oil drum forges

[missourikid]

I just now put my forge up just going to have to add wheels to help move it. I'm planning on doing more once it quits raining.

[Glenn]

Looks good !!

Next fire, lay the bottom row of bricks flat. This will move the bricks to the edge of the drum/rotor and give you a bit deeper fire using less fuel. As you start the fire, poke a hole in the top of the fuel to let some of the fire and smoke out. Think volcano. This will cause the smoke to catch on fire and burn producing a lot less smoke. 

The smoke is one reason to have a chimney. to get the smoke up and out of the work area. Take notice of the wind currents where you have the forge set up. Sometimes moving the forge just a few feet makes a difference. Although some consider the aroma of the smoke wonderful, you do not want to breath the stuff. After the fire gets going, there should be very little smoke produced. A chimney can be nothing more than a piece of pipe, stood on end, at the edge of the fire. Cut a hole in the chimney or cut a 45-60 degree slide on one side for the smoke to enter. The total opening should be smaller than the square inch area of the chimney. Leave a base on the pipe so it will not fall over, or support it in some way.

You will find that a fire ball about the size of a melon will heat your metal rather quickly.  Put the metal into the fire ball about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up. This should be about the height of a brick, so start there, and adjust as needed. If you have a long piece of metal, leave a gap between two of the bricks on the far side and slide the metal through the gap. With bituminous coal, reduce the air to the forge or turn the air off while you are forging. It saves fuel, and the fire goes to idle mode.

When finished forging, rake the fire out, and put the tools away. Then put the fire, left over coals, etc into a 5 gallon bucket of water. You can sleep well at night knowing there is 2 inches of water over anything that used to be hot. Empty the ash tube also. Later you can recover any coke or unburned coal, let it dry out, and use it in the next fire.

Remember to forge most metal at orange to yellow (mild steel). When it gets down to red, it is time to warm it back up.

You are doing great. Just a couple of tweaks and you can "forge on and make beautiful things" (Jim Coke)

 

 

What do you mean you can not forge in the rain? (grin)  Well ok, I guess it depends on how much rain is falling.

[Tommytaptap]

1 hour ago, Tubalcain2 said:

Nice piece of bent rebar!  keep at it you're off to a good start.

Its rebar Jim but not as we know it! A genuine rustic, period, handcrafted, piece of history-hand forged, worked and finished. A fine addition to the blacksmiths formidable arsenal, maintaining the greatest tradition in crafting tools. 

 

Well done missourikid-keep on forging.

[arkie]

Until you can rig up a hood and/or smokestack, just get a pedestal fan or mount a box fan on a pole and direct the smoke away from you.

[missourikid]

I do have a fan out there just didn't think of it.

[Lou L]

I still keep my first piece of bent rebar around.  I wrapped the end into a circle and tried to forge weld it on my second day of smithing.  The circle was good...the forge weld turned out to be just two pieces of rebar mashed into each other....

Good times!