Tim Lively Washtub Forge

[Tim Lively]

Here's a few photos of my old forge design. If there are any questions about it, I would be happy to try and answer them.

 

[CrazyGoatLady]

Can you use a hair dryer or would that introduce too much air? Hope that's not too naive of a question. We've built one solid fuel forge and it didn't work too well. Thank you for any information you can provide

[Tim Lively]

It's very common to use too much air while using charcoal as fuel. That's why I prefer the hand crank blower but you might be able to put a rheostat on a hair blower with good results. When you use too powerful of an air supply, the heat actually gets blown past the steel and wastes fuel. I saw this on the TV show, Forged in Fire. None of the contestants seemed to understand this and therefore couldn't figure out how to get the steel hot. They blamed it on the charcoal but in fact it was their own ignorance about how to use the fuel correctly. This is not a naive question at all. It is a very common problem with smiths using charcoal for the first time. 

[CrazyGoatLady]

That's the problem we had with the charcoal forge we made before. We tried a gate valve, but it still allowed too much air with a hair dryer. Looking back, I can see a lot of mistakes we made. The trench wasn't deep enough either and we burned through fuel like you wouldn't believe. But it brings back great memories of being a good time learning and getting that first piece of steel hot enough to mangle real good. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Glenn]

Usually an air gap between the air source and the air pipe (say a 3 inch expandable metal dryer vent pipe) going to the forge works as a control valve.  Start with say a 4 inch air gap.  Aim the air blast more directly toward the air pipe opening for more air to the fire, not so directly for less air, which spills unneeded air to the outside of the air pipe. 

Get the fire going and then adjust (cut back or increase) on the air until you get just enough air for the amount of heat you need from the fire.  The depth of the fire is a factor. Fuel does not make a fire hot, air makes a fire hot.  A deeper fire does not use more fuel, it insulates and holds heat in the fireball.  You may be surprised just how little an amount of air it takes for a good hot fire.

[Rojo Pedro]

I built a washtub forge based on Tims design 4 years ago and used it for around 8 months before I got a rivet coal forge.

It worked very well but air flow was my biggest obstacle. ( I used a hair dryer with home made waste gate) I was always adjusting the air based on amount of fuel and other conditions but it worked very well, was very inexpensive and a great learning tool.

It was the hook that got this fish on the forging line - thanks Tim !

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, Rojo Pedro said:

home made waste gate

Here's the page I did showing my own homemade gate valve. It's no longer in use (I've built a few other forges since), but it worked really well and was dirt cheap.

[ThomasPowers]

I've seen a lot of people say you can't get charcoal hot enough to work steel.  This seems a bit questionable as people have been forging steel---and forge welding steel using charcoal for 3000 years now. (Like Viking era swords and Japanese Katana!)

What they mean is *they* can't get it to work; often through not realizing that charcoal and coal work best with different forge designs and way different amounts of air.  I have tweaked my coal forge to use charcoal and using a handcrank blower I have good air control. (Usually by using firebrick or adobe to make it more of a trench forge.)

The third issue they often have is using briquettes; which are engineered to burn cool and slow for cooking food rather than real lump charcoal which has been a forge fuel for about 1500 years longer than coal has been used, (coal: High to late Middle Ages in Europe; Gies & Gies, "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel").

[Virusds]

That is a really nice forge design Tim Lively. I will always have a special place in my heart for homemade charcoal/coal forges. That is what i started with. Mine had basicly the same concept except i used an old cast iron sink instead of a washtub never used clay for anything. Intead on the clay i put sand all around the air pipe and then put large gravel on top of it. This has helped keep the ash from cloging the air holes and it works pretty well. I would definitely say that the clay would be an upgrade as it gets rather annoying with all the melted sand clinkers bouncing around in there. 

I was also curious, does the ash from the charcoal ever get down in those open holes and clog them? 

[pnut]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

've seen a lot of people say you can't get charcoal hot enough to work steel.

