brake drum forge

[Island_Forger]

hello everyone and thanks in advance for any advice. I am building a brake drum forge now i have a brake drum from an old truck (dont ask why) and my only issue is filling the hole in the bottom on a smaller drum a 2 in floor flange works fine this would need a 4 in one min and i just cant seem to find one in my area any ideas on how i can go about converting this old drum into a coal forge

[Glenn]

You building a side blast or a bottom forge? What fuel do you plan on using?

For bottom blast use a piece of plate cut to the inside diameter of the drum, and make a hole to fit your air pipe. You can use the lug bolt holes to bolt the plate in place or the drum to a stand.

I strongly suggest you make a ring from flat bar to fit the groove on the drum and then weld a piece of light weight plate to the ring to make a table that fits on top of the drum. Gives the fire a little more depth, keeps the fuel from falling out of the drum, and gives a place for any extra fuel while forging. With the table top you can then make a really deep fire when needed.

You may want to visit the solid fuel forge section on the site to get other ideas on using the drum to build a forge.

[Island_Forger]

i believe ill be building a bottom forge and coke or coal its pretty available for me as for the depth the drum is super deep can fit my hole hand in length wise probably 4 or 5 in deep should i still go with the table. thank you for this though im probably going to resort to the cutting a fitted piece and using the lug bolt holes to bolt it to a stand like you suggested

[Island_Forger]

1 hour ago, Glenn said:

You building a side blast or a bottom forge? What fuel do you plan on using?

For bottom blast use a piece of plate cut to the inside diameter of the drum, and make a hole to fit your air pipe. You can use the lug bolt holes to bolt the plate in place or the drum to a stand.

I strongly suggest you make a ring from flat bar to fit the groove on the drum and then weld a piece of light weight plate to the ring to make a table that fits on top of the drum. Gives the fire a little more depth, keeps the fuel from falling out of the drum, and gives a place for any extra fuel while forging. With the table top you can then make a really deep fire when needed.

You may want to visit the solid fuel forge section on the site to get other ideas on using the drum to build a forge.

so i work a a Jeep ram dodge dealer. spoke with the parts manager and he gave me a sightly used rotor cause hes awesome and  thats a little bit smaller then the drum only about 4 inches deep ill  post some pictures of it in a little bit but i think i might just go with the rotor not as deep 

[gote]

Island forger.

A "table" around the fire pot is very useful even if you think your pot is deep enough. You can stack ordinary clay brick on it if you need an even deeper fire and it is very useful to support the cool end of the stock.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Not only that the table will let you ring the firepot with fresh coal so it begins to coke up and you are not raking raw coal into the fire (less smoke).

[Island_Forger]

Thank you all for the advice. Just and update im using a rotor im going to place it inside the body of lawn mower i flipped upside down makes a great table/tray for free!! Its almost done ill show you guys the finished product

 

[Thats Hot...]

Island_Forger, here are three pict. of my rotor forge and the flange. The flange is just bolted to the rotor. So far this has worked great.

[Island_Forger]

Hey Thats Hot..

  that looks good ive got the same exact setup except for my table is a lawn mower gutted stripped and flipped upside down, im trying to be as frugal as possible lol