Old coal forge - any of these worth my $$

[Treozen]

Hello folks -

I'm still contemplating just building a forge, but in my search I've come across the following examples of forges available in my local area (+/- 90 minute drive).  I am wondering if either of these is something I ought to consider, and figured I'd ask and see. Now I know that a lot depends on your intended use, experience and perhaps fuel, and so forth, so let me reiterate that I am a beginner with no experience that would like to try my hand at forging and probably make many useless objects, then a few useful ones, then eventually make some blades and such - So in short, tinker around, not looking to turn this into a career, but would like to think I can eventually make stuff worth using.

I'd prefer to avoid using electricity, out of practicality as much as anything else, and besides I prefer the "romantic style" of a manual forge....better yet if it had bellows, lol.

Here are the options I've found for existing forges. 

The first is a larger rectangular forge from Buffalo Forges, 36 X 30 on a rolling stand. Blower #400 is claimed as great condition, but you can tell the forge pan area is in dire need of rust repair. Asking $850

The second is an obviously smaller (Rivet?) buffalo forge. Condition claimed to be fair with the blower tuning free and operating. Asking $250

I'm having trouble picking a fuel - From what I've read, coal is bad for your health, dirty as heck and horribly smelly, charcoal sparks like crazy (not ideal for an outdoor forge) and requires significantly more fuel and fire care to work properly (versus coal) and propane is very noisy plus you'll go through a 20lb tank in a single session, assuming the tank doesn't freeze.....  BUT...assuming I go with solid fuel, are any of the attached options worth a look?

Thanks,

Allan.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Way too pricey for me. I buy the old cast iron forges for $75-$125. The 400 is a nice blower, but not at that price.

Build a JABOD, and be done with it by the weekend.

[pnut]

You probably have everything you need to build a jabod laying around or can scavenge it close to home. I built a jabod about six months ago and I can't say I've stopped looking for a forge but it would have to be too good of a deal to pass up to get me to look twice at it. My jabod does everything I need it to do including reaching welding temps.     I've used charcoal, anthracite, and corn in it with no problems. Just have to put a brick on either side of the trench when I need a deeper fire depending on fuel. I'd like to find the time to build one with a bigger table but I'm satisfied with what I have now and it cost no money at all except the eight bucks for the hand pump. I also spent twelve bucks for an electric mattress pump I plug into a portable jump starter/power station when I use anthracite or I'm feeling too lazy to pump by hand which is most of the time.

Pnut

[SLAG]

Treo z,

Stated that the   "...  charcoal sparks like crazy."

Charcoal briquettes spark a lot.  Why?  because briquettes are made up with compressed sawdust,  glue. coloring dye, & sometimes potassium nitrate,  (KNO3). (Yum).

It's the KNO3 that sparks and it's included to give the home barbecue gang some additional excitement.

Lump charcoal   is what blacksmiths use.  It is plain pyrolized wood. It reaches a much higher temperature, and is suitable for forging.

The forge is way over priced. 

A JABOD ford is easy to construct and costs next to nothing.

Just my two cents,

SLAG.

[pnut]

I forgot to mention the sparks. If you're getting lots of sparks with lump charcoal you're air is blowing too hard. When I want to get up to welding heat in my jabod with lump charcoal I turn on the air just enough to get the stock to forging temp and when its at forging temp I increase the blast a bit to get it to welding heat. Easy peasy. There's some fire fleas but really I don't see too many when I'm forging only when welding.

Pnut

[Ohio]

Treozen, I have a JABOD (actually a JAGOD---Just A Grill of Dirt using an old gas grill to hold the dirt) built based on Charles's directions. Well, more like I started with Charles's ideas and then screwed it all up by myself. Regardless, a JABOD is EASY and cheap to build and you can get an air mattress hand pump from Big 5 for $10 or something (I'd give you my old one but Pierce county is way to far from Snohomish county for a plastic piece of crap). I use charcoal that I make using Burnie the Charcoal retort I built with my neighborhood gang of pyros, but you can also buy lump charcoal at Safeway when you're starting out.

So in a weekend or less, you can build a JABOD and start forging well enough to find out if you want to use charcoal, or if blacksmithing is even something you want to do. Because the JABOD is easy to build, you can experiment with setting it up in different ways that fit you and get a sense of how to manage the fire, how much is too much air, and how steel that looks cool and peaceful may actually be hot enough to make you cry when you pick it up.

Building a JABOD is fun, too.

[George N. M.]

