Couple questions because I am new to coal.

A

Any Cal.

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Hi all. I had a couple questions for those that use a lot of coal for forging.

I pick up natural coal, and then break it to burn. I do not know much about it though.

What does it tell you when you see mustard colored flames in the coal?

Blue or purple flames?

If you were looking for the best quality of coal to forge with, would it be hard/soft, brittle/strong, brown/black?

Thank you for any help.
 
I prefer the hard coal (anthrocite). Here is a site you might want to check out.
http://www.penncoal.com/wst_page4.html

If you are near southern ohio we have a club that buys large quantities and then sells it to the members. The name of the club is Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil (SOFA) and you can find it on the web.

Good luck.
 
69camaro said:
I prefer the hard coal (anthrocite). Here is a site you might want to check out.
http://www.penncoal.com/wst_page4.html

If you are near southern ohio we have a club that buys large quantities and then sells it to the members. The name of the club is Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil (SOFA) and you can find it on the web.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
69camaro,
I have a ton of metallurgical coke sitting on a dry concrete pad. Free, if you have someone to pick it up. I run gas. I sold my coke forge.

Fred

I'm above Bartlett, 3 miles north of SR 550.
 
From all I've been taught, bituminous coal is what's known as "blacksmith's coal". If you can, get an analysis from your supplier. Read this post to get an idea of what your'e looking for. The article mentioned in this post was written by a member of my blacksmith guild, Albin Drzweianowski, in our newsletter. If you'd like I can ask him if he would mind having that article reproduced for me to send you.

-d
 
When you first light coal, you get a lot of yellow smoke. This is impurities burning off, this process is refered to as coking off. Once done you are burning mostly carbon or coke. At this point if you get yellow flames your fire is reducing, burning inefficently. The yellow is burning gasses abouve the fire and wasted heat. A blue flame may indicate a neutral fire if the oxygen is balanced with the fire or the fire may be oxidizing. Generally you want a neutral or reducing fire. So a little bit a yellow flame is ok but a large yellow flame is inefficient.

As for the type of coal, most smiths I know use bituminous (soft) coal.

ron
 
Thanks. I do not buy coal, I pick up the stuff I find. It sounds as if it is very different from what you buy. When it smokes, it is always a white smoke. It seems to burn hot, once it gets going, but I doubt as hot as storebought. There does not seem to be any way to bank it so as to have a bunch of coke left. If it is hot enough to burn, it burns to ash, which will not burn. The quality of what you find varies, and here and there you get some strange flames. Because it is in large chunks, I have to break it into small pieces, so I use it sparingly. Some is hard, some soft, some brittle, some not. Thanks for all the help, but it sounds like no one has similiar experiences. Maybe someone will pipe up.
 
Any Cal. said:
Thanks. I do not buy coal, I pick up the stuff I find. It sounds as if it is very different from what you buy. When it smokes, it is always a white smoke. It seems to burn hot, once it gets going, but I doubt as hot as storebought. There does not seem to be any way to bank it so as to have a bunch of coke left. If it is hot enough to burn, it burns to ash, which will not burn. The quality of what you find varies, and here and there you get some strange flames. Because it is in large chunks, I have to break it into small pieces, so I use it sparingly. Some is hard, some soft, some brittle, some not. Thanks for all the help, but it sounds like no one has similiar experiences. Maybe someone will pipe up.
Click to expand...


Where do you live?
Your profile says nothing.
You want to look for some good Pocohantas #3.
 
Sounds like he is picking up surface coal. It can be full of moisture and be broken down by the elements (Thus the white flame). Also sounds like hard coal (anthracite).While good for heating, it is not real good for forging. You want to use Bituminous (soft coal) with a low sulfur content. Pocahontas #3 is one of the preferred types.

Getting a book on blacksmithing will help you out with how to make and bank a coal fire, and about coking the coal.
Stacy
 
You could use charcoal - a recent History Channel program about sword making they said charcoal contains "small amounts" of carbon !!! LOL-LOL
 
Surface coal is all along the Appalachian Mts. You see the dark veins as you drive along the highway.
It also falls off the coal trains as they go down the track. As a lad, I picked it up along the RR tracks, and sold it at 25 cents a sack.
Stacy
 
Of the stuff I find, there are basically 4 kinds. 2 are pure black, one is brittle and you can break into pieces by hand, the other is extremely tough, and you have to smash it pretty good w/ a large hammer. A third kind is brown in color and usually very fragile. The fourth kind is usually black, but seems like something that has not finished developing. It reminds you more of a rotted log than a piece of coal. It does not take long to find it on the beach, but it does take a while to break it all up.

It is kind of a game right now. I built a forge out of a large brake drum, w/ a $2 piece of grate and some nasty sticky clay on my property. After a few firings, the clay has baked solid. I use a small fan I had to blow air into the bottom of the drum and up through the small grated opening. Because I am using free coal, all I have invested is $2 for the grate and $6 for the concrete block I set the whole thing on. The downside is that none of the stuff works especially well. I mostly wanted to try my hand at some of this stuff before I spent a lot of money on it. I use the forge just for annealing and heat treating right now, because I can't seem to get a fire hot enough to forge with in a timely manner.

Thanks for the suggestions on the blacksmith books.
 
"New Edge of the Anvil" Jack Andrews
"A Blacksmithing Primer" Randy McDaniel

(think the names are right) Those are two good beginner blacksmithing books. A good beginner bladesmithing book is
"The Complete Bladesmith" Jim Hrisoulas

ron
 
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