Greetings from Hawaii

[James Drescher]

Aloha!

My name is James Drescher, and I am from the Big Island of Hawaii. I reside in the rainy town of Hilo, located on the east coast of Hawaii. As an aside, I have just recently graduated from the University of Hawaii at Hilo with a bachelors degree in Nursing. I have been interested in blacksmithing for a few years now, but have only recently began the building my solid fuel forge (for coal). My plans for the immediate future of exploring this wonderful craft is to first make my own tools. I plan to make tools to tend my coal fire such as a rake and poker and then try my hand at the various ways you can move metal on an anvil with a hammer. Then, as I get better at tending a coal fire and have accustomed to striking with a hammer, I'll move on to other tools such as hammers or axes. In the future, I would like to make knives or even try my hand at making a sword! I hope to learn alot from this forum and its members!!! Thank you very much and take care.

 

P.S.- I will add pictures as I finish my forge table! 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard James, glad to have you. Welcome to the addiction.

Have you looked into the cost of coal in Hawaii? Shipping is actually worse than to Alaska. 

I believe you've planned a reasonable sequence for acquiring the basic skills. A coal rake is as good a first project as there is and you can fancy it up as time passes. Think twists and finial treatments. 

Realistically you should consider charcoal. It's an excellent solid fuel and you can make it with what's growing there.

What do you have for an anvil?

Frosty The Lucky.

[James Drescher]

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

 

Have you looked into the cost of coal in Hawaii? 

What do you have for an anvil?

At present, I have 75 pounds of coal that I bought off of eBay for, I believe, 20-25 dollars for 25 pounds. Thats about a dollar a pound. I haven't looked into charcoal, but from the research that I did on fuel sources, I thought that coal would be the best for me because of the relative high heat output that coal can provide. Also, I found some online posts that claimed that if you burn charcoal, you will need much more than if you burn coal. Is this true? Regardless, I will certainly look into using charcoal. The problem I will have is finding charcoal that isnt for grilling food!!

I was fortunate to have received a piece of rail track from a family friend during my search for an anvil. At my residence, there was an old cyprus tree that was cut down to a stump and I used that as a base for the rail track. I used a chainsaw to cut a notch in the stump and placed the track upside down, so I have a greater surface area to work with. The track feels very firm within the stump! I hope it works out. ( anvil prices and shipping to Hawaii is ridiculous!!)

Thanks for the warm welcome, Frosty!

[ThomasPowers]

Coal and charcoal have quite similar heat outputs per pound, it's just charcoal has much lower density and so you use a lot more of it by volume.  Heat output?????  You can melt or burn steel with charcoal how much hotter do you need?

Charcoal was the first fuel used for over 1000 years to forge ferrous metals with, coal coming into use in the High to Late Middle Ages in Europe, ("Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" Gies and Gies,) and has been used in parallel with coal through the present day---Japanese Katanas were/are forged using charcoal.

Now having a forge designed for charcoal will help a lot and cut down on the amount needed compared to trying to use a coal forge to burn charcoal.  Get friendly with a builder and get their wood scraps and you can make your own charcoal fairly easily and *cheaply*!  (shoot coir charcoal should work!)

[James Drescher]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Coal and charcoal have quite similar heat outputs per pound, it's just charcoal has much lower density and so you use a lot more of it by volume.  Heat output?????  You can melt or burn steel with charcoal how much hotter do you need?

Charcoal was the first fuel used for over 1000 years to forge ferrous metals with, coal coming into use in the High to Late Middle Ages in Europe, ("Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" Gies and Gies,) and has been used in parallel with coal through the present day---Japanese Katanas were/are forged using charcoal.

Now having a forge designed for charcoal will help a lot and cut down on the amount needed compared to trying to use a coal forge to burn charcoal.  Get friendly with a builder and get their wood scraps and you can make your own charcoal fairly easily and *cheaply*!  (shoot coir charcoal should work!)

Thank you very much for your input, Mr. Powers! I will definitely do more research into making charcoal and utilizing a charcoal forge instead of coal. 

[ThomasPowers]

Note this is with *real* charcoal and NOT briquettes which are mainly NOT charcoal!