my first coal forge build-lots of pics

[Teachagmech]

Well, I'm new here, and so far, I've learned a TON of stuff from the forums here at IFI.  I've always been fond of blacksmith work and the smell of coal burning. I've also taken an interest in bladesmithing(who hasn't in recent years) so I wanted to build a forge.  A gas forge would have been neat, but the nostalgic draw of coal has brought me in that direction. 

At first I was going to build a hand crank centrifugal blower, but that ended up a bust when I found a half-broken 6" bench grinder motor.  the shaft was true, but one side guard was broken and with it a healthy chunk of the bearing support.  It wasn't going to be any good for a grinder, but it was a 1/2 HP motor for free...and who doesn't like free!?!!!???!!! so I dug up some stuff on the hand crank blower build thread here, went and did some of my own research, and sprinkled in some of my own ideas and this is what I came up with:

then came the fire pot with a makeshift clinker breaker

and a Tuyere

then came the charge air pipe with an ash dump at the bottom

I don't know how effective it will be, and I'm a little worried of fire pot being too deep, but I can always cut it down. If anyone has any input on that, I'd love to hear it since I'll be starting on the table on Monday and would like to be able to move forward without taking steps backward.  at this moment, the pot is 4" deep, 9" wide at the top, and 13" long at the top.

 

Hopefully I'm not too far from where I want to be(or where I should be).

 

thanks in advance for all your help and suggestions

[Frosty]

That is almost too pretty to use. You do realize most of us started with a hole in the ground, a piece of pipe and a hair drier we stole from Mother when she wasn't looking. Right? Well, I did anyway, literally but fortunately I was smart enough not to take her new hair drier. This was decades before "blow driers" . . . still.

Table next, yes?

Frosty The Lucky.

[TwistedCustoms]

It may just be the perspective in the photos but the pot looks really deep. Four inches will give you a big fuel mass for sure. Unless you're going to be forging three inch stock daily you could get away with trimming it down and save some on fuel. Great job on the fab work, I look forward to seeing it finished.

 

 

[Teachagmech]

Frosty: yes, table is to come, but like i said, I want to make sure the firepot is correct before the table goes down. 

 

TwistedCustoms: thanks. That's what I was thinking. From what I've read, charcoal forges require a deeper coal bed.

 

is there any merit in building another false floor to brim the bottom up rather than cutting the top down?  This way I could pull the mid-way plate out of the firepot and forge with charcoal?  Just spit-balling wondering if my ideas will stick. On those same lines, would there be any advantage to increasing the air blast area if I did put a false floor in the firepot?

On 5/20/2016 at 7:47 PM, Frosty said:

That is almost too pretty to use. You do realize most of us started with a hole in the ground, a piece of pipe and a hair drier we stole from Mother when she wasn't looking. Right? Well, I did anyway, literally but fortunately I was smart enough not to take her new hair drier. This was decades before "blow driers" . . . still.

Table next, yes?

For what it's worth, my first forge was a cap from a piece of 16" flange pipe with a chunk of pipe taped to a garden hose with a leaf blower taped to the other side. Made this file knife with it. 

 

there are a lot of things I'd like to improve on, so I need a new forge. 

On 5/20/2016 at 7:50 PM, TwistedCustoms said:

It may just be the perspective in the photos but the pot looks really deep. Four inches will give you a big fuel mass for sure. Unless you're going to be forging three inch stock daily you could get away with trimming it down and save some on fuel. Great job on the fab work, I look forward to seeing it finished.

 

[TwistedCustoms]

The clinker breaker won't see any action with the floor plates but I like your idea about raising the floor. Maybe weld a short duct extension to the bottom of a plate sized to drop in and rest at 2.5-3". Your pot is good as is without any floor plate, it's just a little deeper than it has to be for coal or coke. Forge with it as is and see if you like it, you can always try the drop in floors later.

Nice knife, is that osage?

[Teachagmech]

1 hour ago, TwistedCustoms said:

The clinker breaker won't see any action with the floor plates but I like your idea about raising the floor. Maybe weld a short duct extension to the bottom of a plate sized to drop in and rest at 2.5-3". Your pot is good as is without any floor plate, it's just a little deeper than it has to be for coal or coke. Forge with it as is and see if you like it, you can always try the drop in floors later.

Nice knife, is that osage?

I'm not sure what you mean by Osage. It's a simple file knife. Applewood handles with copper pins. Cold chemical blue finish. 

[TwistedCustoms]

Osage is a hardwood, aka bodock, aka horse apple.

