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I Forge Iron

Cheapskate Shop


PCornett

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Many of the pallet construction buildings are 4x4s in the ground 2 pallets apart. That way each pallet is secured to a 4x4 and to each other. A rather solid wall as the pallets are just fillers but also have and provide some structural support.

I would suggest that you cover the outside as soon as possible to keep the "look" of the structure acceptable to the neighbors. Slats from the pallets could be used on the diagonal to give a bit more structural support. Keep the wood off the ground and dry and it should last a while.

Insulation in the spaces of the pallets is up to you, or you could use the space for storage.

You may want to use a chimney so the smoke from a coal fire exits the building in an acceptable manner. If you just let the smoke rise and leak out from under the roof, it will look as the building is on fire and cause the neighbors to be concerned.

 

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Have you talked with your local steel roof co?   I built a 20'x30'x10' shop extension with free "tear offs" and overruns from a major hail storm out here.  As I recall Joplin sees a bit of wild weather every now and then.  (the other parts were old steel trusses bought used, utility poles given free by the local electrical coop, got about 80 more years of uselife on them, a used roll up door and the emergency exit door from my church when they replaced it with a nicer one. I did by SDST screws and purlins new.)

When my wife had the house re-roofed she chose a colour that matched 1 of the 4 shades of blue on my shop...

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I have seen pallet walls build out of the common 30x30" pallets, by making sections of pallets nailed together with the 2x skids horizontal and the 1x deck vertical. It is best to glue and screw/nail the top and bottom skids together. It is best to make up the entire wall as an assembly, with the pallets staggered like bricks. This is similar to old "California" framing. I have as well seen trusses made from dissasimbled Pallets.  

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On 8/17/2016 at 7:20 PM, PCornett said:

Thanks a lot bigb. I didnt think it looked that bad and I cant afford much better. Took me 3 years of scrapping/scrounging to make this.

I wasn't poking fun at your shop, I was responding to notownkid's post. Yours does not look bad, kind of cool sitting there in the woods. Back when I was young I remember putting a few sheds together out of scrounged materials. I kind of miss those days. Right now my smithy is just an outdoor space with a home made steel cabinet for the tools. I am working on a roof to keep the sun off me. Doesn't get cold here much so no real need for walls.

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On 2016-08-18 at 6:08 AM, Glenn said:

You may want to use a chimney so the smoke from a coal fire exits the building in an acceptable manner. If you just let the smoke rise and leak out from under the roof, it will look as the building is on fire and cause the neighbors to be concerned.

 

My experience is that it does not leak out but fills the room. I assume that the smoke becomes so diluted with room air that the temperature difference that would get it to the ceiling and then out is lost

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On 8/20/2016 at 4:27 AM, Glenn said:

There should be little or no smoke in the room.  Remember that is where you live and work.

I cannot agree more. I am using forced draft but before that was finished I lit the forge as an experiment - and extinguished within a couple of minutes.

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The first light did fill the room to begin with until the high sulphur smoke burned off and the cole started coking then it started to go out. I will have to light another fire to find out if the blower I am planning on using is good enough by itself. Def keeping my eyes open for stove pipe. Thanks for all the suggestions. 

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Both carbondioxid (letal concentration around 10%) and carbonmonoxide (deadly in any concentration since it accumulates in the blood) are colourless and have no smell. The dioxide is probably not a big problem but depending upon how the fire is managed a forge can produce dangerous amounts of carbonmonoxide. In the days of the tiled stove people were sometimes killed by poor management of the stove so this is not a danger to take lightly. Iron age dwellings (like teepes) had a hole in the roof and a conical or a wedge shaped roof and it worked but open fires burn the monoxide to dioxide. A forge does not always do that. You try to keep a reducing atmosphere in the fire ball to keep scaling down and that means production of monoxide that may burn to dioxide --- or not.

Please read the stickies under 'hoods and chimneys'. You need to trap the combustion gasses close to the fire before they spread into the room. The problem with exhaust fans is that they often cannot take the heat unless built for the purpose and these are quite expensive. You can get away by using an old vacuum cleaner "backwards" and use the jet of air as an ejector in the flue but you need a flue. You can build a hood from scrap sheet metal pop-rivet or using sheet metal screws and you can build the flue in the same way.

By using the vac-ejector. I get my smoke out through a horizontal 10' pipe of only 6" diameter and since the smoke is diluted by the air from the vack (and the room) the pipe is not very hot. Less than 200C.

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