JABOD

[CreekSideForge]

Heres the start to my very own box of dirt. Dimensions without the dirt are 2x2 foot by 10" deep. With the dirt, it's 6 inches deep.

I'm going to go with a trench and finish it off tomorrow. Just need the pipe for a tuyere and some cheap kitty litter for some clay. Going to mix some of the clay, sand, and ashes for the firepot.

It's going to burn charcoal and wood at first or until I want to switch to coal which I have on and.

[Charles R. Stevens]

You can use the bricks to form most of the fire bowl and a bellows shield to bank fuel against, and just use the litter as loose fill. Otherwise the dirt will work just fine, no need to buy anything else. Above you will see a picture of the mark III JABOD forge, it’s mere the top of the que under solid fuel forges. 

Note, you don’t need a 16” trench sloping both ways, 8” long, 4” wide  with strate sides and sloping in from the ends works better. 

[CreekSideForge]

And this it finished and fired up. It needs a little tweaking, a little smaller in the width I think. But it works! And I need to get used to charcoal also.

That's kitty litter and ash mixed together with some water so that I could compact and shape it better.

Heat treated this little knife while it was going and drew back the spine

[Charles R. Stevens]

It works, all that maters in the end. Be patient with her, they get plenty hot but are rather low BTU compared to some set ups. Takes a bit to get the fire settled in and the first heat always seems to take forever. But if you succeed in burning up steel, well then it’s plenty hot.

 

[JHCC]

Lookin' good, my friend! Glad to see it working out, and thanks for contributing to the ongoing JABOD documentation project.

[CreekSideForge]

While I didn't get to fire up my box of dirt, I did clean up the whole place and added a bench to my setup. I'm going to light up tomorrow and stay out there all day.

 

[CreekSideForge]

I had it running yesterday for about 5 hours and it worked fabulously. I moved the trench wall closer to the tuyere to about 4 inches away like Mr. Stevens has suggested and it worked much better. I also pretty sure I had it near welding temperature which is very nice to know. The box never got hot on the sides and the pipe was only warm about 4 inches out. There's a heat shield in front of the trench to keep my tongs from getting uncomfortably hot. 

About half way though I kinda converted to coal and it worked just as well as the charcoal. I didn't really find that much clinker in the bottom afterwards. I think I learned that I like coal more than charcoal, but that might just be because I have more experience with it. A question on charcoal: what size chunks do you guys put in the fire? 

[Charles R. Stevens]

I break up any thing bigger than a wallnut. I would say try as not all the pieces are fully cooked in a typical bag. Once it’s going that’s not as important as you add fuel to the top of the pile and it breaks down as it works it’s way down.

With the Small charcoal set up one has to be patient. We get used to being able to run at white hot with coal and their for stock heats faster but in attention leads to sparklers. With charcoal it’s best to precede at a more sedate pase. Bring the fire up to the temp you need and wait for the steel to get there. Welding heat Is best achieved in stages, bring it to forging temp then pump like heck and bring in the fire fleas. Charcoal is as much about making heat as it is about not wasting fuel.  

[CreekSideForge]

Ok thanks! I'll try be more patient in the future. Seems to be the key to almost everything.