 you dont smelt with a forge... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forgemaster Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 3 answers to your 3 questions, big, and lots, and maybe, it all depends on the 1st two critieria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Wood fires need to be deeper than charcoal fires. Your making charcoal and need to keep a little extra wood on top so to burn off the volatiles. You will need more than what you would use, as it is better to have some left over when you finish, then have to quit because your out of fuel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall P Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 It sounds like you need to hit the books / previous threads to learn what a forge is, how it works, and what you use it for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old N Rusty Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Wood , to do any forging with, requires such a BIG fire you won't be able to get near it. Too hot ! You won't be able to SMELT IRON with a wood fire at all.Not hot enough. Confusing? Read all you can about blacksmithing on this site, find books,and join a local blacksmith group. Welcome to your new obsession! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 Okey , thanks you very much for information. But if i can't use fuel , I can use just wood like old times ,then what size i need my forge inside loosely, how much meters or centimetres i need ( m x m ) ,(cm x cm ) ,, I wil use air-pump " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 I sue this forge for small metal smelting like a 500 g. aluminium or more..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 You said could i need a lots of wood and big forge the how you can explain that watch it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3pXPyMze4&list=PLD832A5562E2630FE&index=5&feature=plpp_video they use a small fire ....but they melt a bronze... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 where a several pictures of my forge sketch ... http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ee633 http://www.freeimagehosting.net/69ad0 http://www.freeimagehosting.net/986e7 http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ec4b1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 When I forge with charcoal I like to build a fire in a raised firepit and then transfer hot coals to my forge---lots nicer not having the smoke and heat on me. You seem to have problems with the terms thought Smelting is taking ORE and reducing it into metal. Melting or Foundry work is melting and casting metal. Aluminum is smelted using electricity not a furnace. When I melt metal using charcoal I like a deep bowl filled with charcoal with the air coming in from near the bottom edge. Your design looks more like a bread cooking oven than a forge or smelting set up. Let me rephrase this "But if i can't use fuel , I can use just wood" actually can be properly written as "I can't use fuel, I can just use fuel" see where we are perplexed? Wood is a fuel as it charcoal, propane, natural gas, coal, coke... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 I use this forge just for hobby, for a now.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmoothBore Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Here, in the lower Susquehanna Valley, of South-Central Pennsylvania, there are several wood fired Iron Furnaces still in existence. The early settlers found the basic ingredients for Iron production were here, in suitable quantities to justify building large, naturally aspirated smelting furnaces. Iron Ore, Limestone, and lots of Wood, were the only essential requirements.If you google "Codorus Furnace" you will find a lot of basic information on early Iron production, as-well-as a couple of YouTube type amateur videos of the furnace. ( Unlike some of the other early Iron Furnaces in the area, due to the proximity to the Codorus Creek, Codorus Furnace was "blown" by a large bellows, that was powered by a water wheel. )Many of the early house and barn foundations around the area, are built from the local "Ironstone" ( ore ) ... and it's commonplace to see rust streaks running down those stone walls, from the iron-rich ore. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 when may anyone can tell me or give instructions how to build -wood burning forge of clay - and please give me a measurement of forge ....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 they use a small fire ....but they melt a bronze... Bronze melts at a lot lower temp than steel. Please read before you build anything. You do not seem to possess the needed information to be asking the correct questions nor to understand the answers we are giving you. We already told you that you should convert the wood into charcoal. not use wood directly, you are not listening Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 oh yes I'm sorry, now I see, thank you all .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattBower Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Please don't take this as an insult, but your writing is hard to understand. That's part of the problem here. I am a little late to this thread, but please clarify. Do you want to: (1) FORGE metal. Forge means, roughly speaking, to shape metal by hammering and bending in its solid state, frequently with the use of heat to make it softer and more plastic. The structure in which metal is heated for forging is also called a forge.. (2) MELT metal into a liquid state for casting into finished objects. (3) SMELT iron ore. Smelting means heating an ore (such as iron ore) in the correct environment in order to separate out its metallic component. So which one is it that you want to do? Forging requires a forge. Melting requires a casting furnace. Smelting requires some variant of a structure called a bloomery.* And once you've answered the first question, the next question is "how much?" In other words, what sizes of steel do you want to forge, or how much (and what kind of) metal do you want to be able to melt in one go. Finally, as others have said, although wood can be used as fuel for forging, certainly, and probably for smelting iron and casting many types of metal, it works better in many respects if it is first reduced to charcoal. *Some forges can do double duty as casting furnaces, and some casting furnaces can do double duty as makeshift forges. A bloomery isn't likely to work well for any other purpose than the one for which it was designed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironwolf159 Posted December 6, 2011 Author Share Posted December 6, 2011 I whant : build a furnace of clay .I whant SMELT IRON ORE ,and i use wood as a fuel. Maybe someone can give me some video or images .how to build a furnace of clay ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattBower Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Yes, there's lots of information out there on this, although I have never seen anyone use wood as the fuel; only charcoal. The term you are looking for is "bloomery." That is the word you want to be googling -- not "furnace." Check out the Bloomers & Buttons forum at Don Fogg's website. http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showforum=25 Also check out the Rockbridge Bloomery website by Lee Sauder and Skip Williams.http://iron.wlu.edu/ There's also the Wareham Forge website: http://www.warehamforge.ca/ironsmelting/smeltlinks.html I know he smelts iron; I don't know how much how-to content he actually has on the web. And there's a Yahoo group called the Early Iron Group, where a number of very experienced (and not so experienced) smelters get together to compare notes and trade ideas. Using wood as fuel -- as opposed to charcoal -- will probably require a bloomery of different dimensions. How much different? Your guess is as good as mine. As I said, all the iron smelters I'm familiar with use charcoal. (Many of them make it themselves. From wood. Hint, hint.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Yes you lose too much heat burning the wood in the furnace to produce charcoal. Make charcoal and add that to the furnace. I've smelted iron ore for a number of years now using a short stack Scandinavian furnace circa 1000 C.E. design. I've described it many times on this forum already. Please search for it. Another term besides Bloomery would be Tatara which is a Japanese type of bloomery. I strongly suggest you participate in a smelt done by someone with experience before trying your own. If you post your general location we may be able to direct you to such a person in your area. I assume that Engish is not your native language and you may be using a translation program that is not designed for blacksmithing and metalworking terms. Don't be upset if we seem to be trying to figure out what you are trying to say. We know this is a world wide web. Note that over at anvilfire.com there is a listing of blacksmithing terms in other languages that may help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattBower Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Thomas, I figured wood might work as fuel with a taller stack, so the wood was completely converted to charcoal well before it got down to the reduction zone. The top of the stack would be cooler, but that's why you'd make it taller. I dunno. Seemed like it might be possible. It doesn't sound very appealing, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 As it's a time and temperature process you might get hung up on is the wood processing as fast as you need it to to supply the reaction lower down. As charcoal is easier to break into the size needed than cutting wood I prefer to charcoal and then size and then smelt. I'll be sieving all the ashes from our woodstove this winter to save charcoal for a smelt next year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Hammer Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Where are you located? I would suggest you attend a blacksmith conference where one of the demonstrations is taking iron ore to a bloom. Sometimes the furnace is built before the conference, sometimes the furnace is built during the conference. The person who builds the furnace is generally the person working with the ore. I don't know of any that are currently scheduled (search the internet for conference schedules and planned demonstrations), but they are not unusual. I have been to at least 3 or 4 conferences where this has been done. The last couple times I saw it done was at Blacksmith Days in May, put on by BGCM in Westminster, MD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 There are a number in Europe as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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