Wood fired forges

[bubba682]

I've been searchen the archives about wood forges after seeing a vid on the Whitlock forge i'm starten to consider building one couple of ques ,is there a better design,does it get hot enough for damascus after lookin at the vids i think it would and whats fuel consumption ruffly. I got a a propane forge and coal but propane is getting expensive and getting good coal can be a challenge here.I burn hardwood in my house and i think a wood forge would take care of alot of the scraps of wood ,anyway opinions please on wood forges...

[Glenn]

You can run the JABOD on wood.  Any wood forge will go through a lot of wood until you learn to only add gentle air and only enough air to heat the metal your working. 

Wood takes a deeper fire as you are burning wood to make charcoal and using the charcoal to heat the metal.  You keep adding wood to the top of the fire as you burn the charcoal a the bottom of the fire.  It is a dance that you learn to do.

[George N. M.]

While there are lots of ways to get metal hot enough to forge it, wood, charcoal, coal, coke, propane, natural gas, induction, corn, peat, probably cow chips, etc. there are advantages such as cost, availability, and practicality.  For me, I want to spend a minimum amount of time fire tending and more time hitting hot metal.  If you have a lot of wood fuel available at minimal cost that may outweigh the time it takes to harvest the wood, split and stack it, and keep feeding it into the forge.  What works best for thee may not be the solution for me.  

So, weigh the costs and advantages and then make your decision.  There are reasons that coal and propane are the two commonest ways to heat metal to forge.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[bubba682]

I understand what your sayin George and thats why i was askin for opinions and thanks for yours ,cause i'm betwixed and between i may make a small one to test it out.

[Daswulf]

Not to mention the radiant heat coming off of burning wood compared to charcoal or other solid fuels.  Might be better to make the charcoal to use, or build a separate fire and transfer the hot coals

[bubba682]

Transferrin the coals is not a bad idea.I got a barrel for makin the charchol plus the woodstove what s left in the morn im only a hobbiest so i wouldn't need to much i'm thinkin about building a 10'' test forge.Well 10''long by 9'' high.

[Daswulf]

I saved charcoal left from the wood burner for a while and used them to forge with. I didn't have a lot from it as it is not my main heat source.

I've also made charcoal using a barrel where you supply air to it, get a good burn then choke it off by sealing it up. A retort would be more efficient. Either way you do it you want to use the hot coals or charcoal to actually forge with.  

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

I made a wood burning Forge, like the Whitlox. I can burn any wood, it doesn't matter hard wood or soft wood. When I first fired it up, I was forging after 10 minutes. Yes I was forging small material. If you dream of making Damascus in it, you will be working on your DREAM. Nothing is impossible but you will be working too hard at Fire Management and may miss your weld. Wood Forge is great for Forging small items and yes you will go through a pile of saw cut-offs. Yes, surplus wood from a construction site or friend.

Neil

[WayTooManyHobbies]

I have a Whitlox forge, built from their kit.  For smallish items, it will heat to forging temperature in 10-15 minutes using bagged hardwood charcoal.  I'm definitely a beginner, and my one attempt at welding did not succeed, but it certainly gets hot enough.  That said, I suspect Damascus would require quite a bit of skill but would be possible.

Charcoal consumption can be pretty high, but is definitely easier to manage than hardwood and doesn't require quite as high a fire.

Good luck with your plan!

[Charles R. Stevens]

For winter forging wood isn’t to bad, tho something like a key hole fire for cooking works better. I have build a Whitlox type forge and forged 1-1\4” square 4060 in it (a splitting wedge). I find a charcoal retort and a JABOD forge to be much more effecent, especially using construction waste, as you get less fire fleas. A 4” wide trench type side blast is about as effecent as you get with charcoal.

[bubba682]

I'm glad you commented Charles i was lookin at your build for the side blast and i'm thinkin i'll pass on makin the whitlock style and stick with coal for general work i'm starten to agree with the opinion of to much fire tending and not enough hammering with a wood forge.

[Charles R. Stevens]

A classic side blast coal forge gives you loads of vesitility as you can add auxiliary tuyere, building long fires, or add some fire brick and make a temperature furnace etc. those same brick let’s you switch between coal and charcoal as well. 

[ThomasPowers]

They have been forge welding with charcoal for over 3000 years. They have been forge welding with coal for under 1000 years.

However the WL forge design is NOT a good design for welding.  May I suggest you do some looking and see what forges used with charcoal look like all over the world.   They do NOT look like a coal forge!    Personally when using wood I burn it in a raised firepit and transfer the hot coals to my forge for use.  I can situate the wood fire where I don't have the heat and smoke in my face. I built a shaker shovel from shaker screen to shovel out hot coals, shake to remove ash and too small bits and dump in my forge.

[Charles R. Stevens]

To add to TP’s comments, they still used metallurgical charcoal for work with tool steels even after coal became the main.

[bubba682]

Charles i'm going to take a look at your setup before i give up on wood ..

[Charles R. Stevens]

I would suggest looking at charcoal retorts. Charcoal is much easier to store (it doesn’t rot and is lighter and in the end after building a retort it is no more work than running a fire and it is more efficient at converting the base stock to usable fuel. 

 

[Frosty]

A day's sweat equity making a drum of charcoal beats working near a roaring wood forge fire and baking like a pizza. I spent about 20 years as a field guy doing soil sampling drilling for the highway dept. We spent about 3/4 of that time living in tents and I did a lot of campfire smithing. Nothing special I just didn't want to sit around till sack time. The only really workable wood forge I camme up with used a 15gal grease barrel as a heat shield and some old pipe and more salvaged tin as a tuyere and funnel to catch the prevailing breeze. 

While it was WAY better than standing within a pace of a small bonfire it was JUST like standing within one pace of a cherried out barrel stove. I literally roasted hot dogs by sticking the skewer in the sand about 18" from the barrel, closer and they burned before heating through. 

Making charcoal is easy, just follow the procedure you choose, don't mix and match or it not only won't work very well if at all but you won't know what went wrong and folks who do know how it works won't be much help.

The 3 basic methods of making charcoal are: Direct, scooping coals from a campfire is an example. Semi direct, Lighting a fire in a drum packed with wood till it gets going and putting a lid on it till it stops smoking then sealing it off. Is an example. Packing a drum with even size pieces of wood, closing it up and building a fire around it till the ONE vent hole stops blowing smoke and sealing it to cool, is an example of the Indirect method.

I like the indirect method on a more complex scale. I enclose the retort drum to concentrate heat and position the vent hole at the bottom near the draft to the fire chamber. That way when the wood starts pyrolizing, the alcohols, ketones, etc. (flammable volatiles) are drawn under the retort to burn so it makes it's own heat. When it stops making flame I seal the vent with a wad of Kaowool and let it cool.

Frosty The Lucky.