If I ever hear someone say this in person I'll ask them if they'd like to wager whether or not I can turn a piece of 1/2in. stock into a sparkler using my jabod and hand cranked blower. I could use some extra money ;-)

Pnut

[Tim Lively]

The horizontal tuyere doesn't need a waste gate in the traditional sense. The plug on the end of the horizontal tuyere is only needed to clear ashes at the beginning of a new day of forging. I've been able to get steel hot very quickly with only an inch of fuel under the blade. Slow and steady is the key to charcoal. For some reason it's not intuitive. I used charcoal for years before I made videos and other smiths didn't believe charcoal could get hot quickly but my video shows in actual time that it is very possible. The horizontal tuyere is what works. It is designed specifically for bladesmithing because a blade lays flat and long within the ravine of the forge. There are no "clinkers" so a waste gate isn't necessary. Commercial charcoal isn't very pure. It often times has coal and other impurities in it. Lump charcoal made in Mexico is horrible too. It sparks like crazy and makes it difficult to work with. It is made in Mexico by digging huge holes and mounding wood to the top of the hole and they get it burning really hot and push a layer of dirt over the mound. Essentially cooking the wood into charcoal lump like an over. The best charcoal is homemade. Simply create a campfire and when the the it's fully burning douse the fire with water. Let the charcoal dry completely and you have perfect charcoal for the forge. The dousing of water fills cavities in the lump and it practically eliminates sparks when using it in the forge. By looking at what traditional Japanese Smiths did is what led me to "discover" what to do myself. When we first started using charcoal in the early 1990s very few American Smiths were using it as a fuel and we had to learn from scratch. 

 

[JHCC]

11 minutes ago, Tim Lively said:

The horizontal tuyere doesn't need a waste gate in the traditional sense.

I think when Rojo Pedro mentioned the "waste gate" above, he was talking about a valve in the tuyere to "waste" the excess air beyond what the fire needs. My homemade gate valve does that, and a number of folks have used 2" LB conduit bodies to accomplish the same thing, thus:

 

[Frosty]

Tim: Pedro isn't talking about an ash dump/clean out. Most guys getting into the craft don't have a hand crank blower or the experience to manage a charcoal fire with one. Most guys are starting out with blow driers and need a way to control air flow.  The conduit body John pictures above is a fairly recent waste gate. 

The easiest is to simply mismatch the end of the blow drier and the supply pipe on the forge. 

I'm glad to see you mention extinguishing charcoal and drying it for later. Much of my learning curve took place camping, I was an exploration driller for almost 20 years and spent 3/4 of that time in the field somewhere in Alaska. I'm not much of a drinker so I didn't join the other driller in after work activity. I spent my time playing with fire and hitting things with hammers. I had a good smithing library so I spent a lot of time at it. If weather or the situation didn't allow I'd shovel coals out of the fire into a bucket of water then strain it to dry. 

Were I still forging with charcoal I'd build an indirect method retort. I much prefer indirect to semi direct method of lighting a barrel full of wood, letting it get going then covering it so it pyrolizes. Indirect yields are often in excess of 75% and a 40% yield using semi direct is excellent. Sure an indirect retort takes more of a build and better management skills but what the hey, only an idiot lights a fire and walks away. Might as well bring: a book, music, comfy chair, snacks, etc. and keep an eye on things. When to shut down an indirect retort is easy, when the flame goes out it's cooked, cover the vent with dirt and let it cool. 

Coal, charcoal, wood, moose nuggets, buffalo pies, propane, it's all fire, with their own pluses and minuses. Any works just fine IF you learn to manage your fuel and air. No?

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

I make small batches of charcoal by filling a steel five gallon bucket with wood and putting it into the burn barrel. When white smoke stops coming out of the holes I put in the lid i cover them with clay and I let the fire burn out in the burn barrel. It makes excellent charcoal. Looks glassy even and clinks when you tap it. I like pine the best. 

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

Part of the problem was communication.  I lit my first charcoal forge in 1981?  With nobody to consult/work with/ask.  (Always found it funny when someone claimed they had been *first* and having started around 10 years later...I never considered I was first; shoot folks have been forging with charcoal since the chalcolithic period and that was with copper!) I used Weygers' "The Modern Blacksmith" that had several charcoal forges shown in it.

Back in the net news days; rec.crafts.metalworking did some blacksmithing discussions and finally there was a RFP for a blacksmithing subgroup. With the rise of the graphical internet forums like this were much easier for new people to stumble over and we started pushing groups like ABANA encouraging folks to get together with other smiths and share knowledge.

I'm already plotting   *planning* a smithing get together for some new people as soon as we are released from confinement. 

Hmm nobody has mentioned PhD yet!

[JHCC]

My students and I are talking about building an indirect retort to make charcoal for their forges, once they're able to return to campus. 

[Ohio]

2 hours ago, JHCC said:

My students and I are talking about building an indirect retort to make charcoal for their forges, once they're able to return to campus. 

JHCC, you mean like Burnie? It's very fun and not difficult. The rocket stove roars like a xxxxxx jet engine, though.

