Trying forging

A

Adammg

Joined
Jan 18, 2007
Messages
10
Hi Y'all,

I got a wild hair and decided I want to trying forging. I gathered tools and what nots from around the house and family. I built a forge out of a couple cheap charcoal grills. Heck honestly I think it might just melt into a pile of metal. I got an old I-Beam for an anvil I think its from a railroad track. Made some tongs. Have some old scrap O-1 from a few years back when I tried stock removal. Weekend play time for FREE WOOO HOOO


Heres my question, what can I get local for fuel and where at?

4845850684_2bbc77cfa8_m.jpg
 
real charcoal, not the pressed briquettes you can buy

Burn some wood in that fireplace until nicely black then starve it of air, put it out, and crumble it up
 
12345678910 said:
real charcoal, not the pressed briquettes you can buy

Burn some wood in that fireplace until nicely black then starve it of air, put it out, and crumble it up
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that fireplace has been converted to propane. I do have a another grill which is heavy duty cast iron, I could burn some wood in it then close the vent and put the lid on it. Any kind of hard wood do?
 
1)
Buy refractory clay and use it to line the inside of your forge.
Put at least 1" of it.
It's not just to avoid smelting your own forge: it also greatly adds to the efficiency, as more heat is reflected towards the steel instead of being dispersed.

2)
O1 is not a good steel to learn forging on a coal forge.
Try some old Nicholson files first. Even better, try some leaf springs. A coil spring 1/2" thick will yeld many knives.

3)
You need a vise and some real blacksmith tongs.

4)
Buy charcoal (not briquettes, as said) or coal or, even better, coke.
This

coal350_4b8d5caded685.jpg


not this

coke.jpg


even if, on second thought, after some hours forging some cans of the latter can be good.:D

5) An I beam, or even railroad track, is useless as an anvil but for the lightest of works. You could build a decent anvil with two segments of RR track each with one side of the track filled with welded rebar and then welded together, but for all that trouble, you can just buy a decent used anvil. 100 lbs is a minimum. 200 is real good.
Don't buy cast iron Anvil Shaped Objects.
Buy a good cast steel or steel faced anvil.
 
Adammg,
If you filled out your profile, we could tell you where to find supplies....but right now we don't know where "local" is because you haven't told us.

For forging, look at some of the forge plans for simple coal forges. The adobe forge and brake drum forge plans are all over the internet, so a search of "forge plans' or "Coal Forge Plans" should yield plenty. You need to line the forge with some sort of refractory or clay.

Natural wood charcoal ( not briquettes) can be made in an old metal drum. Cut your wood up into chunks and get a big bed of coals going in a hole in the back yard. Shovel the coals into the drum and place a piece of metal on the top, with a couple of bricks on the plate to hold it down tight. Let it sit until cold...maybe a day.Natural wood charcoal can also be bought from restaurant suppliers. The best forging coal is "Pocahontas number 3".

I disagree with Alarion about RR track anvils. Many smiths got started on one, .........and some of us still use one. For simple forging of smaller blades,using a #2 hammer, the anvil can be 50 pounds and work fine. If possible, have the face milled flat, but they will work as is.

While O-1 isn't the perfect starter steel, it will work. 1080-1084 is probably the perfect starter steel. As said, old springs can be forged with good results, and usually heat treated with little equipment. The results will be acceptable.
 
I would not recommend starting out with coke. You would be far better served to learn to coke your coal in the fire pot. There are other differences,too.
 
Ty all for the kind replies. I tried my forge out today, didn't smelt my forge though I don't think I got anything hot enough. More or less playing around, I found some hardwood charcoal lumps at Lowes and threw in a junk piece of O1. The steel got hot but never red hot just gray,blue, purple, green. Think a lot of it is my airflow, too much and too many holes. Should've researched this more before. Thanks for the ideas on the brake drums, seems easy efficient enough to start out. One question where would I get a grate for the bottom of it? I'm very new to metal working so don't have a lot of fabrication tools.

Adam
 
The fire pot on a forge is not a pile of rapidly burning coals. It is a tunnel in the coal with the air flow controlled up the tunnel. Read up on coal forges.
 
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