gabeh Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Hi folks, I'm fairly embarrassed to even ask this question but I just completed a Tim Lively style washtub forge to be used for bladesmithing and I was pretty anxious once the adobe dried out to get a fire in it. Trouble is, I can't seem to keep the blacksmith charcoal (elkhorn) burning for longer than a minute or two. I couldn't find a handcrank blower anywhere so I'm using a hair dryer and I've tried it both with and without the dryer to put airflow through the tuyere and that didn't seem to help. The airflow is there as I can feel it blowing up through the holes in the tuyere when set to high speed. In the video by Tim Lively that shows the construction of the forge and the rest of the knifemaking process he seems to have some dry straw in there with the coal for the initial fire and I haven't tried this yet but wanted to see if it's something that is required for starting and maintaining a fire with this kind of charcoal? I've got about 3lbs. of charcoal in the bed of the washtub forge, piled up about 3 inches high which seems like it should be enough but I just don't know and since it isn't burning for any substantial amount of time, I have to assume I'm doing it wrong. I would greatly appreciate any advice on this very rudimentary subject matter since I'm hitting a dead end. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old South Creations Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Not quite sure what is going wrong. I primarly use coal but I have used charcoal as well. I'm not familiar with the Elkhorn charcoal...I assume it's hardwood charcoal & not BBQ briquettes. I use balled up newspaper & pine cones along with the charcoal to get the fire started. Keep the air flow to the fire until you get it going. I personally wouldn't start with so much charcoal (3 lbs is a lot in my opinion). I would start small and add to it as you get your fire going. Just my 2 cents worth. Also, add your location to your profile. There may be some smiths close to you that can offer more help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old South Creations Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Don't be embarrassed. This is a great place to get help when you need it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Try lighting up a stick and twig fire, then add the charcoal, but not so much at once as to snuff your fire. Good charcoal should stay lit without much help, regardless the feedstock, but dense charcoal is harder to get properly lit. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 just out of curiosity, does this bag of charcoal say " cumberland elkhorn " on it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Did you happen onto a bag of coke? That won't like burning in a Lively forge...not enough air blast. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 GabeH, what you have is blacksmith (mineral) coal, as in rocks mined from the ground. It needs a different type of forge to get the best results, although it can be crushed and added to wood charcoal for a hotter fire. What you want is charcoal, as in lumps of partially burnt wood, not pressed briquettes. Bags of both are available in grocery and big box stores. Read the labels. It is all I use for historically correct pre-1880's demos. You will have to break the lumps down to nut size before burning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knots Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Blow a lot less air into the fire when starting. Alternatively cut a piece of sheet metal into the shape of one half circle then curl into a cone. The cone base should be big enough to cover the charcoal being started. Cut out the top to give about a 1 1/2" diameter opening. This cone can be rivited closed but need not be. When you start your charcoal set the cone over the freshly started charcoal. It will act as a chimney and supply just the right amount of air to get things started. When I first started I used charcoal for a couple of years . It works well but the charcoal is consumed a lot faster than coal. Happy forging . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 Guys, thanks for the heaps of useful information! Wpearson has the right of it, the elkhorn blacksmithing coal is exactly what I have. John, I think you hit the nail on the head with the coal being the wrong type based on your explanation. The few smiths/farriers in my immediate area that I've been chatting with recommended the coal but they use propane forges so it was a friendly best-guess on their parts. It does seem very... dense, I guess is the word I would use. It's good to know that I can at least use it for some other application by crushing it and adding it to the proper charcoal. I'll pick up the "right stuff" today and hopefully get a fire burning this afternoon. Again, I appreciate all of the help and will use the stick and twig fire tactic and use less of the charcoal, as well. I wasn't very prepared I guess and need to get some straw to act as tinder while I'm out today, also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 " just out of curiosity, does this bag of charcoal say " cumberland elkhorn " on it ? " You still seem confused as to the fuel you have and the fuel you want. This is the stuff you have:http://www.ce-coal.com/ This is the stuff you want apparently want:http://www.cowboycharcoal.com/ Cumberland Elkhorn coal is the best I have used ( actually it is from Sewell Seam coal). Lump Charcoal I also use as well as LP gas. All 3 for forging process. One fuel link comes out of the ground (is mined). That is COAL. One link is made from wood in a process partially charring the wood. It is CHARCOAL. Coal is bought at suppliers that are sometimes hard to find ( especially Elkhorn coal close to where I live). Lump Charcoal can be bought easily at mass centers like Wal Mart and other places. Various brands (Cowboy, Strumph, Royal Oak etc ). Yes you can make your own charcoal. By the way waste your time building a stick fire if you wish. Just take a common newspaper sheet (double) and wad it up into a ball. Take another sheet and wrap around this one and make a bigger ball. Have your charcoal prepared (broken up to smaller pieces) and your forge prepared (cleaned out). Light the ball of paper on the pigtail sticking out and place the lit part DOWN in the firepot. Lightly turn the blast on and pile the charcoal on top completely covering the paper. Turn the blast on all the way. You should have a charcoal fire inside of a couple of minutes. Charcoal is going to spit sputter and throw sparks. Build this fire in a fire safe location. Your mileage is going to vary on the wadding of the paper and you will gain experience as to how tight to make the ball. You can light coal the same way ( green coal- unburnt coal is a bit harder sometimes). " Coked" coal normally lights nicely with the above mentioned method. Your location would be nice if you wish further help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 I just wanted to follow up on this thread by saying that I got some cowboy hardwood lump charcoal and had no issue getting it to take light and stay burning. I guess it helps to have the right fuel source. I have tons to learn about the basics of fire tending and material placement but I am starting with a billet of 5160 that's 1/4" x 8" x 2" and was able to start drawing out the tang. It was just taking 10-15 min. for the steel to heat up to a hammering temperature which seems like my fire isn't right. Oh well, there's going to be a learning curve and I assumed that going into it. The important thing was getting the right fuel and getting it to keep burning and you guys helped tremendously with that. I appreciate all of the info provided and my location is in Greeley, CO. for what that's worth. I'll see if I can get it to show up under my name, also. