thinking of building a forge

N

Nathan Blackall

Joined
Jul 13, 2015
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47
here my plan

1. line the bottom of a large cermaic planter (one foot tall two feet long and one and a half feet wid) with firebricks

2. drill a hole two inches above the brick line for an airintake

3. insert stainless steel pipe through the air intake

4. line the whole inside with 1" thick kao wool (cutting around the end of the pipe)

5. line the whole thing with 1" thick heatproof screed (mine is 1400c)

6. fire it to harden the scree

7. attach a leafblower (electric, i'm not having a fuel tank near a forge) to the other end of the pipe and seal with duct tape to prevent loss of power

8. use coal

have i missed anything? will this even work? if it does will i be able to bond steels at the temperatures i will acheive? (that would be ideal) will it even be adequate for bringing stainless to forging point? can you bond metals at forging point or does it have to be near the melting point? any advice apreciated. thanks.
 
I'm not the right person to answer all your questions, however having done some research and then making my own forge I might be able to offer help by sharing my failures. I needed a quick cheap forge to learn the heat treat process. I don't have the funds to assemble a brake drum forge now so I decided to use materials I had lying around. I used assorted cement paver stones, blocks and bricks for the shape. It has a shape of a v, about 16 inches long. Just played them on the ground. A 2" metal pipe drilled with half inch holes was placed in the bottom. I plugged one end of the pipe with tile grout. The other end extended about 10 inches from the rear. On that I taped a flex metal dryer vent tube leading to a cardboard box. In the box I put a 12" table fan. Filled the concrete v with BBQ charcoal and fired it up. I was amazed how hot and fast it worked. My metal achieved nonmagnetic very quickly. Some of the issues I had are;
As expected the bricks are cracking
Not much air came out of the metal pipe, but it was enough to make a hot fire.
A lot of ash. It filled my pipe quickly. To reuse it I have to disassemble and clean the ash out.

A leaf blower might be serious overkill. I hear a hair dryer can be used for home made forges. Having some way to dump the ash while using it is important. I'm not sure if the ceramic planter will not crack, even coating
it.
Again, the only knowledge I have is my attempt and the issues I ran into.
 
More thoughts. The shape of my forge is nice for blades. Being long, narrow and open ended. However moving the charcoal around to try and get the metal in the middle is a pain. I will design and make another one sometime. Just not sure how to deal with the ash dump part of it.
 
There are many problems with your plan. Read up on building a coal forge. The blower, a tuyere, the fire pan, and some other things all have to be made a certain way. Google "Brake Drum Forge" for some simple plans. A leaf blower isn't the type blower you want, BTW.

I can tell you that you will be much happier with a propane forge...and so will the neighbors ( coal smells and smokes). A simple p[ropane forge is very easy to build.
 
Just to reinforce what Liebald said, keep the forge simple. If you go with coal, make most of your efforts in the tuyere ( French word that means "pipe", pronounced twi-year or too-your) and the blower. A hair dryer with burned out heating coil is perfect. It will have a high and a low setting. A foot switch or just a SPST power switch will allow you to turn it on and off during forging ( it does not run all the time). Also, make sure the tuyere/blast gate has an ash dump of some sorts. The ash dump can be as simple as a 6" pipe coming down with a screw off pipe cap. The blast gate can be a simple disc of steel on a split shaft in the blast pipe.
 
Hey Nathan, where do you live? If you're interested in paying fright, I'll send you an old coal forge I have, it's just the fire pan, but it's yours if you want it.

Oh never mind, I just checked your location. Fright from Texas to England might be a bit cost prohibitive!

Anybody else want it?



 
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