A. G. Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 Hello to all. I wanted to announce my presence and introduce myself. Below is a synopsis leading up to the last couple of weeks that prompted me to join this forum. It is also in the about me section of my profile cause it seemed like a logical thing to do. I will be making detailed posts with photos in the near future under the appropiate sections to help keep it organized. If there is anybody near me please reach out. When I was in high school I did a lot of fab and welding. Tried to get a start in blacksmithing back then but my resources wew limited. For the last ten years I have honed my rough and finish carpentry skills and now turned to fine woodworking. I bought a sawmill (woodland mills hm126) for my wooded 15 acres (eastern red cedar and post oak) and my neighbor say I can take all the cedars I want so long as I don't leave limb piles. I started making charcoal for the grill out of the undesirable parts of oak from the mill, burning cedar to heat the retort. The branches become cord wood for the pit and smoker. With this new found excess of hardwood charcoal I began to revisit blacksmithing and the use of wood. My reasearch was encouraging and I built a test forge out of a boiler cap and some pipe I had. Lined with clay refined from the property. It worked! It was inefficient but it worked well enough to burn the 3/8 bar I had left for a project. I made a couple hooks to mount on a live edge piece of mesquite for use in the house and the bug bit me. I work as needed for my best friend who started a welding buisness straight ou of high school. He had the dream for some time to have a cnc plasma table. With my 3 years of electronics and cnc hobby and 6 years of graphic design experience we got it going on a used table, new torch and new controls from CandCNC. He let me take from the scrap and drop piles and build a real forge. With details I liked from other smiths coal forges and some of my own design I got it put together and I am very pleased with the results. More importantly I am very fortunate and gratefull to have acess to his tools and material. At the time I'm writing this I still need to finish grinding some welds and make a sheet metal duct for the blower now that I know it works well. It is a cardboard mock up right now which works as a proof of concept. With all I read about the short comings of squirrel cage blowers with small fins I didnt want to waste too much time on something I had doubts. The blower is salvage from a central A/C unit and needs a dimmer. There is a blast gate to aid with air control so once I have the dimmer I should really be able to fine tune the air. I built one fire in it and made a crude coal rake with point at the end of the rake for cleaning the tuyere and operating the blast gate from a safe distance. My current anvil is on loan from the aforementioned buddy until I can source my own. He never uses it but it is sentamental. It is a 75Kg peddinghaus, not sure of the date but is electrically welded at the waste. What a great friend! My hammers need dressing and my skills need developing but what little I have done has been so enjoyable. Google brought me to this forum several times during my research and it is a valuable resource. I wish to post my progress and failures for myself and any others who could benefit. I look forward to the journey of learning this incredible skill. Thanks for reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 (edited) Welcome aboard. The only suggestions I have since you will be using charcoal is that a bottom blast forge is fuel hungry when it comes to charcoal so you may want to look into a sideblast forge and charcoal takes much less air than coal. I use an AC matress pump and have to use a ball valve and T to limit the air. If you want to check out an easy to build sideblast charcoal forge to see if you like it's performance better, you should read through the jabod threads. Jabod is an acronym for just a box of dirt.. If it turns out you like it you could then make something more permanent like a water cooled tuyere side blast forge. Glad to have you and remember it's supposed to be fun. Pnut Edited December 8, 2019 by pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Welcome to the insanity... In case you haven't see that we love pictures, rest assured we do and it sounds like you are off to a good running start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyGoatLady Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Another fellow Texan! Welcome. You know, our state is so big, you'd think there'd be more of us on IFI. A quick look at the map shows you are about 288 miles from me... but if you ever find yourself in north Texas, give me a hollar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Hmmm, might be able to sell charcoal to other smiths in TX too. Always nice to take waste and make a profit from it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Yes it is. I use charcoal mainly and would like to buy it if it made sense compared to the time and effort spent versus making it. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. G. Posted December 9, 2019 Author Share Posted December 9, 2019 Thanks for the greetings. The charcoal making was born out of having waste from the sawmill and plenty of brush and cedar waste to burn. I moved out to this 15ac about a year ago and it has been vacant for 30 years so I have a lot of work available for me. So every time I light a burn pile I throw a 55gal drum full of oak on the fire. After this next batch I'll fill a feed sack and see how much it weigs and calculate my yield. Might get a fiew more drums too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 I have to look for wood. There's some downed trees out back but I mainly use pallets. There's a Polaris dealership near me that has stack's of those weird shipping pallets that the four wheelers come in. I only make a few five gallon buckets at a time because I live in town in an apartment. The landlord doesn't mind but the fire department has shown up before after someone called about the smoke. Luck had it that one of the firefighters is a blacksmith. I do have to say that the two fire extinguishers I had at the ready went a long way too. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. G. Posted December 9, 2019 Author Share Posted December 9, 2019 Y'all got me motivated. I dont have means of weighing it but I estimate 200+lbs of oak. Judging by volume and moving it around. Cleans up around the sawmill too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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