coal forges

[IronIce]

will firebrick work for a forge ? using coal and blower.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Ironice, glad to have you. If you put your general location in the header you'll have a better chance of meeting up with members who live within visiting distance. That and lots of things are pretty strongly location dependent.

Sure, you don't need firebrick for the whole thing though, the only place the fire will get hot enough to damage red brick is in contact with the blasted fire. Even then you can melt 3,000f hard firebrick in a charcoal fire. Almost half the firebrick we built the bloomery with were fused together some actually got saggy drippy and we fired it with charcoal. 

What do you have in mind for a coal forge? Size, shape, etc. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[IronIce]

    i live in south USA.. i have made brake drum forge and that had worked good for coal fire with copy machine blower. im talking about real coal coke here, not wood or charcoal. i bought two 50 lbs bags of coke from a man but i have used almost one bag in brake drum forge i made, and im trying to find more coal or coke, but i read coke is best, and i also hear that coke will be hard to find and most smiths use propane, but propane dont get hot enough for me but i may have use propane anyhow if i run out of coke.

    i was wondering if i can use white fire bricks and place them on ground in shape of rectangle for the body of forge and place 1/2 inch pipe on end or side to supply air to the coke, question is, will white firebrick work for this or will the coal (coke) get too hot. i do have real white firebricks and im not using red bricks.

[Glenn]

Look for places that use coke, restaurants etc.  Grocery stores sell it by the weekend warrior bag for BBQ.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark mountains. We won't remember your location once leaving this post hence the suggestion to add it in your profile.

If you look at the JABOD (Just a Box of Dirt) section in Solid Fuel Forges it should help you build one for next to nothing. If you have a propane forge that is not getting hot enough, post a thread about it in Gas Forges and I bet we can get it hot enough to melt steel. My wife & I built a propane forge with help there and it will get hot enough to forge weld in and make steel sparkle like a Fourth of July sparkler.

PS: An after thought here. The South USA is a very large place. If you narrow it down a bit we can suggest a Blacksmithing Group (club) that you could think about joining or attending some of their meetings. Most clubs have coal that they will sell to members at a reasonable cost. Then you can make your own coke from the coal.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails. ~ Semper Paratus

Edited June 5, 2023 by Irondragon ForgeClay Works
After thought PS:

[IronIce]

i was wondering if i can use white fire bricks to make rectangular forge for coal ?

[Shainarue]

You can. It'll last longer if you coat the fire facing side with firing clay. I used uncoated fire brick in my rivet forge to get a deeper fire, and after a few months the brick started melting and cracking. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Did you take a look at the JABOD section? There are many forges there that are using fire bricks for a fire pot

15 hours ago, IronIce said:

use white fire bricks

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails. ~ Semper Paratus