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Just for grins, try some mild steel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewed Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Ok, glad you got it working, but I'm still a little confused. You should be able to burn coal in just about anything with an air flow ( heck I've seen it burned in a hole in the ground!) Were you having trouble lighting it and getting it burning? or would you get a good fire going, and it would go out on you? It sounds more like a lighting problem rather than a burning problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Getting a good blower set up and putting out the right amount of air is crucial for efficient smithing. The first time a piece goes in the fire will take longer as it's going from *about* ambient to 1500 degF afterwards it should be faster as you are going from 1000 degF to 1500 degF---important to get the piece back in the fire as soon as it stops glowing! Are you stacking the charcoal *high* and making sure the steel goes in the hot part and not down deep where the COLD air is coming in or on top where radiation to space is a concern? I could take a piece of steel to welding temp in a bellows blown forge using charcoal with those times! I assume you have looked into the local blacksmithing group? A couple hours on a Saturday with someone who knows what they are doing can save you *weeks* of floundering around by yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 " Getting a good blower set up and putting out the right amount of air is crucial for efficient smithing. " to quote Thomas. This is called an airgate. When I built it I had the attached blower hanging around the shop. Originally I used a shop vac. I used an HVAC evac blower (from a furnace) for a while. I now have a Blacksmiths Depot forge blower. The airgate was pretty simple to build from a scrapped hydraulic cylinder tube. The gate does stop the flow of air or can just crack the air to get whatever flow you wish. If you can find a crank blower, thats fine. I have several and used them for years before building the power blower setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 Thomas, I was not positioning my stock correctly. After watching Tim's video again (several times in greater detail last night) I paid close attention to how he was piling up the coal and keeping it on top of the blade for every heat. I will be trying this today since my stock placement yesterday was just rubbish. Also, I don't have anyone in my immediate area that I could find using the ABANA site but I'll keep looking around. If I could get some one on one time to watch a pro work I have no doubt that it would be tremendously beneficial. Drewed, it may be better described as a lighting problem. It would catch fire but would gutter out after a couple minutes or so. I couldn't get it to burn any longer than that. I didn't try it with newspaper or straw, though. If I tried it with a tinder source I'd probably have been doing better but the hardwood lump charcoal definitely took to flame much easier than the coal. Ten Hammers are you recommending mild steel so I'd have something "easier" to bring to heat than the 5160? I really need to get some regular steel for practice work but presently I have only one piece of steel in my position and it's the 5160 I mentioned. I'm starting small but I admit I may be trying to run before I crawl by not working on practice materials first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewed Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 You could try starting with charcoal then when that is going add the coal to it. Coal really is much better to forge with ( IMO ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Success! I spent the last 2.5 hours hammering away on my stock, drawing out the tang and notching it. Now that I'm piling the charcoal up higher and keeping the steel covered between heats I was able to achieve heat and get back to hammering every 3-4 minutes. Unfortunately, I still don't have my tong blanks from polarbear forge so I'm improvising with old channel locks which has caused me to lose a lot of time in making the most of my heats but I'm still leagues ahead of where I was yesterday. Thanks again for all of the helpful input and advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maillemaker Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 When I was starting out blacksmithing with the club down at the University of Wisconsin Platteville, most of my friends wanted to start with knives. There's nothing wrong with that, as knivemaking requires many skills; hammer control, design, hardening and tempering, etc. However.... My first goal was tongs. It didn't make sense to me to start out with something that wouldn't physically help with blacksmithing down the road. Just my $0.02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Maillemaker, I agree with that. Rather than starting out entirely from scratch for tongs since I need something that'll help me hold material sooner rather than later I purchased some tong blanks from polar bear forge so I can start with a partially made set of tongs that I have to finish. Once I've got some decent tongs in hand, I intend to try making more tongs so I can hold a variety of stock. As I'm finding out presently, using channel locks is a horrible substitute but I was so anxious to get my forge to burning coal I didn't want to wait any longer to get started. Now that I'm finally hitting a stride on controlling the fire and getting heats for hammering it's starting to be a major liability and I'll need some tongs pronto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 If you insist on using a pair of pliers, get a large pair of slip-joint pliers, say 10 or 12 inches overall. You can pick these up fairly cheap at a number of places. Remove the rubber handle from them, and consider having some rod welded to the ends of the handles so they are about 16 inches overall. These approximate pickup tongs, and are very handy, but do have limitations holding stock. They will work fairly well for thin flat materials, and hold the stock in line (VERY important) These can sub in for punch holding tongs, as long as the punch is of suitable size and shape for the jaw, and you don't mind score marks on the tool. Another choice is go to HF and pick up these http://www.harborfreight.com/15-inch-long-reach-locking-pliers-97609.html Both of these options are NOT substitutes for properly fitted tongs, but they are handy options and fill a number of voids in material handling. I admit I use my long reach vise grips for pulling tree seedlings in my flower beds and garden more than for forging. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabeh Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Phil, thanks for the suggestions. The long reach pliers seem like they'd be a good stand-in until I can get my tongs made. I'm definitely not looking to use a substitute for the long term but I figure right now I have nothing better than my crappy channel locks to hold stock to even make tongs so having something grippy is better than nothing at all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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