Well, as I just blew my last fuze running my garage 2'nd phase meaning I can no longer weld tonight, figure I would take a picture to show my current progress, and a few steps earlier. That and I need to take a break anyway, welding in a closed garage sucks. Time to let the smoke die down a bit. Was about 99% done welding too :(

 

Guess after a break I will go out and begin fabricating my Tuyere, just will not be able to tack weld any of it together tonight, have to go see if I can find any fuzes for this old antique power box I have in my garage tomorrow before work.

 

 

 

Certainly a good start.

Just don't use a penny in the fuse box, Steve will flogg bith of us ;-)

Just don't use a penny in the fuse box, Steve will flogg bith of us ;-)

 

Oh no, a penny would not fit at all, forget that idea. Now a few inch long section of 3/4" copper pipe, THAT would work. Brilliant idea Charles! :D

 

Got my Tuyere all planed out now, some of the cuts made, but I want a close fitting air gate in it, so have to take it into work tomorrow and mill a slot to get a good tight fit. So no more progress going to be made for a couple days.

Well, just finished up my air gate on my tuyere, I cut a 1/4" slot with a manual milling machine at work in the side of the square tubing, and roughly cut out some 1/4" plate steel to slide into the hole.

 

 

And now that I got the fuse replaced, I fired my welder up again, and welded a couple strips of 1/4" steel inside the pipe, so when there is air pressure on the plate it will just rest against the strips and will not jam up. So I can finely control my air flow. When fully in, it nearly completely seals off the the flow.

 

 

Next I will work on finishing up the vertical pipe and prepare to weld this pipe to the vertical.

Well, I finished up the build of my Firepot/Tuyere haven't worked on it very much at a time lately because I ran out of propane for the garage heater, so have to heat it with small space heaters. Takes hours to get warm enough to take jackets off to be able to weld without setting myself on fire. Keeps getting to 0F here at nights more often then not, so has been a pain with no heat out there. But I finished it up today!

Now I just need to get the sheet metal dragged out of the barn and taken to my friends shop to cut it down and bend up the sides to make the main tray for the forge. That and I don't know if the weight I welded together to hold the ash dump closed is heavy enough, more then likely is not, but will not know how much more weight it needs till I get a blower on there and coal in the firepot.

Oh, and the bolts holding them together, and the clinker breaker are both stainless, so should last a while. Not sure on the grade of stainless in the clinker breaker though, found steel, noticed it wasn't rusty at all unlike the other steel in the batch, and it was totally non-magnetic, but it drilled SUPER easy. Drills just sank through it! Welded a couple pieces of it with some 309 stainless rod and it welded like a dream.

Got the table done and basic unit finished. I left the clinker breaker out for right now because I want to take it into work to mill a little more off of it for more air flow. Not that I have tried it yet, but seems a little too restricting still. Table came out slightly warped, but once it is piled with coal and the odd tools and such, no one will notice.

I also bought the 164cfm forge blower from BlacksmithsDepot.com, it is a physically smaller unit then I was expecting, but puts out good air flow, we will see. It's that little grey thing on the floor next to the forge. Looks like it will be easy to fix up to my forge, just haven't spent the time thinking how to really do it yet. Will work that up tomorrow. Oh, I did have to modify the length of my ash dump arm, so it would clear my brace there, so added a bit more weight to it before reinstalling it.

Well, basically finished my forge. Still needs some tweaking, but it works. Next I need to build a stack for it and clear out a space in the building to house it.

I didn't have any coal, but I had some charcoal for grilling on, and as I upgraded to propane grill last summer, no use for it now. But this charcoal is HORRID for forging, OMG. Insane amounts of clinker and ash and flying burning sparks. Hands are covered with micro-burns from hot slag flying out of the fire. Did a short video as it was just starting, and a picture after I had been messing around with a piece of iron a bit.

 

Briquettes aren't the best forge fuel by a long shot but they can be used. You need to break them up to peanut +/- size and turn the air WAY down. Still, you'll get a lot of ash flying, the sparks were from the high air velocity and large voids between briquettes. I just wrote a too long post about briquettes a day or so ago so I'll give the gang a break.

Beautiful forge though, well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

Nice looking and sturdy forge, Kevin.  Congratulations on a good build.  You mentioned you were adding a stack (hood, I assume); that is pretty much a necessity; how about sideboards of some sort to keep the coal banked up on the table?  Mine is about the same size as yours, and I very soon found I needed to add some sides, in my case 1/8" x 3" bar stock with tabs that let me just "clip" them on the side.  These pics are with the hood removed for clarity.