Knife Making unplugged lively forge questions

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rachet197

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Jul 16, 2011
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I saw Knife Making unplugged by Lively Forge.
I have a question about the charcoal forge they had.
What should I look for in the forge pot?

BTW if there is a thread about this in detail let me know.



THX in advance
 
You want a bucket that will be roughly the same size as your fire pot, just bigger. If they are different shapes, then you will end up using more adobe/cement than you need. Since adobe is practically free, this isn't even that big of an issue. I've seen people use a round bucket for an oblong fire pot. Oval steel washtubs are the standard for these. Unless you're going to be moving it a lot, the only thing you need to worry about is whether it is long enough and deep enough.

- Chris
 
IF your talking about the pot itself; the heftier the better. Mass is good in a forgepot.
 
Actually it's an adobe type mixture of clay and sand, with a small amount of ash added for refractory purposes. I started with, and still use such a forge weekly, even though I've got about a hands worth of gas forges of various configurations at this point.


The tub in question is an oval shaped galvanized trough, which you can easily find at Lowes, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, or your local small town hardware/feed and seed store, and before someone say it, you line the metal entirely with adobe, so "metal fume fever" is not much of a concern, even though it's not considered a serious, let alone fatal, condition, regardless of internet myth.



Don't over complicate or over think this design, simplicity is the beauty, and it's nearly fool-proof. You can use almost any size pipe, any reasonable sized holes in the tuyere, any half-functional hair-dryer or hand-crank blower for the air supply, so long as you use real charcoal for the fuel.

Good luck ;)
 
Also Check out the Hoods Woods Vol 9 video if you can.Tai,Tim and myself did some stuff on our forges on there.
Keep it really simple and have fun.After seeing how to make one at Tims House I had my first forge going in about a half hr.In the ground.
 
Actually, I used a coke forge for ten years and a "real" coke forge pot is made from cast iron. The one I had was made by Kane and Sons and cost 250.00. Coke burns hot and will destroy a flimsy pot in a short time.
 
As Fred said, if you go with coke go with cast iron. Large truck brake drums are pretty easy to come by (not very mobile though), but you won't burn one out.

"metal fume fever" - Stepping out in front of a slow moving car "probably won't kill you", but the affects of repetitive exposure are cummulative.
 
I figure that if you can touch the sides of your galvanized forge while its burning hot then its not putting off harm full fumes, and you can if you pack the ash in there good and up to the edge.You can use wood even with these types of forges for the outer box.Im worried more about the ash and smoke that they put off more than that personally and I imagine using coal is even worse.
 
These types of charcoal forges don't have a "fire pot" in the sense that a coke or coal forge will. If you're thinking about a "duck's nest" type thing, that's a heavy metal shape designed to directly hold the bottom of the fire. With the adobe forge, the tuyere is merely a pipe with a bunch of holes drilled in it, buried in adobe for refractory. The adobe thickly lines the entire forge basin/hearth, so really the metal tub only holds the adobe solid when applied- the tub could be practically cardboard and not burn.

Just thought I'd add that for clarity. I run a hand crank coal forge and definitely everything is at least 1/4" plate.
 
I used a blown coal forge as a Lively style in a thin walled washbasin type container.. it worked fine with charcoal or coal. I just basically used mud/sand for the sides and dug out a trough, with a cruddy old pipe for a tuyere. It's much better suited to charcoal than coal though.
 
Tim is back into knife making an just set web site back up. the plans for that forge is on there. once you fire it in the clay protects the steel. should be fine for a long time. you will have a problem with any hand crank forge if you try to burn coke. Stick with the lump coal for knives it is clean an you can make it or buy at wal-mart.
 
Swink, thanks for that info. I had only just learned that Tim had stopped a couple weeks ago, and now he's back at it, which is great. Tim and Tai are the ones that inspired me to begin knife making in the first place.
 
I realy liked both of the videos. They do nice work an it is fun to do a forge to finish knife.
 
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