[Teachagmech]

6 minutes ago, TwistedCustoms said:

Osage is a hardwood, aka bodock, aka horse apple.

Seems to be a south-eastern thing. I've never heard of it. Looks really nice when it's all done up though. 

[7A749]

Hey Mike. Glad to see you here. I just joined too. The forge is coming along nicely. That blower you made looked quite capable of providing enough thrust to get to the moon. Looks like the grinder motor will work just fine tho.

Just got my little forge out and cleaned up today. Hope to bang on some metal soon.

[ThomasPowers]

bodark as it's a corruption of Bois d' Arc  or Bow wood. Indigenous cultures used it a lot for making bows.  Not southeastern as it's quite common in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas,... I have some from 80+ year old fence posts that takes a deep golden colour with flecks in it when hand rubbed with many layers of tung oil.  UV will turn it brown though.   Bodark was also a dye wood but a bit fugitive.

[SLAG]

Thomas,

I agree with you. Osage orange is a beautiful wood. But the fact that it darkens considerably with age has always made me ignore using it for many years. But about 3 years ago I read that Woodcraft co. was carrying a different species of osage orange that "tends to keep its deep golden orange  color".. The American specie's scientific name is Maclura pomifera. The Argentinian's name is  Maclura tinctoria. The origin of the wood is Argentina.  I have bought some and I will use it in the near future. But it will be years before I can see if the claim is correct. Woodcraft is no" bargain basement" if some other exotic wood seller sells It, it will probably be cheaper. So a net search is a good idea. Woodcraft carries many great tools and other items and their catalogue is worth a look, for anyone doing woodwork (or using wood.)

Regards to all,

SLAG.

 

[ThomasPowers]

Using a UV resistant finish will also help

[Teachagmech]

1 hour ago, 7A749 said:

Hey Mike. Glad to see you here. I just joined too. The forge is coming along nicely. That blower you made looked quite capable of providing enough thrust to get to the moon. Looks like the grinder motor will work just fine tho.

Just got my little forge out and cleaned up today. Hope to bang on some metal soon.

Me too!  As I'm finding here in central California coal is nearly impossible to come by unless I want to pay extortionous amounts from centaur forge for a bag of coal.  

I think I'm going to keep the pot deep and use lump charcoal  

 

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

bodark as it's a corruption of Bois d' Arc  or Bow wood. Indigenous cultures used it a lot for making bows.  Not southeastern as it's quite common in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas,... I have some from 80+ year old fence posts that takes a deep golden colour with flecks in it when hand rubbed with many layers of tung oil.  UV will turn it brown though.   Bodark was also a dye wood but a bit fugitive.

 

38 minutes ago, SLAG said:

Thomas,

I agree with you. Osage orange is a beautiful wood. But the fact that it darkens considerably with age has always made me ignore using it for many years. But about 3 years ago I read that Woodcraft co. was carrying a different species of osage orange that "tends to keep its deep golden orange  color".. The American specie's scientific name is Maclura pomifera. The Argentinian's name is  Maclura tinctoria. The origin of the wood is Argentina.  I have bought some and I will use it in the near future. But it will be years before I can see if the claim is correct. Woodcraft is no" bargain basement" if some other exotic wood seller sells It, it will probably be cheaper. So a net search is a good idea. Woodcraft carries many great tools and other items and their catalogue is worth a look, for anyone doing woodwork (or using wood.)

Regards to all,

SLAG.

 

 

32 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Using a UV resistant finish will also help

Sounds like some neat stuff to work with but I'm likely a long way from using any of it. 

 

I'm thinking of a table something close to this

maybe without the lip? I'm not sure yet

[7A749]

I've never used a coal forge at all. IFI member Heap of Jeep has graciously invited me to see his forge sometime this summer. I plan on bearing gifts when I go  

Itll be interesting to see how yours works out. I know a young man here in town who uses a very simple charcoal forge with a hair dryer and says it works pretty nice. I don't think getting coal here would a problem, but I don't have the room for a true coal setup at the moment. Not to say I might not try and make room in the future. Propane and oxy fuel have worked ok so far.

[Teachagmech]

16 hours ago, 7A749 said:

I've never used a coal forge at all. IFI member Heap of Jeep has graciously invited me to see his forge sometime this summer. I plan on bearing gifts when I go  

Itll be interesting to see how yours works out. I know a young man here in town who uses a very simple charcoal forge with a hair dryer and says it works pretty nice. I don't think getting coal here would a problem, but I don't have the room for a true coal setup at the moment. Not to say I might not try and make room in the future. Propane and oxy fuel have worked ok so far.

