Brake drum forge heat problem

[Abeaty1387]

Made this forge a few days ago to start blade smithing. Using a hair dryer has air supply and lump charcoal has fuel (can't find any coal in toledo ohio) I hues can't seem to get it hot enough no matter what I try. Any advice?

[neg]

Don't see a picture, but are you forging in bright light? Outside during the day it doesn't look as hot as if you were in the shade.

[Abeaty1387]

Built this forge over the weekend with some stuff laying around a friends body shop. I've always loved medieval crafts and wanted to start small blade smithing. I'm using all natural lump charcoal and a hair dryer for Air supply.

 

The forge. I'm using it outside but my anvil is in the. Garage so I can see the metal better.



 

[Gromgor]

Charcoal requires a much deeper pot than coal. The reason you can't get heat is because your fireball doesn't have room to exist because there's not enough fuel depth. Try dropping that brake drum down into a hole in that, what looks like the bottom of a 55 gallon drum, so that the bottom of the drum is "flush" (I know it won't be perfectly flush) with the top lip of the drum. When viewed from the side it should look something like this: 

    |        /     |     <--What you currently have
    |____ ====_____ |



    |               |                      }
    |_____     _____|   <--Barrel          }   What you want
             /        <--Brake Drum       }
           ===                             }  

This will give you a container to pile fuel on top of the brake drum, giving you more fuel depth. The actual depth of the fire pot isn't the important factor. The pot is just something to hold your fuel. Increase the depth of the fuel, apply some air (and charcoal requires very, very little).

[Abeaty1387]

The brake drum is about 5 inches deep. After playing around with the charcoal for a little while today I found that I needed smaller pieces. The forge is built from some angle iron for the base, the outer ring is 3/8 inch plate steel that was bent into a ring with a plate welded to the bottom and a brake drum for the fire

[ThomasPowers]

The stock is supposed to be going through the center of the hot spot not on top of the fire.  This looks like "I turned my stove's oven to 450 degF but the pot on top of the stove isn't heating"

 

You need to either cut slots in the side to move the work piece lower or build up the fire so the workpiece is in the middle not on top.

 

With charcoal; building up the fire is suggested.  It might save on charcoal if you put in a sheet steel fence right against the inner wall of the brake drum that extends up say 6 inches and has slots on either side to allow stock through.

 

How far is Toledo from the SOFA meetings?  We used to carpool from Columbus to them; well worth the cost and effort (and carpooling really drops the cost!)  You will learn more about forging at one SOFA meeting than days on the internet!

[Abeaty1387]

I got it working by starting a bed of charcoal and getting it warm then dropping my steel in and adding coal on top of that. Was able to bring a rail road stake to yellow heat in about 3 minutes. Thanks for the replys everyone. How's the forge look for it being a first time build?

[Glenn]

Look at the drawing for placement of the steel in the fire for best results.