Where to buy coal?

[Anonymous777]

So I'm planning on starting up blacksmithing, and am wondering where I can buy coal. I looked in the inventory of local hardware stores and they mostly have charcoal, which I could use but I understand that coal is better. Does anyone know where I can get coal without having to ship it here? I live in the Saint John area in New Brunswick if that helps.

[Daswulf]

Coal isn't necessarily better than lump charcoal, just different. Also bituminous coal is a little different than anthracite coal. By the way Bituminous coal would be preferred by blacksmiths over anthracite. There are discussions on this here on the forums.

You'll have better luck finding coal suppliers by finding and talking to your local blacksmithing group. Or looking more locally. Online and at box stores are not going to get you far. It might find you a local coal yard listing if you are lucky. 

[Anonymous777]

A-ok Daswulf. I'll check around for coal, but it's good to know that charcoal isn't necessarily better ( I read that coal burns hotter and cleaner). Thanks a lot

[Daswulf]

Coal certainly doesn't burn cleaner than charcoal. Basically Think of it this way, coal is the raw form of what you'll be really forging with which is coke. Wood is the raw form of lump charcoal. So really coke and charcoal are both cleaner burning than their raw forms of coal or wood. If I remember correctly the btu per volume is similar between charcoal and coke. Both are fine fuels for forging, the difference is in the type of forge they work better in and the amount of air they require. 

For a little more info than my not "enough coffee yet blabbering" do a little reading on this forum on the subject. There is a lot on good fire management, forges, fuels, fire control/management etc. 

Here is one such thread. 

 

[Frazer]

I think the BTUs/pound are similar, it just takes a much larger volume of charcoal to equal its corresponding mass of coal/coke. So the energy density of coal is higher, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. Lots of people have success with both.

 

[Glenn]

That is BTU per pound.

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Also note that charcoal has been used for blacksmithing over 3 times longer than coal. (The Japanese Katanas are still forged using charcoal by traditional master swordsmiths!)  Remember too that not all coal is good for smithing; there are hundreds of different varieties some of them quite dirty.  And that when we say charcoal we are NOT referring to briquettes but real lump charcoal!

BTW is that New Brunswick New Jersey or New Brunswick Canada?

[Anonymous777]

Canada. Yeah, I knew charcoal worked. Katana's are still forged with charcoal today? That's cool. Don't know to much about eastern swords.  I just read that the temperatures were lower and I plan on using scrap ie. mystery metal to start and want to be sure I could rely on it getting the metal soft. But if BTU is similar that's great! I can make charcoal, which is a definite plus.

[ThomasPowers]

Coal didn't start to be used for forging in Europe till the high to late middle ages;* smelting iron ore into iron and steel didn't use coal until the 1700's and "Charcoal Iron" from Sweden, smelted using charcoal, was considered the finest quality you could get even in the 19th century!  Sulfur is damaging to iron/steel making it hot short and so smelting it with coal or even coke had problems with it until it was discovered that Manganese added to it would scavenge the sulfur.

When people say that charcoal forges don't get as hot; it generally means that they tried using it in a forge designed for coal and it didn't work as well.  Much like saying that diesel engines don't work well as when they tried using diesel in a gasoline engine it didn't run well...  They were melting steel in Merv pre year 1000 CE using charcoal!

Charcoal takes a softer blast and the size of the fuel pieces makes a big difference too.  When I use charcoal in my coal forge I put a parallel row of  firebricks or adobe to make a deeper narrower trench forge from it so I can pile the charcoal deeper and I crank the blower MUCH slower.  (As all the charcoal on the bed of the forge will catch and burn and only the charcoal around the work piece contributes to heating it, the trench forge saves on fuel!)

And as you noticed; the reason that charcoal is still in use for forging is that it can be made pretty much anywhere in the world above water; whereas good smithing coal is *rare*!

* "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel, Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages" Gies and Gies