I've used the oxy fuel method a lot at school, but it's a pricy heat source to say the least. 

[7A749]

Yeah, I've considered switching to oxy propane but I dunno if there will really be any big savings by the time I purchase appropriate hose and tips for my heating torches. Plus the increased oxygen consumption is a factor. Acetylene works very well, but it's not cheap. My bigger heating heads can drain a 300 CF cylinder pretty fast if I'm doing anything serious.

Ill have to look into coal at some point once I get some more space and time.

[Mark Ling]

22 hours ago, 7A749 said:

 

Just got my little forge out and cleaned up today. Hope to bang on some metal soon.

Glad to hear Steve. Its a ton of fun!

                                                                                Littleblacksmith 

[7A749]

Yeah, looking forward to it. I sold some stuff to create a buffer for a few months where I'm not gonna have to sweat the big bills. I've been voraciously reading on the site. There's some really good stuff here!

[Teachagmech]

I picked myself up a 20lb bag of mesquite lump charcoal for $12 today. I found a place to buy coal and coke for $25/50lb bag. It's about as good as I can find. 

 

If I ever get up by Loomis, CA I'll stop in and get a bag. I think the consumption of coal/coke would be less than that of charcoal and it's the same price. I also like that coal doesn't send off fireflies like charcoal does. 

 

Any my input would be helpful. If i like th charcoal and there's not much benefit to coal over charcoal, then I'll build a retort and make my own. 

[7A749]

I'm going to do some looking around for some coal here. Just for kicks anyways.

I did fire up the forge today tho and hammer on some stainless! Still needs more work, it's an embarrassment right now so I'll skip a thread or pix  

Look forward to seeing what you come up with Mike.

[Buzzkill]

You may not have seen it yet, but there's a whole thread on coal at Tractor Supply.   In my neck of the woods it's about 6 dollars for a 40 pound bag in either rice or nut size.  It's anthracite, so not ideal for smithing, but easy to get and reasonably priced - assuming you have a TSC nearby.

[Teachagmech]

14 minutes ago, Buzzkill said:

You may not have seen it yet, but there's a whole thread on coal at Tractor Supply.   In my neck of the woods it's about 6 dollars for a 40 pound bag in either rice or nut size.  It's anthracite, so not ideal for smithing, but easy to get and reasonably priced - assuming you have a TSC nearby.

I've tried. I saw the thread, checked it out. No dice here. They can't even order it. Which kinda pizzed me off a bit since TSC is literally 12 miles from my house. Loomis is a solid 2 hours. Maybe I'll get a friend who's going to Colorado for deer season this year pick me up a couple 4-5 bags on his way home. 

2 hours ago, 7A749 said:

I'm going to do some looking around for some coal here. Just for kicks anyways.

I did fire up the forge today tho and hammer on some stainless! Still needs more work, it's an embarrassment right now so I'll skip a thread or pix  

Look forward to seeing what you come up with Mike.

I'm not super happy with my forge table right now. My last band saw blade bit the dust at work the other day, so building a real table isn't in the cards this school year. I've got it tacked to a makeshift repurposed table thing I pulled from the scrap bin. It's pretty bad and a tad short, but it'll work for now until I figure out how to swing a hammer. 

 

Well give 'er 'ell in the mornin tho

[Mark Ling]

6 hours ago, Teachagmech said:

I've tried. I saw the thread, checked it out. No dice here. They can't even order it.

same thing happened to me. it is on there website, but is "out of stock" and so I asked them if they could order some, and they said no. I asked 3 tractor supplys.

                                                                                                                    Littleblacksmith

[7A749]

7 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

You may not have seen it yet, but there's a whole thread on coal at Tractor Supply.   In my neck of the woods it's about 6 dollars for a 40 pound bag in either rice or nut size.  It's anthracite, so not ideal for smithing, but easy to get and reasonably priced - assuming you have a TSC nearby.

Cool. No haven't seen it yet. I'll look tho

Yeah, we have a few TSCs around here. Never even thought they would have it. Everyone I have talked to says bituminous is a lot easier to work with than anthracite. I'll have to truck over there and see what they have. Might get lucky lol

[Teachagmech]

Alright, so it works!

but man does it ever make a friggin mess! The ash fireflies are a real b&*[#! And they don't feel really good when they fall on your arms

end of the hour I've decided I definitely need to cut the firepot down. It's way too deep. I can only get to about 5-6" of material in the heart of the fire. I really wish I had a bag of coal or coke to use. I went through 20lbs of charcoal in about 90 minutes. I also want to put a smaller fan on it. The blower is WAY too much air. As I thought.