Observation....true or false

[PJames]

In watching a heck of alot of You-tube videos and seeing posts here I seem to have noticed that coal or ('m guessing) charcoal forges allow better control over the heating of the material being worked. Particularly where the heat is wanted to be localized.

I live in the south and coal is almost unknown as a heat source. Charcoal is considered something you use for a bar-b-que. Unless you buy special coal and ship it in you can use or make your own charcoal.

So that leads me to a couple questions. I have seen comments it takes several times more charcoal by bulk to get the same amount weight as coal. But a pound of charcoal gives you as much energy asa pound of coal...... True?

HOw long can you expect to forge using either charcoal or coal? I mean for a 10 or 15 pound amount... I am trying to figure if I want to continue using propane, which costs about $19 for a basic exchange tank or try to convert to charcoal.

I'd like to see comments/evaluations of each...

[Thom Noblitt y Gonzalez]

From my limited experiance.
Propane, you can buy it at walmart or yoiur local gass station at midnight, turn it on and it will give a constant heat. Unless designed to, it is not the best for forge welding since most flux eats most linnings very quickly. Once its on its on and you don't need to mees with it. If it is set up right it will give a constant and reliable heat. When you turn off the gass its off and if you want it back on then give it the gass again.

Coal: It is a living fire. You need to first build a fire, then add the coal so that it soaks up the heat and burns until it becomes coak. This means that there is a little more downtime and you need to build hte fire (some people are good at that , I am getting better) while it is coaking up it is smoaking like an angry volcano, sulfer smoke mixed with steam is a very interesting smell and feel but if you work a coal forge you become familure with it very quickly. I consider this a living fire since you need to feed and care for it. If you let to much clinker build up then it can suffocate, not setting enough coal on the side to coak up while working means that you might have to add alot at one, bringing back the smoke. However for all that it is a good place to forge weld, the flux will increase your klinker but once you know how to work the fire you can get localized heat but it takes practice to get to a point where you can get the heat and peice where you want them. Sometimes I get to welding temp exactly when I want to other times I keep heating up the wrong spots or can't get an even heat. I am learning though. Also finding good coal is interesting. You can skip coal and go to a coak fire, but I hear that is expensive and is likly to go out if left unattended for too long.

Charcoal. Can be bought at wallmart (not brikets but the cowboy charcoal from all real wood) or made taken from a cooking fire that is near by. To me it works similer to coal just without the nasty smoak, instead it constantly needs new fule and there is ask involved. I have been there for a builet welding in a Y1K charcoal forge and there seemed to be no major problems. But I have only worked this kind of fire a hand full of times.

Just my 2 cents, and I will try and come back to fix all the spelling mistakes soon.

[LeeMcKee]

It really depends on what you are doing.... I use my propane only when I need to uniformly heat something to a good orange/yellow... The Coal for 90% of all my work. The coal runs at most $20 per hundred and would last four days or so of work. I get about two days out of a normal BBQ grill tank. I do know that charcoal burns faster but it also depends on your blower.... If you want to conserve fuel use a hand cranked blower.

[HWooldridge]

I bought some decent coal near Stigler, OK about 25 years ago and there is some outstanding stuff in Alabama - you are about halfway so it's not impossible to find in the South.

Coal gives a very hot and concentrated fire so it's easy to weld with - charcoal will do the same, as will coke. Coke needs a slight continous blast or it will usually smolder and go out. When I used coke and coal more often (I now use propane almost exclusively due to convenience and availability), I would mix the two together and the coke would stay lit due to the volatiles in the coal. Proper management of the fire goes a long way to how long the fuel will last.

Propane will also weld in the right forge and it's great for production work. As already mentioned, a lot depends on what you want to do.

[son_of_bluegrass]

There is some variation in coal (and charcoal) and that can affect a bit how much energy you get form a pound of either. On a per pound basis, coal and charcoal are within 10 % of each other as far as energy output goes.

As for how long coal or charcoal last, that depends a lot on your forge and set-up. I have a couple of forges and on with last about 1.5 times as long as the other with the same amount of fuel.

There are a lot of variables that make it really hard to say if propane or coal/charcoal makes a better fuel for you. There can be more control with a solid fuel forge but it takes time to learn the skills of fire maintenance. If you don't have a solid fuel forge, you'll have to find or build one and will need an air source.

This subject has been covered in multiple threads, have you done a search?

[Ferrous Beuler]

Like Lee said, if you want to conserve fuel use a hand crank blower or if you are using an electric blower have a gate on it so you can limit the airflow when you are not taking heats.

Also have and make use of a sprinkle can to control/limit the size of your fire. If you are using charcoal "dry" then it will burn hollow rather quickly, especially with a constantly running electric blower.

"Burning hollow" means that the fuel in the center of your firepot is consumed and the fire advances outward into the surrounding fuel forming a ring of fire with no fire in the middle. Don't assume that wet charcoal will not burn, wet charcoal is what you want once you have a fire started.

You can also use corn for fuel.

[Francis Trez Cole]

Pjames there are thread's on coal supplies on this sight . Have you joined your local blacksmith group? they will know where you can get coal locally . I live in south west Florida and I can get coal. I have a gas forge (big) and it will eat up a 20# tank of propane in 3 hours. A hand crank forge will give you better control. You can always make your own charcoal free.

