April 19, 20188 yr 1 hour ago, Charles R. Stevens said: Jerry, this where side blast and bottom blast differ, bottom blast forges charcoal generaly needs a dealer bed than coal, wile for a side blast the opposes is generaly true. I didn't mention that did I? Any other mistakes or forgotten details? Frosty The Lucky.
April 21, 20188 yr Author So, ill let you guys know what I come up with, but u said I needed to make my trench wider Charles?
April 21, 20188 yr 4” is plenty wide for a trench, 6” for a semicircle against a bank or about 6-8” for a simple bowl. With charcoal and a 3/4-1” ID tuyere about 3” above the tuyere works. Remember, for general forging you only want to heat the part you can forge (about 6”) and buy moving back and forth you can expand that to about 12” for a scroll or to heat treat a blade. If knife making or scrolls is your thing, then a second forge with a pair of tuyere allows you to make a longer trench, if you acualy look at what many smiths have written they generaly have more than one forge. I have a two burner gas forge for horseshoing (needs rebuilt and will be retired from the truck because of durability issues) and 2 solid fuel forges for general forging So let’s recap a 4” wide, 4” deep trench 8” long for charcoal, with the tuyere at the bottom, a 4” wide, 6” deep trench 8” long for coal with the tuyere an inch off the bottom, and a 5” deep, 4” wide and 8” long trench with the tuyere an inch off the bottom (assuming a 3/4” schedule 40 pipe) for duel fuel. For a live fire, raw wood forge, either build a fire place like a key hole cooking fire (a fire place with the required fire bowl in front of it so you can rake coals into the forge) or after laying out your trench extend the side banks up more than 4” so you can add wood on top of the coal bed. It’s a difrent thing trying to keep the coal bed full with raw wood, I find that adding 2x cutoffs about 1 1/2” square or thumb sizes branches or splits every time I put stock in the fire works well. Remember, the I am describing is the firebowl below the hearth, the banks are the trench above the hearth. Clear as mud?
April 21, 20188 yr On 4/18/2018 at 8:33 PM, Charles R. Stevens said: Far be it for me to cause some one of having a senior moment... Whew, that was close! it's a secret you know. Frosty The Lucky.
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