Treozen,

Check with farrier supply places in your area and on line for both coal and coke.  Generally, farrier coal is very good for general blacksmithing and coke does not put out smoke, etc. but does need to have forced air to it all times or it will go out.

Without going into a long geologic posting there is coal and there is coal.  Not all of it is good for blacksmithing.  There isn't any currently mined in the Pacific Northwest to my knowledge.  So, one way or another it has to be shipped in.  Stay away from anything mined in Wyoming or Montana.  It is used for power generation because it is low in sulphur but not terribly good for blacksmithing usage.

Both the forges look good to me but IMO are at the upper end of the reasonable price range.  That said, everything connected with blacksmithing has inflated dramatically.  Some of that is the Forged in Fire effect.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Kozzy]

The buffalo is a nice unit but it's not set up well for casual smithing (way overkill for most people)--plus might be hiding some defects under the bricks or in that blower which could be major.  The 400's have a bronze gear that is highly prone to wear--and they feel like they are working well until that gear totally fails so you actually have to open the "lid" and check the wear level before buying.  Too much money the way that's set up but not ridiculously so.  For less money you could do better and have some left over to buy other goodies.  

The smaller one is better for a starter forge..but still priced awfully high.  We had 2 similar at the local museum sale in March here that no one bit on.  The better of the two ended up being taken by someone for $ 30..and she was going to use it as a planter (Argh!)  The other is still available to to be sold in next years sale and that'll go for low dollars.  The numbers are just to show you what's available if you stretch your search--this is about 5-6 hours east of your location.

And as others have said, the various JABOD or BBQ mods are a LOT cheaper and are perfectly serviceable.  

[BillyBones]

The thing that i love about smithing is you can be almost completely self reliant. All but 1 set of tongs i have i made, i use a hammer that i made and of course a forge that i built. It is kind of a hybrid JABOD and brake drum forge. I can get anthracite cheap so that is what i use in it, but have to keep constant air flow so an electric blower. I weld with no problems and if not careful will burn the steal like right now. 

In the winter i will usually go with gas becuase of lack of ventilation and it tends to heat the shop up quicker. But that to is built by me. Basically just a small square box of fire brick with a Ron Reil style burner. It to will get to welding temp just takes a little longer. And as far as gas consumption generally 20# per 7-8hr run. I run 3, 20# in series no freeze up problems and i go through the gas in about a week. That is 3-4 hour days also. 

I to am basically a noob. This is not my profession, but a hobby. I may have $200  at most wrapped up in both forges. But if you are unsure as to whether or not you will like the journey you start on  you have to ask "Is $850 an amount i want to spend on a hobby i may not like?" And if i do can i get my $850 back? In other words start cheap. And if like me you end up loving it, then pull the trigger on larger more expensive stuff. 

Good luck and most important have fun. 

[Treozen]

OK, I'm convinced. I'll build the Junk-JABOD forge.  Would like to get a manual blower though, so, I'll keep looking around.

 

Allan.

[pnut]

Until you can find a real blower you can use a double action hand pump for inflating air mattresses.  

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

Or build your own set of bellows.  I built a double lunged bellows over 35 years ago when there was a heck of a lot less info available on them. I designed it to use 2 4'x8' sheets of plywood (3 flats and 2 "horseshoes") and some short misc dimensional lumber I glued together to be the "snout" Used heavily treated canvas instead of leather and a 60's conical table leg as the tue pipe.  It was my favorite forge air supply for several decades, yes decades!, until I finally gave it on when I had to move 1500 miles and had run out of truck space and money. 

(I started with an electric blower and then moved to a NICE large hand crank and then to the double lunged bellows and then to propane with the hand crank as my solid fuel forge blower; save when I'm doing Y1K, then I have 2 medium sized single action bellows---one of which I built for under US$1!)

[anvil]

The buffalo forge and champion blower is a great setup. Beginner or expert. Prices arent going down and the satisfaction of a good product lasts for life.

If it turns out to be a lifetime hobby you are set for life anf if you sell it you should be able to get your money back. 

Cant lose.

[pnut]

Upon further inspection I noticed that there is a lot of rust in one picture of the big forge that looks pretty substantial. The smaller rivet forge and blower would be a good deal if you could talk them down some, like a hundred bucks. If you do pick up the rivet forge you may want to clay the pan. I've heard some folks say it isn't necessary but I would do it anyway. Good luck and post some updates when you get done with your jabod or whatever you decide to do.

