And everyone groaned and said, "ugh not another one." but you gotta start somewhere. Actually the forge isn't quite ready. still working on getting the rest of the pipe fittings and such, but I figured I would stop long enough to say hi. I've been reading literally everything I can get my hands on trying to develop at least half an idea of what I'm doing before I fire this bad boy up.

Edited November 13, 200817 yr by DragonEagle

Welcome to IFI. Looks like you are doing the wise thing and gleaning all the info you can before jumping in.

Welcome aboard.

What kind of forge are you building?

Frosty

Just a charcoal brake drum forge from what I think is the brake drum from a bus.

That might be a little large but not as bad as a semi drum. Burning charcoal you want more depth than most automotive drums provide so that one may be just right.

Are you going to set it in a table? I always find myself forging on long pieces of stock till I HAVE to cut it to length so having a place to rest it is important in the extreme.

A student of mine made a charcoal forge by welding legs to a brake drum and even after welding on a stock rest it was a pain to use. You couldn't let go of the work to set up for the next step unless it was already pretty short. He needed to constantly feed the fire too but it wasn't like just raking a little more in off the table, it was find a way to keep his work from falling out, stoop, scoop, dump and put the scoop back.

His air blast was plumbing pipe and a blow drier but that wasn't an issue, he got plenty of heat so there was no problem with how the fire worked.

Frosty

Welcome to "I Forge Iron" Dragon Eagle
I seen the photo of your wheels. Nice looking ride.
Glad your aboard. As you can see blacksmiths/bladesmiths like Frosty are here to help stear you in the right direction.
You sound to me like you already enjoy the concept!
"Now Just have fun doing it"
Ted Throckmorton