Seems the folks demonstrating "how to" have the idea that you want to smother the small wood, paper etc, fire with shovel loads of coak AND green coal and thusly make as much white/grey/green smoke as possible.

 

What is so wrong with using coke left from the LAST forge fire and use that to start said forge fire then generate coke off of that?

 

There simply is hardly any smoke at all...................

 

 

lets just say I'd rather attempt surgery on myself than allow a surgeon who trained off of you-tube!

I've seen several videos like that. I had mostly presumed they had no coke to hand. That said there are some great videos where they use coke from the previous fire to get it going.

 

One video i saw was likely done with green coal in order to  show how well the chimney worked on the small mini forge they guy made. I watch a lot of youtube vids for forging, often many different vids for making the same thing. That way i get a broader knolwedge base to begin my own experimentation.

It took me close to 3 years of forging with coal to get to the point that I understood the use-the-leftover-coke-from-the-last-fire-to-start-the-next-one tip.  Years of burning charcoal had gotten me in the habit of burning my fire down to nothing, doing final little heat 'n finish type of work.

 

Used to only burn coal on weekdays, when everyone in the neighborhood was at work, but its gotten pretty easy to get a mostly smokeless fire going now.  Shut down of the fire is just shoveling the burning coal/coke onto the forge table and letting it go out in 10 or 15 minutes.  Lots of fuel to start the next fire.

 

Now I'm getting used to finding, fishing out and working around clinker.

Anyone can film a video with a cell phone and post it to youtube. It does not mean the information on the video is correct or accurate. Many times they forget to add the label "for entertainment purposes only" as a warning at the beginning of the video. 

 

Smoke during the building of a fire can be a matter of choice, you want smoke or you do not want smoke. 

 

If you do not want smoke, then punch a hole in the top of the fire and fuel to form a volcano and let the fire escape and burn the smoke. Air control will aid in keeping the amount of smoke to a minimum. 

lets just say I'd rather attempt surgery on myself than allow a surgeon who trained off of you-tube!

 

Well said Thomas, once again we're of similar opinion. For the most part Youtube is video uploaded by people with delusions of adequacy.

 

The guy who showed me how to burn coal believed in coking a day's worth when we started. Talk about smoke, hooh boy! The upside being forging the rest of the day with not a wiff of smoke. And no we didn't water down anything, didn't have a watering can in fact. I didn't have a clue about using water on a coal forge and don't seem to need much on those occasions I do get to use coal.

 

Instead of searching out videos on Youtube or other sources, how about just reading the solid fuel forge section here? It'll save me from halving to write my sure fire easy coal fire starting technique. . . AGAIN.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I purposefully make sure I leave myself coke to start my next fire.

I often cheat and start with charcoal, then switch. Works pretty good, and very easy to light.

"Youtube is video uploaded by people with delusions of adequacy."

 

~ Frosty The Lucky.

 

Frosty, you seriously need to have that printed on some t-shirts. I'd buy one.

I have never tried starting a forge fire w/charcoal. I suppose because I'd have to buy that too. I have scrap wood and obviously plenty of coke/coal so I simply stick with that.

 

I may try some charcoal just for kicks sometime.

 

I should have made it clear in my original post, that I use fire building videos on youtube just for enertainment purposes only. I use the blacksmithing projects on youtube for tips. I glean from that what I can utalize and employ it.

 

But yeah...the "How to build a Forge Fire" is just to watch folks and enjoy the show.

A half a BBQ chimney of charcoal as a coal starter works great! it takes 10 or 15 minutes for the charcoal to get going, great time to get set up, (in my case, pull out the anvil and uncover the tools, fill the slack tub, get out the fire extinguisher etc)

 

Haven't been grilling all that much lately so its been scrap wood cut into kindling and shavings to start the fire.