building a forge

[Old Creek]

I worked on building a forge for the wife :wink: last sunday afternoon and made good headway but got slowed up a bit when she hurt an ankle and had to go to urgent care. I took a big brake drum off of a dump truck or garbage truck, cut in a opening to get work in and out of then cut a 50lb size heleium drum in half and welded it to the bottom, this is where the air intake will weld into. I welded on three 3/4 inch black iron pipe legs but I think I will add a fourth. to cover the stud holes I cut a peice of 1/4 inch plate to fit as a solid bottom,because I am lazy and it is already hot in fla instead of drilling a thousand holes to get the air to the coal I am going to use my grinder and a pencil wheel to cut slots into it to allow airflow to the coal. I wont weld this plate in but leave it loose so that the air chamber can be cleaned with a wet vac and also allow it to be removed to enlarge the slots if needed. I am still struggling with adding a mud leg or not. my thought is to bring the air into the side instead of the bottom and just pulling the grate to clean when needed, any thoughts on that issue??
I apologize for the lack of pics, I can imagine what I am describing could be hard to picture.

creek

 

[ohio ramrod]

My first forge was made from a brake drum with a pipe connected to the air compresser for a blower. It served me well. You are on the right track :idunno: .

 

[loco6725]

Pics would be great this is an interesting subject to me.

 

[Old Creek]

I tried to post a pic I resized for another forum but couldnt figure it out, I will go now to see if I can figure it out and if so I will post some pics.

thanks for the input.

creek

 

The thing I’m having trouble visualizing is where the cut-off cylinder figures in. Fastening a two or three inch pipe to the bottom of the brake drum would be easy. Definitely plan on some kind of tee with the air coming in on the horizontal piece and an ash gate on the bottom of the vertical piece. As far as the holes for the air is concerned, you will be a lot better off with a few ½ inch or maybe even a little bigger holes than a lot of smaller ones. Even the best metallurgical coal is going to clog everything up quicker than you want it to. The smaller the holes, the quicker it will happen.
I started out with an old Champion 400 that was pretty much a commercial version of what most people have when they make one from an old brake drum or wheel. I managed to do a lot with it - even made some pattern welded knives - but air restriction due to clinkers was always a royal pain.
A permanent forge with a firepot equipped with a clinker breaker was a big step up. I still had to fish the clinkers out, but I didn’t have to pry ”˜em loose first.

 

[Old Creek]

Thanks Randy. The cut off cylinder has 2 reasons, reason one is that when I started I didnt think I had a big enough plate to close the bottom and the cylinder diameter was a perfect fit and reason two it will act as a plenum instead of having a flanged pipe directly under the coal which I hope will make the airflow and there by the heat more even. The cleaning should be a little easier as well, just pull the grate and vacum out with the shop vac. I am really just winging it with scrap I have lying around, makin do. I will end up with a grate about 12 inches in diameter, does it need to look like a chunk of swiss with a family of rats livin in it or would 10 or twelve 1/2 holes be sufficient. My concern is that I may over do it and lose more coal than I need to through the grate.

Thanks to all.

creek

 

Thanks Randy. The cut off cylinder has 2 reasons, reason one is that when I started I didnt think I had a big enough plate to close the bottom and the cylinder diameter was a perfect fit and reason two it will act as a plenum instead of having a flanged pipe directly under the coal which I hope will make the airflow and there by the heat more even. The cleaning should be a little easier as well, just pull the grate and vacum out with the shop vac. I am really just winging it with scrap I have lying around, makin do. I will end up with a grate about 12 inches in diameter, does it need to look like a chunk of swiss with a family of rats livin in it or would 10 or twelve 1/2 holes be sufficient. My concern is that I may over do it and lose more coal than I need to through the grate.

Thanks to all.

creek

You really don’t need more than two or three inches of area feeding air to the fire. Take a quick look at this link from Centaur forge. http://www.centaurforge.com/Centau...-Page-for-full-details/productinfo/PORTFORGE/
You will have to line the bottom and sides of the drum with clay, and if you mold it so that it funnels toward the grate/tuyer, you will get a good even fire without trying to produce enough air to feed enough of it through such a large area.

In trying to find a good picture of what I’m talking about I found a website where a guy is really trashing the mere idea of using a brake drum to build a forge. I understand what he is saying, but like I said earlier, I managed to produce pattern welded knives with my old Champion and it had all the limitations he mentions in discussing brake drum forges. I’ve had several portable forges in the past. None of them were capable of production work, and it would have been next to impossible to bring really big pieces up to heat, but that isn’t what they were designed for. They were/are for farmers and farriers who needed enough heat to shape and weld smaller work. There are limitations, but they can be worked around. A forge like you are building probably won’t do for welding up gun barrels. But it will make every other part, along with knives, belt buckles, cooking utensils and anything else of comparable size.

 

[Old Creek]

Randy I tried getting some pics up but will have to try it again monday from work cause it just aint happenin on dial up for me. it took an hour an a half just to get to editing and after waiting 20 or 30 more minutes i was ready to pull what hair i have out by the roots.
I did finish it up today, i ended up using the welder turned up to 225 to cut slots about 3/8's wide. i have a compressor but am going to use a vacum cleaner motor for air. i'll get some pics up somehow or another.

creek

 

[Old Creek]

just looked at the link for the centaur forge, thats kinda what i am doing, only round bottomed and a little bigger. we wont be doing anything of much size i dont think, my wife wants to get into some ornamental peices, leaves, petals and such. my main interest will be just tinkering, i'd like to learn to make and temper strike a lites and may try a hawk or camp axe for my own use but i dont picture doing anything for other folks.

Thanks.

creek

 

[Old Creek]

i was finaly able to post a pic of the forge in the photos section, it is titled test photo of forge. the inlet pipe is coming out of the back side and will be tied to a old vacum cleaner motor. I wanted to test run it yesterday but was running out of time to try and find mayhaws so i took the canoe and me the wife and her pup went to the river instead. now that i know how to post pics i'll try to get some posted of the forge in action.

Thanks to all for the input, it is much appreciated.

creek

 

[44-henry]

I made my first forge from an old gas grill. I filled the bottom with fire clay and ran a pipe into it which I connected to an old hair drier. I used charcoal because I didn't have any thing else at the time. The surprising thing is that the it worked, I even did some forge welding with it.

A few years later I started buying old forges at farm auctions and begin restoring them. Still have a couple good ones back at the family farm, but now that I live in town all I use is a gas forge. The coal forges are fun to play with though.

 

[Old Creek]

I am gonna do my first by burning wood coal until I can get with someone to share shipping with for bitumus(?) coal. I haven't done extensive research on price but at a glance the shipping will eat you alive when compared to the cost of 50 lbs of coal. I am hoping wood coal will last longer than briquetes, the wood is free and even though I dont have much time I have more time than money. I have thousands of bricks so a gas forge may be in the future, I'll have to buy the fire brick but for a small forge that shouldn't be to bad.
Many Thanks.

creek

 

[ohio ramrod]

For several hundred years there was only "coals". There was no seperate terms for charcoal and coal as we have today.Old time advertisements listed foundries for sale with "large stand of hardwoods for making coals". :hmm: :hmm:

 

[Old Creek]

That makes perfect sense what with every community needing a smith and most not being in coal country.

creek