Paul Crosby Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Well after some great advice from some of the membership, I finally finished my new brake drum forge. I stopped over to my car salesman friends dealership and found the brake drum pictured. I had a few options with it so I decided to go with 1 inch hole in the center. I reversed all the lug bolts except for two which actually holds the drum in place. I will probably add a few lug nuts to secure it in place. The small gaps give it extra ventilation and feed in extra air. I used 2 inch pipe on the lower part. I'm sure some will say use a larger opening is better but I thought I would give it a go. I probably will need to tweak it some but I couldn't wait to fire it up tonight. I haven't received my blower motor from my heating contractor friend, so I used a hair dryer instead. It worked better than I thought! The fire started with no problem. My hair dryer has two speeds and the picture shows a fire in the low speed mode after 10 minutes. What do you think? The fire seems low in the pan but I plan on putting in coal up to the top of the drum. Any suggestions from anyone is appreciated. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nghtmrknife Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 nice set up is it your first go at it? what is the brake disc from it looks big ? i only have a brake drum from a gmc jimmy its not very big i want to upgrade. i have a semi truck brake drum but i think that would be to big. what are your thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Crosby Posted December 3, 2012 Author Share Posted December 3, 2012 I believe it's from a large 4 wheel drive pick up truck. Its probably a dodge because it came from a dodge dealership. From what I heard the large semi trucks drums are to big. You could try putting the drum you have inside the larger semi truck drum and raise it some how to the height you need. You could use firebrick and stone and possibly a plate of steel in you design. Just a thought! This is my first forge and really just getting started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Nice first fire but not enough fire to forge with. Add more fuel until she can take no more. (Think Scotty of Star Trek). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Your fire will be too deep... add some clay to bring the fire up. You want your metal roughly centered in the fire and you have to put the metal in at the top of your fire pot... so... your fire should be built up so that half of it lies above the fire pot. Basically your fire is shaped like a ball and the metal heated in the center of that ball form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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