brake rotor forge construction question

[jay_cat]

I have all the parts to assemble my brake rotor forge. My only issue is I don't want to drill hole to bolt on my pipe flange. Can I just use gravity to hold it in place by just setting the flange on top of the opening?

[ThomasPowers]

When you knock it over and spill burning coals and redhot metal on yourself and the ground---will that be a problem?

Can you trap the rotor between two flanges with a nipple? (and yes that is the correct plumbing term for what I am talking about)

[jay_cat]

That would work well. Thanks.

I don't see how that will effect me from knocking it over. I was more concerned with any functionality issues. I will be supporting the rotor on block and it will have the same chance of getting knocked over either way. I don't plan on it. I'm more concerned with grabbing a hot piece of steel with my bare hand.

[Private Entrance]

I ground a flange to fit in the hole in the middle of a brake drum.

Cut two plates from the side of a washing machine

used the lug nut holes in the drum to bolt the flange in between the plates, with a hole in the bottom plate to allow a pipe to be run into the flange.

There are some pics of what I did in the 'Ghetto Forge rebuild' thread (currently on page 3) of the solid fuel forges. Hope it helps.

[jay_cat]

Here is the forge I put together using today. The guy down the street had a old file cabinet. So I used that to hold the rotor. My blower is a old heat gun that also blows cold air. It also has adjustable airflow using the fins on the side of it. Everything looked great. It didn't work great. I couldn't get my coal to light. I then added a plate to the bottom of the rotor will holes drilled in it to spread the air around better and I still didn't get the coals to light. My guess is that the rotor is to shallow and I need to use a deeper one.

Here are the picks of my first attempt at a forge.

[r smith]

You could use one of the drawers to set on top of the cabinet and put your firepot in that. That way you could have more depth and also a good supply of coal to rake in as needed. Did you disconnect the heater element in your blower or does it have an air only setting?

[ThomasPowers]

That's a brake drum not a rotor BTW

How big a wood fire did you build before adding coal? Did you try using real chunk charcoal and getting a good fire going and adding the coal? (Is it coal and not coke?---coke can be a pain to light!)

How are you moderating the air? A blowdrier puts out too much air generally

And you will need to build a fence around the drum to allow you to pile stuff up without it falling off the edges. 20 gauge black steel sheet will work and you should be able to bend tabs and Bolt or pop rivet them to the filing cabinet top. Best way would be to use two pieces and leave a gap where they meet at both ends so you can slip long pieces into the hot spot.

Forge looks good. I think I could have it ready for forge welding in about 15 minutes with my coal here in NM.

[Glenn]

Build a fire a boy scout would be proud of in the forge. Then when everything is going good, add coal little at a time till you have a coal fire going.

Mud can be used to cover the open bolt holes in the brake drum.

[jay_cat]

The heat gun has a cold air only setting.

I'm sure the fire I built was no were near a boy scout fire. I got to anxious and didn't build a quality fire. I then used my shop Vac thinking I didn't have enough air and blew out my wood coals. I plan on using furnace cement to smooth out the bottom once I am happy with everything. Next time I plan on using brickets to light the charcoal. Is Nut size anthracite the correct coal to be using?

I am using the bottom drawer to hold my coal at the moment.

[r smith]

That's a brake drum not a rotor BTW

Look again Thomas, I see a rotor that has a drum on the inside, most likely for parking brake. It is both rotor AND drum. ;)

[jay_cat]

Its the rear rotor off a pickup truck. If I flipped it over you would see the shiny rim form the brake pad. The truck must have had a seized caliper because the back side is not shiny. Either way today was a big fail on my part. I will try again. Tomorrow or friday.

[ThomasPowers]

bituminous coal is the standard blacksmith coal; *but* we're blacksmiths so we tend to use whatever we can find local and cheap---everything from peat to propane.

The folks who use anthracite say it is harder to light and of course you don't get a cave fire with it.

(well it has a "pot" for a firepot rather than the fairly flat disk of the rotors I have seen; so either way it's better than just a flat disk!)

[pkrankow]

If you use lump charcoal and a plumber's torch lighting a fire is really easy. Put a double handful in, turn on the air, put the flame in the fuel and in about 30 seconds it will start taking off. Then you can go to the fuel of your choice with no fuss.

