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I Forge Iron

History of Blacksmithing & Demo video


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Hey Francis,

No, not really.

The transfer of heat in the fire to the stock is mainly via radiant and conductive processes.

The amount of radiant heat produced in the fire is much more dependent on the surface are to volume ratios of the fuel. This comes down to the size of the chunks of fuel in the fire.

Smaller chunks will have a much greater surface area for the same volume of fuel and thusly be able to combine with the air much more rapidly. It will also have a much greater contact with the work in the fire, thusly increasing the conductive heat transfer.

Charcoal is much more open then coal, and thusly the charcoal allows the air to pass more freely through it. The coals greater inner matrix also consumes more air for a given volume of fuel. This explains why one requires a deeper bed of charcoal and a lighter blast then with coal.

If it is any indication, for my second forge I made the firepot out of about 1/16" thick sheet. I noticed that with charcoal the firepot was much hotter then with coal. The firepot was thin enough that it would glow in use. I used it for about two years and it didn't burn through, just in case anyone is wondering.

Caleb Ramsby

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This message is for all, but is directed to Thomas Powers.

It was brought to my attention by my good friend Fiery Furnace", that the way I made my statement on quote number 17 may have seemed disrespectful and that I should have kept the abbreviated language out of it.

I will admit that as a christian I should have kept the abbreviated language out, and for this I humbly ask for God's and your forgiveness.
Also I meant NO disrespect, and I pray that none was taken, on the way I made my statement, and you felt that I was being disrespectful then I humbly ask for your forgiveness again.

Thank you Fiery Furnace for bringing this to my attention, you are a good man, and God will bless you for it.

Trip

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Hey Francis,

No, not really.

The transfer of heat in the fire to the stock is mainly via radiant and conductive processes.

The amount of radiant heat produced in the fire is much more dependent on the surface are to volume ratios of the fuel. This comes down to the size of the chunks of fuel in the fire.

Smaller chunks will have a much greater surface area for the same volume of fuel and thusly be able to combine with the air much more rapidly. It will also have a much greater contact with the work in the fire, thusly increasing the conductive heat transfer.

Charcoal is much more open then coal, and thusly the charcoal allows the air to pass more freely through it. The coals greater inner matrix also consumes more air for a given volume of fuel. This explains why one requires a deeper bed of charcoal and a lighter blast then with coal.

If it is any indication, for my second forge I made the firepot out of about 1/16" thick sheet. I noticed that with charcoal the firepot was much hotter then with coal. The firepot was thin enough that it would glow in use. I used it for about two years and it didn't burn through, just in case anyone is wondering.

Caleb Ramsby


That's a pretty interesting view. What you are saying about air mixture and surface area contact makes sense. I would also think that smaller coal is going to pack more tightly and therefore insulate better, keeping more heat inside the fire. My coal is large, almost as big as charcoal and does not clump up like blacksmithing coal. I've also used good coal and charcoal so I follow what you are saying.

"Trip": proper forum manners and good character is, when a point of difference arises, for both parties to post their sources and let everyone else make their own decision. In the end, if someone gets mad, they can only get mad at your source, not at you or anyone else. If something is taken the wrong way or someone is proven wrong, a kind apology is in order. Thomas challenged you for a source, and you delivered an adiquate one so he apologized and you on your part apologized for any missunderstandings, in your post. If anyone is mad now, they can only be mad at your source.

Apologies accepted and forgiveness distributed here! :D
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Hi Trip and David and Thomas. No apologies needed. This is a very interesting and informative discussion, and it has opened my eyes. It appears that Thomas and Trip are talking about 2 different things. One is the anvil priests of Gretna Green, and the other is the pagan blacksmith wedding ritual. This makes me worry about my demo spiel in which I complete a forge weld, show how the line disappears, then point out that even with a lot of experience, the blacksmith cannot make the line in some couples completely disappear. It is funny to see the reaction, especially from the women in the audience. It varies from outright shock and revulsion (how can such a thing be so??), to knowing nods and winks, to vigorous head nodding and shouts of affirmation. Now I realize that there is much less historical ground to stand on. It still is funny, unless you have mostly the first kind of people in the audience, then you wish you kept the big mouth shut.