[Ridgewayforge]

I use charcoal in my set-up. I get a big ole fire going, and once there is a nice bed of coals, I cover the fire to make like a log cabin, it's both charcoal and wood. Just today I forged myself a good eating fork. Without a blower, too! I just use a fireplace bellows and the natural propensity for the wind to blow on my fire. Got it up to orange heat!

Charcoal can burn cleaner than coal, depending on the quality of both. But on the whole lump charcoal from the store is a great fuel.

[Glenn]

You can get rid of most of the smoke from a bituminous coal fire by poking a hole in the top of the coal and letting the fire come through the coal much like a volcano. This burns (consumes) most of the smoke. Back off on the air a little bit and you can watch the smoke catch fire as it emerges from working its way up through the coal.

Most of the time I have a fire ball about the size of a melon, with more coal stacked up on top of the fire, and even more stacked on the side of the fire. This way you can control the heat of the fire with the amount of air you pump into the forge.

How and where you place the metal in the forge determines how hot the metal gets. For instance, if you have one piece of stock in the fireball, another on the side, and yet another resting on top of the fire, you have the first ready to forge, the second almost up to forging temp, and the third piece of steel being pre-heated. It is a short dance to move everything ahead one step, and place another piece of steel on the top of the fire to pre-heat. This saves time and fuel.

Make use of a sprinkle can to control/limit the size of your fire.

The operative word here is sprinkle. Too much water can sometimes crack a fire pot.

[781]

propane forges can limit the size of work, cant heat a 1' wide piece in a 6" forge
propane can scale the work more also
But just light the forge, turn on the fan if has one one, wait a couple minutes till it is up to heat put enough iron in till it works you to death. Should be able to have one piece in the forge getting hot while you are working theother. Dont try that with coal or charcole unless you like seeing sparks as you piece burns up.

With that said I use homemade charcoal and an electric blower.
Forge welded 2' of 1 1/4" cable yesterday, planning on making a cable damascus hawk for an auction

[Travis Covington]

One way to save fuel is a foot switch. When you walk away the air quits.

[Glenn]

But just light the gas forge, wait a couple minutes till it is up to heat put enough iron in till it works you to death. Should be able to have one piece in the forge getting hot while you are working the other. Dont try that with coal or charcole unless you like seeing sparks as you piece burns up.

I respectfully disagree. I use an electric blower on a coal forge (55 Forge) and you can set the heat about where you need it (with practice). See the post above for 3 irons in the fire at the same time.

[ThomasPowers]

For a really localized heat get an induction forge!

Why are you exchanging tanks? I get mine refilled at the local propane dealer and it saves me usually about $5 a fill up *and* they have a "frequent filler" card where after every 4 fill-ups I get one free so 20% off the fill-up price to boot!

Making sure your forge has a thick lining of kaowool allows you to turn the burner way down and still keep your heat up. It's amazing, after I re-line my forge I have to be careful that I don't melt pieces in it as the burner has been turned up as the liner degrades---(teaching students is HARD on your equipment!)

When I use charcoal I build a scrap wood fire in a raised fire pit and transfer hot coals from it to the forge so I don't *buy* charcoal. I also sift the ashes from the wood stove we heat with and save the charcoal for later use---like smelting.

[Old South Creations]

to add to Mr Powers' post...not only is it usually less expensive to fill YOUR tank rather than swap, if you shop around you can find places that will charge you for what you get rather than a flat fee. Where I live Tractor Supply, for example, will only charge you for the amount of propane they put in your tank. Nice when you only need to 'top it off' before a show or demo.

[ThomasPowers]

You mean there are places that don't charge for amount delivered? Is that legal?

Where exchange places come into use is when you get a bottle cheap as it is out of inspection date and you can exchange it for one in inspection date. A used bottle is $15 at the fleamarket out here so a switch for a filled bottle is still cheaper than "buying new".

[Guest baddog]

We built a coal forge out of a brakedrum when we started. We even made our own charcoal by burning hardwoods. Made a nice fire, made a few things but were going through the charcoal fast and it was hard to start the fire. Moved to coal, much more efficient and easier to start. Then we bought a propane forge. Great fast heats but pretty expensive to run and hard to get larger pieces in the doors. Just finished making a new coal forge and we are going back to coal for more localized heats and working larger pieces.

[mudbugone]

I live in the south and coal is almost unknown as a heat source. Charcoal is considered something you use for a bar-b-que. Unless you buy special coal and ship it in you can use or make your own charcoal.

PJ... You do know there are coal mines down in Mansfield just south of Shreveport ? http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Louisiana_and_coal It's lignite coal and I haven't taken a trip that direction lately or I'd have checked it out. It may be poor grade coal (maybe),but probably cheap to purchase. A heater store might have better coal and I haven't checked around Shreveport for that source either yet.

The closest Blacksmith group might be the Texarkana group...unless there is one in Shreveport.

[Michael]

I've forged with charcoal for about 5 years, and found that a 5 gallon bucket of Cowboy brand will last me about two hours, give our take, with a lot of fire control work (wetting, shoveling, pushing to the middle). Just swapped over to coal and I get about the same time frame with a 1 gallon bucket of coal, less time messing with the fire, more checking with the neighbors about the smoke, and trying to keep that reserve of coke from the last fire.