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Homemade Blacksmithing Forge?

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Stretch:

--- Quote from: Young Bowyer on June 26, 2011, 05:09:17 pm ---jonathon creason: Charcoal I assume with some sort of air source to fuel it.  And I was planning on making chisels, spearheads, and knives.
Dane: Thanks, i've been looking around for books, i'll see if they have it on Amazon.
triggerfinger: Would barbeque charcoal work? Or you could burn ironwood in a barrel with no air in it like charcloth. I think ive seen that on a Ray Mears program in Sweden.

Thanks everyone

--- End quote ---

I've been recently looking into the same thing.  It seems as if you can build a charcoal forge out of nothing but a hole in the ground, a pipe and a hair dryer, in a pinch.  Of course they can get way more elaborate than that.  There is a pretty common plan for building a forge out of an old brake drum.  From what I've read, you want to stay away from using pressed charcoal briquets but you can use the lump charcoal, but it takes a lot and will get expensive.  Making your own seems like the best bet.  I've found just from my experience with my fireplace that oak and maple tend to make more charcoal than other woods I've burned.  Your pretty much on the money of using a burn barrel.  Start your fire up and get it burning pretty well, then shut off the air to it.  If you check out YouTube there are a ton of videos of home made forges, and plans are everywhere on the interwebs.

jonathan creason:
Here are a couple of buildalongs for charcoal forges that should get you heading in the right direction.

http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?17759-Lets-do-a-Charcoal-Forge

http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=110;t=001288

From everything I've read you do not want to use the commercial briquets to forge.  A lot of the additives are supposed to be bad for the steel, plus it would get extremely expensive very quick.  Be prepared to make a lot of charcoal.

Young Bowyer:
Thats what I heard too, thanks for the information everyone.  :)

Marlin:
If you are going to use coal I might sudjest a fire pot that is side blown. This makes forge welding more efficient as this is how the Japanese sword smiths made there forges. I made a coal forge from a large plow disc that I bought at Tractor Supply. I thought that it would work well because of the concave shape and all the coal would collect in the middle at the air inlet. But it turns out that it only works on short pieces and I new little about forging at the time. You get all your heat at the heart of the fire and you need to be able to run a long bar all the way through the heart of it.
I saw some pretty neat anvil setups made from large solid round like 12" in diameter siting on a stump or a stack of 2X4's I have a 130 pound anvil but I still think it would be cool to have one like that because it's so portable. I hope this helps. Marlin

Young Bowyer:
I was going to do a cylinder on it's side cut lengthwise with a tube with holes in the center to carry the air through it. Similar to jonathon creason's link from tradgang.

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