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I Forge Iron

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Posted (edited)

I am very new to black smithing I and am just looking for some tips and mabey to meet some local Smith's to learn from that said

As of right now I have a 2" pipe feeding air in to a tunnel that blows through a 4x4" iron grate all that is at the bottom of a 8x8x4" hole (I am using this as my fire pot) I have 2 brick pavers I am using as sides( to block wind and contain heat) with a cinder block on top( block is mostly for stability of pavers but also seams to help contain some heat) I have an area on the back side that I have dug to the same level as the top of the pot I use to store charcoal that I was thinking would be good for cokeing up the coal  I am using my wife's old 3 speed hair dryer duct taped to the end of the pipe. I have thus far only used hardwood charcoal in it but have gotten 2 40lbs bags of arithracite nugget coal hopping it will not burn quite so fast. I was hoping to get some tips on air flow control and also the 3 areas of the fire 

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Edited by Mod30
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Posted

You have no hole for the fire.  Everything seems to be above ground.  Take a shovel and dig a hole in the ground.

Reduce the air pipe to 3/4 or 1 inch diameter and place it a couple of inches above the bottom of the hole.  Add just enough air to get the fire burning to produce the heat you need.

Posted

First dig a 16” deep hole to stand in and then build your forge from the spoil. 

Cement block and pavers will break down pretty fast so I would not use them. 

Lay peal back the turf, lay in a piece of 3/4” schedule 40 pipe at a slight down word angle (5 degree or so) now form a mound of dirt with the tuyere sticking in the side and then another 4” across from it. A little mound at each end of the trench formed to hold the stock in the center of the fire is useful. 

 

Posted
9 hours ago, Glenn said:

You have no hole for the fire.  Everything seems to be above ground.  Take a shovel and dig a hole in the ground 

It is hard to tell from the pictures but everything is below ground I have a hole that is about 1' deep with a 4x4 grate about 3" from the bottom and my pot is about 4"deep tapering from 4x4 to about 8x10  

I have an old roder from my car I was thinking of buying to use as the base of my fire pot but wasn't sure about using it 

Posted
1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Rotor?  Not needed in a pit forge.

Didn't know if it would help at all 

20 hours ago, Glenn said:

Reduce the air pipe to 3/4 or 1 inch diameter and place it a couple of inches above the bottom of the hole.  Add just enough air to get the fire burning to produce the heat you need.

Are you saying to switch from a bottom fed to a side fed. Also what should I use to reduce amount of air flow I have been trying to think of different ideas. I am also doing this at little to no expense

Posted

Well for my trench forge, (needed to box fold some 3/8" plate for a firebox for the Santa Maria replica), I was using a shop vac as the blower. I forged a couple of 1/4" steel staples to hold the shop vac exhaust hose and the pipe to the tuyere in place on the ground---I just left a gap between them and how concentric I made the openings controlled the air flow.

Another method is to take a hack saw and cut a cross ways slit in the air pipe and slide a tin can lid in it to control how much air gets by. Duct tape around the exposed sharp edge please. 

Posted

What I found funny was how complicated I made something that's as simple as it gets. After I got the first jabod working though I figured out how simple the concept really is. I had a hard time believing it could really be that easy but to my amazement it was. I think that's the problem a lot of people have. They assume it can't be thaaaaaat easy. Yep,it can. ;-)

Pnut

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