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Hey Trip arguing back and forth is how the truth gets out! Being in LH for over 30 years you sure get used to piling up sources and evaluating how good they are and arguing little bits way past their value. Starting from a source that should be good is a great way to go! Why I'm so fussy on IFI---people expect us to *know* what we are talking about and so we should be careful to hedge our statements so they don't generalize a specific.

Like "pagan blacksmith wedding ritual" Neopagan? I don't recall any Greek, Roman, Hindu, or Druid wedding rituals involving blacksmiths. I am not very read up on Sub Saharan African or Shinto or a heap of others. I shared an office for a handful of years with a fellow who went back to India to marry and we went over his ceremony in pictures in detail and there wasn't any smithing aspects to it---riding a horse yes.

Now charcoal, Rehder in "The Mastery and Use of Fire in Antiquity" (a great work on biomass fueled furnaces BTW) mentions that in a charcoal fueled bloomery the reducing zone is about 12-13 times the mean diameter of the fuel above the tuyere. So you can see where 1" cube charcoal needs a nice deep fire compared to 1/4" coal to get a reducing fire. (Note this book also contains plans for a "foolproof" small bloomery in the appendix)

As for insulation: packing things tight usually makes for worse insulation rather than better. I think coal does better in that it tends not to be burning outside of the central fire and with smaller size pieces tends to have fewer paths to let heat travel out by radiation and gas flow. However if you had two large pieces one of charcoal and one of coal and put a torch to one side I'd bet the heat would transfer through the coal faster!

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Caleb Ramsby The Mastery and Use of Fire in Antiquity talks about the deforestation through out history. its a real good read
also Dave int the book the village blacksmith there is a chapter on the wedding ritual in England.

open discussion is great there are those who have read many books and the vase amount of knowledge that is on this site my only intention is always to share what I have read. If I make a mistake i will be the first to admit it.

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Some of the first environmental laws in England were to limit the number of iron producing furnaces (often called forges in older works---language drift makes research *fun*, medieval works use the term coal to mean *charcoal* and the rock form is known as stone coal or even sea coal as it would wash up on beaches from under sea veins in England) in England as the deforestation they caused was impacting shipbuilding and thus National Security!

Even though smiths started to use coal as a fuel in the high to late middle ages, ("Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel", Gies & Gies---has period illustrations of blacksmiths too!) iron was still smelted from ore using charcoal until the 1700's when Abraham Darby figured out how to do it *commercially* using coke. In the Hanging Rock region of America (SE OH) the last charcoal fueled blast furnace went out of blast around WWI---(lecture/tour at the Iron Masters Conference held in Athens OH) As coke introduces sulfur into the metal "charcoal iron/steel" was still preferred until fairly recent times when they figured out adding Mn to the steel would deal with the sulfur---why even the 10XX steels have Mn as a "given" in the alloy.

Sorry I get carried away...

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Hey, I really like the heart hook demo. Gonna have to try that one. I am not a video expert by any means but I think you could greatly enhance the video by considering your back ground and lighting better.

When displaying the item for us to see it would show better if it were against a white background for example. With light shining on it from the camera side. There was one shot with the tongs holding a piece and the anvil was just behind. The piece sort disappeared as the anvil and workpiece were roughly the same color. IT was hard to see what you were trying to show us.

Similar comment on the last shot. The room showed up dark and so the pieces on the floor were hard to see. They were also quite small. The heavy sunlight in the background outside causes your camera to adjust from a light standpoint to the background which was bright. That made what you were displaying dark. Once again I am not a video expert or even amateur photographer but but generally speaking you don't want bright light behind what you are filming. I suspect if you had filmed that last piece from the open doorway into a closed room it would have looked better.

Anyway, my two cents. Nice video and thanks, I really liked how you turned turned the heart around.