Pnut

[Treozen]

Yea, I noticed that as well. There are no other forges for sale (that I can find) within 200 miles, so my guess is the seller is trying to cash-in given the limited availability. That said, I've seen that blower and stand itself listed for upwards of $450, so perhaps he / she figures the value is in the blower, and even if you had to scrap the existing pan, you'd still have a decent fire pot (+/- $100 used)  table (+/- $150 if its all steel) and rolling cart for it to sit on (+/- $100).

I'm going to design my own and build it. I have most materials for either a bottom blast or side blast, and I've read most every post on the subject  - which may have been a mistake, because I've spent a week now going back and forth from being convinced I need to build a side-blast, to convinced bottom blast is the way to go.  It does seem to me that many recommend the side blast, yet most of the forges I see are bottom blast, even those home-built.  I think I'm going to go side blast because it should be a little easier to fabricate and from my reading, side-blast seems more versatile in the fuel you can use, perhaps not equally effective in a certain fuel - seems like coke and coal are optimally used in a bottom-blast,  but it seems you have more options with a side-blast and I'd like to give charcoal a go as well.

In another curiosity, despite the prevalence of bottom-blast forges, there is comparatively little technical data. For the side-blast, I found specifications (both fabricator-provided and those from technical manuals) for the fire pot, tyeure iron,  measurements above and below the tyeure, nozzle size per size of the work-piece, ratios for fire-pot top versus bottom (range seems to be 30 - 45% reduction for the bottom of the fire pot versus the top) even the size of the hearth.  Bottom-blast however doesn't seem to be as well covered. I'm not sure if that is because bottom-blast is less sensitive to specifics, or if its simply that one size works - but although I found some guidance,  the technical data was far simpler and consistent.

[Frosty]

A lot of times when you see really over priced tools equipment, etc. and little or nothing else within a reasonable distance it's the seller who bought everything up to corner the market. 

This is what's happened to anvils since FIF made them so popular.

Making a blower isn't difficult let alone bellows and the double acting mattress inflaters are reasonably priced.  I have electric mattress inflaters, some 12v DC and one 120v AC. I pick them up at yard/garage/etc. sales for not much and new they're under $15 in Alaska.

The blowers below are home builds, one made from tin cans. The fellow using the one made of tin cans is in Indonesia I think.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

[hiltsbilt]

To extend on what frosty said, Japanese box bellows are easy to build as well, and are nice to use (its what I have). Mine are a little too big but not that far off from common measurements. I also agree with the others just build a forge, it will be more rewording and you can do it for a fraction of the price, and prices are crazy right now. There is a forge in my area that's like the bigger of the two you posted and he wants $1300 for it lol

[Daniel-J]

The best option is gas, like propane. You can ask your neighbor if you see one of these things link removed. he probably has gas and you can borrow it or ask where he bought it. A friend of mine is using some way to do that with electricity, it's cheap in his country, but according to his schemes it's even more dangerous than propane.

[pnut]

5 minutes ago, Daniel-J said:

The best option is gas, like propane

That's a bold statement. Gas is good for some things while solid fuel is much better for others. Unless you have a huge gas forge solid fuel would be much better for making large scrolls or heating very specific sections of stock. 

Pnut

[Frosty]

Youth is the time to charge boldly into the unknown. Remember those days pnut? I do and I'm glad almost everybody was as big a knucklehead as I was. 

So tell us Daniel, why do you believe propane is the better forge fuel? 

I use mostly propane, good coal is hard to come by here, especially when hard frozen winter makes collecting tough. Charcoal is great fuel but it's expensive or takes time and equipment to make. I'd LOVE an induction forge but they're darned expensive to buy, economical  to use but MAN are they expensive. 

I have a coal forge set up, two propane forges and an oxy propane torch. I use them all where appropriate. I'd burn a lot more coal if it were easier to come by, I'm getting too old to pick and shovel bags full and tote them down to the truck. We're talking maybe 6-7 hours hard labor to collect a few hundred lbs. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

Youth is the time to charge boldly into the unknown. Remember those days pnut?

I wish I was as bold and fearless as when I was young but lived as much as I have now. I bought a two hundred dollar van when I was 17 at took off from Cincinnati for San Francisco where I knew not a soul to speak of. I worry if I have to take a two hour trip away from home now. Youth is wasted on the young or so I've heard. 

Pnut

[BillyBones]

I had some, lets say bad habits, when i was young. Most of those years are just a blur, but my friends say i had fun and done some really stupid things. 

[anvil]

Lol,, truth hurts.

[pnut]

I picked up some bad habits as a youngster that followed me well into adulthood. 

Pnut

[Chris C]

Me too,l pnut.  Procrastination is probably my worst habit.  Think I'm "too far along" to change it  now.