Phil

[jay_cat]

Fortunately I can buy lump charcoal or natural charcoal briquettes at my local Lowes. As soon as I get a day withou rain I'm going to start off with the charcoal then add the coal. I've never failed lighting a fire before yesterday so I'll be xxxxxx if I let it happen again. Thanks again for the advice.

[jgirard13]

modernblacksmith on youtube has a good vid on lighting a forge. 8 sheets of news paper tightly crumpled up then super heated. try to push coke into it as soon as u think its burning hot as xxxx then add coal around it so it can coke up as well. i use an old 100 yr old hand crank blower and crank it kinda slowly and evenly when i light mine and only takes several mins to get it up to forgable heat. do you have a dampener setup on it?

[jgirard13]

just noticed you have a big ol hole for your burner. wont work well.... try cutting a pc of s.s plate 3/16 plus for your air hole and drillin a bunch of hole around 1/4" closely together (dond forget to use alot of oil) it eavenly disperses the air to the coal so it dosent just shoot up and follow the path of least resistance

[jay_cat]

just noticed you have a big ol hole for your burner. wont work well.... try cutting a pc of s.s plate 3/16 plus for your air hole and drillin a bunch of hole around 1/4" closely together (dond forget to use alot of oil) it eavenly disperses the air to the coal so it dosent just shoot up and follow the path of least resistance

I already added a plate to the bottom with holes drilled. I noticed the problem upon my first lighting attempt. I also don't have any coke to burn yet since Its my first fire to be lit with green coal. I'm going to use charcoal to get the coal lit next time. I also just noticed my first burn on my arm from an amber landing on it. Pretty sweat.

[jgirard13]

it loses its charm after your 500th burn... im more scar then skin now

[JimsShip]

My first "at home" fire was done with hardwood charcoal and I hated it.
Millions of "fire fleas" flying all over the place burning me and my shirt, it wouldn't stay lit, and I don't think it ever truly hit forging heat (although I pounded away anyway!) but I guess that's all part of the learning experience!

[jay_cat]

I finally got my feet wet today. I bought some lump charcoal and started off with that. It was easy to light. Then I added the antharcite coal. I do need to down size from a 4lb hammer to a 2lb. My forearms got fatigued real fast and I launched a red hot file through the air past my head. I learn the hard way. First thing I made was a coal hook (not sure what its called). I learned fast that it is a lot less work to hammer yellow glowing metal than dark red. Thanks again for all the help getting my fire burning. I already began my first file knife.

[Glenn]

The reason I suggest a good boy scout fire is the heat generated will then ignite most fuels. There is nothing wrong with building a bed of coals in the forge before adding coal. After all the blacksmith does not care how the metal gets hot, as long as it gets up working temperature.

Do not be afraid to add more fuel to get a larger fire ball. AIR not fuel controls the heat of the fire. You can have a 5 gallon bucket of fuel and with no air the fire will go out, or with limited air it may only smolder. Play with the fuel and the air until you find the combination that works for you, in your forge, at your location.

[jay_cat]

Using charcoal first then adding coal worked excellent for me and both are easily available for me here in Massachusetts. I need to add a metal skirt around my forge so I can pile on more fuel. The cabinet is narrow and the coal falls off easily. Thats my next modification.

[SReynolds]

Adding green coal around the outside of the (coke) fire is the method in which one would use to make more coke, if you buy green coal that is. If you have purchased coke from the start, you wouldn't ned to worry about it. You'll obviously need a retainer atop your forge to retain the green coal.

I don't understand how anyone could "make coke" with just the brake drum. Where would you place the green coal if the brake drum is the fire pot (filled with buring coke)?

When I make a fire from scratch, I simply use the fire starters available at any store. They are 1" squares, about 1/4" thick, pressed saw dust and bound with wax. I use a small bit of wood, like twigs, scrap wood etc and just one fire starter. The coke remaining from the previous fire is added to the small wood fire and I'm off and running. Then I add the green coal around that once it is burning well, again, to make more coke.

I have used the torch, inplace of the fire starter just for fun.

I was taught to use paper, wadded up and placed in the fire pot and add wood to that, etc. That takes way more time for me to wadd that into balls and hope the wood catches fire before the paper burns up.

I had used hard coal. That was a nightmare. And I couldn't shape the fire like I can with soft coal/coke. I loaded that back up and sold it, bought bulk soft coal.