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I Forge Iron

Help with JABOD


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Hey guys, I'm relatively new to the forum. I've perused for a while but only recently made an account. 

I was inspired by another's JABOD forge, and made a similar trench style.

Its 2'x2' 12"deep. 1"1/2-2" layer on the bottom.trench was formed with bricks, about 4"wide and then packed with the dirt/clay from my yard. 

I'm having trouble getting my heat to go out past an inch or two from the blower hole. I checked it as I let the fire die and it is maybe recessed in about a 1/4-1/2" from the opening in the trench. I think that might be it but I'm also unsure as the clay and brick dont have a whole lot of space for the air to escape. 

Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

And yeah I got curious and tried corn, so far I love it.

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You could maybe move down to a 3/4 in. Does the blower make a good seal around the pipe. You should be able to blow everything out of the firepot if you crank too fast. If I turn mine faster than maybe 8 or nine rpm it blows everything out of the firepot. 

Pnut

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It makes a good seal. It could be better though honestly. I dont blow everything out of it if I crank it hard but it blows out a good amount of it. I'll definitly push it through the last half inch next fire, I got cut short today due to rain. 

I'll also see about some better sealing. 

Currently I have the blower attached to a dryer vent, and then a homemade funnel is reducing it down to 1". I'm wondering if that's causing any issues as well.

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I have my blower rigged up too with a cut off coffee creamer bottle and a piece of inner tube and a drain hose from a washing machine. So long as it's sealed at every seam and doesn't have any pinched off turns. I think it's the pipe being too far back. You can also angle it down about 5 degrees and it seems to move the fireball away from the wall a little. If you have to you could probably poke it out a half inch past the wall and mold some clay around it. Try one thing at a time though so you know what is having an effect. 

Pnut

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Trench is about 4-5"deep.  The pipe is almost flush with the floor. The trench floor is a half cut brick. So if that's the issue I can easily remove the bottom brick and pack some dirt in instead to give some space at the trench floor

Edited by iprsn
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Rain let up. So I went outside and started experimenting. 

Smacked my pipe in as far as I could before it started trying to blowout the clay. I removed the brick from underneath which gave me about 1 1/2" from the bottom of the pipe to the floor. 

Did a quick fire with my normal amount of fuel, hot spot was a bit bigger, so I piled on more fuel and BAM, beautiful nice hot mound. Didnt get any pics of the fire because, of course, it started raining again. But tomorrow's forecast is clear and dry so I'll take plenty of corny pictures for you guys 

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I thought those were pics of your forge after you let it burns down. I even thought about saying something about it. Haha. You definitely want to pack some clay around the pipe so it lasts a little longer. I use worm castings to fill cracks and similar things because they're convenient and the right consistency. Pack some clay back into the gap around your tuyere though or it will burn the pipe off. Good luck and keep us posted. 

Pnut 

BTW. I use cornoccasionally in my jabod it's just a little hard to coke it up with a trench firepot. It's one of my ffavorite fuels that's easily accessible. 

Edited by pnut
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Yep, it took me a couple of sessions to quit trying to be a cheapskate and pile the charcoal on. Truthfully I think it's cheaper in the long run because you finish the job quicker and more efficiently. 

Pnut

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27 minutes ago, iprsn said:

The pics were about a half hour in. But that's the usual amount I'd have in there

Yeah you definitely need more fuel on top of your stock. At least three and probably closer to four inches. I think Charles is talking about only needing an inch under the tuyere if you're using coal. My new jabod has a brick firepot and the pipe doesn't have any space under it but I'm not using coal so I don't need it. 

Pnut

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Had some decent sessions the last 2 days. Fired it up with charcoal yesterday day and it heated up phenomenally.

Tried corn today. Started the fire with s otto me charcoal, let the corn coke up, decent amount of smoke but it caught the updraft from the heat and dissipated quickly. Once it transitioned to corn coke only it started smoking like a house fire and refused to have any form of a hot spot. 

Definitly going back to just charcoal,  think the corn is a little beyond my fire tending skill at the moment.

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It's tricky using corn. I burned up about half a bag before I got it worked out. I don't think it works that well in a trench style jabod just because it's harder to get it to coke unless you make one side of the trench level with The surface of the table instead of a mound on both sides to contain the charcoal. Charcoal is the easiest fuel to use in my opinion. I'd give it another go sometime in the future if I was you. After you get fire management with charcoal down go back and try it again. Good luck. 

Pnut

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