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Hey, I really like the heart hook demo. Gonna have to try that one. I am not a video expert by any means but I think you could greatly enhance the video by considering your back ground and lighting better. When displaying the item for us to see it would show better if it were against a white background for example. With light shining on it from the camera side. There was one shot with the tongs holding a piece and the anvil was just behind. The piece sort disappeared as the anvil and workpiece were roughly the same color. IT was hard to see what you were trying to show us. Similar comment on the last shot. The room showed up dark and so the pieces on the floor were hard to see. They were also quite small. The heavy sunlight in the background outside causes your camera to adjust from a light standpoint to the background which was bright. That made what you were displaying dark. Once again I am not a video expert or even amateur photographer but but generally speaking you don't want bright light behind what you are filming. I suspect if you had filmed that last piece from the open doorway into a closed room it would have looked better. Anyway, my two cents. Nice video and thanks, I really liked how you turned turned the heart around.


Yeah, I like making those heart hooks, I am thinking of making a how to video on that subject.

I know what you mean about not being able to see the metal, I found the same problem when I first watched it but by then I just had to make it out of the film on hand. I think I am going to build a short steel table (about the same height as the top of my anvil) and paint the top white, and after I finish a technique I can lay the piece on it. Sorry about that though.

As for the lighting, well I am still in the process of setting up my new shop, and in some places the light is poor, wish we could have watched that last clip, but right after we finished filming it, the camera battery was about dead.
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Hi Trip,
If you are going to make video on making those heart hooks, consider using a bolster when you punch through, you won't have the same trouble as Dave has in the video with the metal bending and holding on the punch,

Happy Easter to all !

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Hi Trip,
If you are going to make video on making those heart hooks, consider using a bolster when you punch through, you won't have the same trouble as Dave has in the video with the metal bending and holding on the punch,

Happy Easter to all !

Yesw I'll be lodging a complaint with Blacksmith of the Bluegrass for their lack of a bolster plate! LOL Actually I was the moron who packed a punch without packing a bolster plate! LOL A thin slitter and drift would have made a cleaner hole.
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Yesw I'll be lodging a complaint with Blacksmith of the Bluegrass for their lack of a bolster plate! LOL Actually I was the moron who packed a punch without packing a bolster plate! LOL A thin slitter and drift would have made a cleaner hole.


Hi Dave, I know that, and you know that, but the vid viewer don't, just part of the prep work before doing a demo, get all the bits you need there, and handy, explain and show, pass on the knowledge
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What is this here "bolster" plate yer talkin about????


A bolster plate is a mild steel plate or flat bar with various sized holes in it. You choose the correct sized hole in the plate for the size hole you're punching. The prichel hole CAN be used as a bolster plate for a LARGE punch, however if you miss the hole, you could take a chunk out of the edge with the punch. That's why a mild plate that can be scrapped and quickly remade is used.

I know how much you HATE punching, but we need to go over that some time. Most punching can be done without a bolster plate if the correct style punch and the correct method is used.
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i thought it was a great video, and i think for the time you had you covered the history of smithing very very well. i saw the heart hook and at first i wondered how it was going to turn into a hear but after i saw the forgewelded peice it dawned on me.and i did not know the beeswax bit, so heres my question, does the wax block have to be "pure" wax or can it be the stuff with the crud in it? pure wax runs me about 5bucks a lb, impure is free if i haul it away. and my other question is: what are you using for flux, yours looked black and almsot all other flux ive seen is borax soap. i enjoyed the forge welding bit, it was very .... ugh... i forgot the word, but it was a very good way of showing me how to do it.

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The flux is 50% each by weight of borac acid (roach killer from the dollar store,) and red iron oxide. (Pick it up from a potter's supply store.)

The impure wax is going to melt those lumps onto your iron work. You can try using it and wiping any left over lumps off. Good luck!

At $5.00 a pound I'd just use the pure stuff though. You'll still need to wipe excess off with a rag though.........gives a better finish that way.

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