Coal forge

[irish fixit]

I can remember using one like rlarkin has one time at a Scouting get together. My former employer had borrowed it to take there. But it was complete with lever like DSW showed and had a vent hood on it as well around the rounded back part.

Man that was a long time ago. We tried to make knifes from some sucker rod. Had a lot of problems getting the heat right with so many boys pumping and trying to do it at the same time.

I currently have my former employers old forge that his dad used. Just no place to set it up and used it. It's built similar in shape but was fancier in that it was electric powered. You can barely see some of it in this pic.

[DSW]

I see it. Painted red in the lower right behind the pedestal grinder.


I like it! Sort of the shop version of "Where's Waldo!"

[whtbaron]

I thought my legs were just bent (well, they are, but not as much as I thought they were) but I see those curved out feet were pretty common. Don't think I'm a fan of that design... strikes me that they could result in a lot of stubbed toes and bruised shins.

[DSW]

Stability. Give it a wider foot print on the ground.

[whtbaron]

Yea... I understand the reasoning, I'm just not sure I need to be that stable. If you look at the 2nd pic in post #20 he's added straight legs and casters... could be the direction I'm thinking.

[rlarkin]

The straight legs were due to the fact that 2 of the mounts for the tube legs were broken.
The casters were to move it out of the way when not in use. But the AWE factor when people walk into my shop is COOL!, so it stays in plain view.
I don't use a hood. Only take a couple minutes to get hot and the smoke disappears.
Plus, the short burst of green/yellow sooty smoke sticks to the cob webs in my 24' ridge and weighs them down so they fall, keeping the ceiling cleaner.

[Dantheharleyman99]

<"Plus, the short burst of green/yellow sooty smoke sticks to the cob webs in my 24' ridge and weighs them down so they fall, keeping the ceiling cleaner.">

Hahahaha... I like the way you think! I use brake cleaner and a lighter myself... Almost as fun but there are no hammers involved so you win! Lol

[DSW]

I'm just not sure I need to be that stable.

I'm not sure any of us are very stable... Oh wait, were you talking about our mental status?

[whtbaron]

I may have exaggerated when I said I was normal...All this talk about old forges, anvils and blacksmithing has me scouting the old junk piles with a different perspective. Yesterday I picked up what I used to think was somebody's idea of a homemade chipping hammer for welding, now I'm not so sure. It probably predates any electric welders we had in the yard. Not the cleanest build....lol.... guess I come by it honestly!

[whtbaron]

I like the idea of being able to roll the forge outside, I don't see a chimney in the new shop any time soon. I want to be able to paint in there occasionally so ignition sources for the combustibles isn't anything my insurance agent is going to want to see operating in there. He probably wouldn't want to watch me operating in there either... I was just reading back to the previous posts and DSW mentioned that his forge had a grate. Would one like mine have had one as well?

[DSW]

Yours has a clinker breaker, so it doesn't need a grate. If you look at my coal forge build, my big forge I built has a rotating clinker breaker like yours does. Coal when it cokes, sticks together some what and so it really doesn't drop thru the opening around the clinker breaker. I can get my fingers between the side of my firepot and the clinker breaker and I don't have any issues. Some small stuff probably does drop thru, but it's negligible.


My small forge I posted here is a bit different. It's just an open pipe. I need something that allows air to flow thru, but doesn't allow coal/coke to drop. Hence I have an iron grate with holes in it to cover the opening. Yours won't need that.

[whtbaron]

I guess I'm just going to have to get that puppy fired up some day and get it all figured out.

[OLDMERC]

That's a darn fine forge we've had one just like it on the farm for close to a hundred years .

[whtbaron]

Yea, my grandfather moved here in 1928 and I think that forge probably would have been in the shed when he came here, so it had a very active life early on. Problem is that the shed it was in got torn down somewhere around 1960 and that poor old forge has sat outside with no use since then. Apparently it's been waiting for me to spit out the poison apple and wake up.

[ThorsHammer]

still waiting on the pictures of it pulled out of the scrap pile with some legs under it vs on top of it.

[whtbaron]

LOL...me too! I was hoping to get the heated shop floor poured before freezeup so I could start moving stuff in I could work on over the winter. So far it isn't happening, and I've been informed I have a new grand daughter getting christened 2 provinces away before the end of the month... life happens.

[DSW]

Non chloride accelerator is your friend! It's easily possible to pour even when temps go below freezing if you know what you are doing. I'd assume in Canadia they'd know how to do this no problem. If you are doing it yourself, I can make some good suggestions on how to pull it off. I'll assume if you can still get crete, they are running hot water in the mix, can add accelerator at the plant or on site, and you can get blankets to cover the pour area both before and after the pour to protect it. If they are still shipping crete, you can still pour... It's just a question if you want to deal with the added expenses. It's even simpler if the walls are up, or you can pump warm water thru the tubes in the pour.

[whtbaron]

I'm actually renovating an old pig barn, so it will be inside and I can turn on the heat if need be. The problem is that I need to do a lot of repair work on the walls before new concrete gets poured against them. My son in law is in the concrete business so he did a lot of the work with the first pour last year.

[whtbaron]

First shot is my 100 yr old oak stump holding up my tractor instead of my anvil. Good news is that the tractor is off of it now, so the anvil still has hope. Bad news is that I had to send the tractor out to a shop that charges over $100/hr. Still hunting for parts but I dug up that old home made chipping hammer I found. Spent some time on the grinder, redid the bad weld, drilled a hanging hole and gave it some (appropriately enough) high heat flat black paint.

[shortfuse]

Nice job on the chipping hammer! "Cleaned up right nice", as they say.

That works well for some old hammers you might have laying around...re-purpose them for your blacksmithing. Old ball peins are good beginning stock to make other hammers, hot cut tools, drifts, punches and other such tools. The old hammers are usually better grade steel than some of the newer stuff out there, and can be picked up for a couple of bucks at flea markets, yard sales, other farms, etc.

That chipping hammer could have been turned into a nice handled hot cut chisel, with the head flattened, the chisel end squared and sharpened a bit. It probably was made from some steel with a bit more carbon than mild steel and would not need any heat treatment to keep it's shape.

[whtbaron]

At first glance I thought it was an old railroad spike, but it's hex shaped, and seems to be better steel. I never thought of a handled chisel...lol, could have saved myself a bunch of grinding on the back end! It must have taken a beating over the years since the edges were long gone.

[shortfuse]

I neglected to mention one other mod to a chipping hammer like that would be a hot cut slitter. Similar to a hand-held hot cut chisel, but the slitter can be moved along a lengthy slit using the handle, hammer and a hold-down tool. Very similar tools, just a difference in nomenclature.

I took a small hammer head that was about 1" diameter, one end with a flat head the other a straight blunt pein. I carefully ground the straight pein into a narrow, sharp chisel shape and use it for a hot cut slitter. Still had a good wooden handle, so I didn't have to make one. The slow periodic grinding helped retain any heat treatment the old hammer head had in it.

One thing you want to remember...when using a hot cut tool like a chisel, slitter or punch, you need to dip the tip in water frequently when striking (like every two or three blows) to retain any hardness or heat treatment. Often, cutting on a hot piece renders any heat treatment useless, so it's usually a moot point. I like to cool mine anyway.

Some smiths just buy the cheep spring-handled chipping hammers and modify the head.