Tim Lively, I saw one of your knifemaking videos on youtube and was really impressed with 1) how you sat when forging, 3) the simplicity of your forge, and 3) the graceful manner with which you swung that hammer. (The knives were neat, too, but I was looking more at how you made them.) You made smithing look so easy. I went a different way with my charcoal forge design but I did try your sitting-down style and failed pretty thoroughly.

[Tim Lively]

The charcoal retorts are great. Especially if you can water down the charcoal while it's still hot. Otherwise it comes out baked like the Mexican lump. The baked variety of charcoal seems to spark more but maybe the wood species has something to do with that also. We always used Mesquite just because it's widely available here in the Southwest. Around Tucson we had El Diablo brand and we jokingly said it got it's name because it threw sparks like the devil. All the info I found on traditional Japanese box forges used pine for charcoal..

[ThomasPowers]

One of the problem with Mesquite "cooking" charcoal is they want it to not be fully charred so it will flavour the food being cooked. So what we see as a bug for forging, they see as a feature!  Incomplete charring coupled with resin pockets make for a much messier forge experience.  Pity it's so easy to source in 40# bags down along the border states.

[Tim Lively]

Ohio, I looked at a lot of smiths around the third world populations for inspiration and noticed that most sit while forging. The Japanese usually work on their knees. I can't do that. I kills my back and my knees. The Himalayan smiths sat and one of their hammering techniques was a style that looked a little out of control. Almost like they were throwing the hammer loosely but had good control on impact. Another technique that seemed to help me was using a small faced anvil. It forces you to hammer in one spot and move the steel around instead of moving the hammer around. Sort of like a carpenter hits a nail. Your arm isn't relocating constantly and lets you relax more and give you more stamina. With practice you can almost close your eyes and hit the same spot. Almost. 

[pnut]

20 minutes ago, Tim Lively said:

. Another technique that seemed to help me was using a small faced anvil.

I use a vertical rail and that is absolutely true. If I miss I miss the whole thing. It hasn't happened in a long time but I've been on a break for about two months or so, so I'll see if my accuracy has  declined to a noticeable degree. 

Pnut

40 minutes ago, Tim Lively said:

Japanese box forges used pine for charcoal..

From what I can find out it has less silica so it doesn't spark as much and it burns hotter but a little faster. I prefer it but use whatever wood I can get. 

Pnut

[Ohio]

That's interesting, Tim. I've tried to use my carpentry experience while forging and I'm still pretty terrible, but less terrible than I was so...progress. But what you describe makes sense to me, so I'll try to remember this once the new forge is set up. I'll try the sitting approach again and not because I'm lazy and would rather sit (though that's true) but more because it looked---mindful? Mindful may be the right word.

I don't know if the knee-crouching will happen, but I'll give it a try---you'll all know when I'm doing that because of the crying you'll hear coming from the Pacific Northwest. I have an improvised anvil and was thinking of rotating it to get more mass under the hammer. I'd have a smaller face if I do this, so I'll give it a try as well.

I have about 200+ pounds of bamboo pieces to charcoal-ize. A lot of people up here plant bamboo and then forget and a few years later, it's invaded so they cut it all down and give it away. I machete it into pieces about 2-3" long, making sure the ends are open so there are no steam explosions inside Burnie the charcoal retort, then sack them up in burlap and let them sit a couple of years. One of my projects is a rebak chipper for chomping wood into charcoal-sized pieces because that's the part that is by far the most energy intensive---getting the feedstock to the right size.

I did run some charcoal through a crappy chipper just to see how messy it would be and whoa, it was messy.  And the charcoal was tiny, which is perfect if you want to make activated charcoal. I have a story about this but it's not appropriate for this website and I don't want to hijack Tim's thread anymore than I have.

[Randy Griffin]

I chose to burn my charcoal the semi direct way and got about 50/50. Just covered the drum and let it go out. I used pine and it burns hotter than anything I've used yet and I have no sparks and very little smoke. I can start my fire and be hammering hot metal in less than 5 min. I have an unlimited supply of pine. I can stand at the barn a see at least 10 dead pines.

[Randy Griffin]

41 minutes ago, Tim Lively said:

Ohio, I looked at a lot of smiths around the third world populations for inspiration and noticed that most sit while forging. The Japanese usually work on their knees. I can't do that. I kills my back and my knees.

I'm thinking about trying the sitting. I have arthritis in my knees and bladder cancer so can't hold out for long. I could get a lot more done sitting. I can even lower my jabod. What is the correct height for your anvil when sitting?

[pnut]

I tried sitting down and it aggravated my sciatica in short order. I set a piece of 1x2 on the anvil and seen where my hammer face naturally rested squarely on the stock. 

Pnut