Here it is, after many weeks of not having enough time to finish it, my new(from scrounged parts) that I built for less than 10 bucks, it might not win any contests but it works well for me and it made metal hot enough to pound into submission.

LOOK'N GOOD, BUT I PREFER THE REVLON 1875 HAIR DRYER[the green one]
REALLY ! :cool:

nice one! simple chep and eficient
, if you ever have the chance, replace the hair draier with an old vacum cleaner, that did allot of improving for me!

Looks like some good work there! I'd like to make a suggestion if I may: cut out a second 'window' opposite the first one, at the back. That will allow you to heat bars in the middle -- for drawing down tong reins, upsetting bars and many ther uses.

A good workable forge Mark.

As suggested, a second cut out on the far side will let you heat the middle of stock. To take it a step farther, a flush table will let you heat the middle of large built up pieces, scrolls or sheet.

Another drum forge I like is cutting the drum down the middle for a long forge or large forge table.

Frosty

LOOK'N GOOD, BUT I PREFER THE REVLON 1875 HAIR DRYER[the green one]
REALLY ! :cool:

A green hair drier!?!

GREEN!?!?

HERETIC! You will suffer for such insolence Dog!



Frosty

Those are wonderful suggestions that I wish I would have logged onto here before I fired up the forge this morning as I found out the hard way that the little hair dryer didnt have enough cfm to heat up the 3/4" round I was playing with although I burnt up WAY more coal than I did yesterday and cutting out the notches in the sides helped alot too. A flat top forge is in my plans but I think I may put together a gas forge next, I just wanted to get something going asap.


faculty-The School of Hard Knocks

A good workable forge Mark.

As suggested, a second cut out on the far side will let you heat the middle of stock. To take it a step farther, a flush table will let you heat the middle of large built up pieces, scrolls or sheet.

Another drum forge I like is cutting the drum down the middle for a long forge or large forge table.

Frosty

What do you think about a truck sized rotor set into a plate with firebrick around the rotor?

Rotor or brake drum?

A brake drum in the 9-10" range makes a fine fire pot. Semi sized drums are too large for my preference, others swear by them though so it depends.

What I like is a duck's nest, basically a shallow depression around an air grate. Then I arrange fire brick around it to make whatever size or shape fire I need. It's not perfect but it's pretty versatile.

Mostly I use propane though.

Frosty

So anyway... Yeah frost I was thinking a rotor, I got a pair laying around the yard somewhere and found a pipe that fits right over the hub and a little bit o furnace cement on the holes.... just a thought

I suppose a rotor'd work okay but there are a lot of things that make decent to excellent fire pots.

I thought there was a thread about alternative fire pots on IFI but a quick search of the site didn't turn it up. Searching IFI for "fire pots" got lots of hits though.

A fire pot isn't really too critical as long as you stay within some broad parameters.

A coal fire doesn't need to be as deep as a charcoal fire so a charcoal fire pot should be a little deeper. Being conservative says build a fire pot for charcoal and you have both covered.

It needs to be big enough but making it too big will waste fuel.

It must stand the heat, one way or another.

For myself I'll frequently build a fire about the size of a coffee cut for doing delicate work and rarely build one a 9" pot won't hold fine.

The duck's nest works really well for me but isn't perfect by a long shot. For one thing it's easy to put your steel too low in the fire's oxidization zone.

You also don't have an expanse of flat table surrounding the fire, the brick makes a step up so you find yourself propping stock up to get it level in the fire.

Anyway, there're lots of options and improvisation is the heart of smithing.

Frosty