Make a Small Blacksmith's Forge

A small forge for Blacksmiths, not a forge for small blacksmiths.
A long-term goal of mine's been to have a forge small enough and well-mannered to keep in my suburban garden, so that means no bituminous coal. I considered a Gas forge but when that turned out to be impractical for the scale of work i want to do, i looked elsewhere. Plus, with a gas forge i'd probably have ended up blowing my legs off.
So, suburban (so no smoke) and i can't use gas.... the only alternative i could see was charcoal. Finding a lost middle-american civilisation in among my socks would be considerably easier than finding the kiind of charcoal i need in the amounts i need. -everyone wanted to sell me a few tons at least-
Eventually, i found something called "smokeless fuel" seemed to be pure carbon or something, so because it was only £1.75 for 10 kilos i decided to give it a try...

Step 1: Find something to make the forge in

I WANTED to use a wheel from a car to do this but i couldn't be bothered going all the way to a place to get it only to carry it home and eventually set it on fire, so i looked closer to home. I ended up using a 12 inch stainless steel cake tin. I never once thought i'd be making a forge in something that vould have been used to hold cakes but it worked really well.
The first thing we need to consider when building a forge is the ariflow. Too much and it gets far too hot. Not enough and it doesn't burn at all. To get the air into the forge, we need a hole through which we can out a pipe. Wheels come with ready-made holes. Cake tins do not. Ergo, i had to make one. "It's only thin steel, what can possibly go wrong?"
I spent something like 40 minutes getting a hole big enough to put the pipe through. SO: this step's instructions: Through Fair means or Foul, Make a hole big enough to fit the pipe through. Make sure the pipe doesn't go too far in or not far enough in. about 1.5 inches was right for me.

Comments

[backburnerforge]

Nice effort! The blacksmith's guild I work with doesn't use bituminous coal (which is far better than anthracite) instead we use 'coke'. It is the coal with all of the impurities and gases burned out of it, and it is less smoky than any backyard charcoal grill!

I love the simplicity of your design.

Hammer hard!

[Zipmiestermag#56]

What about a length of steel H-beam? Would that make a good anvil?

[neetrihtneves]

What if you can't find H-beam? Would an I-beam work?

[Landon Sullivan]

Yes. They're the same thing. Just turn the H on its side.

[neetrihtneves]

Oh, I know! I'm just teasing a little! Just bein' silly. A small section of railroad track "rail" is supposed to be a swell anvil, I've heard.

[Landon Sullivan]

If you aren't in a position to get a real one then yes, they're an unexpectedly nice alternative as long as you strap it down tight.

[jchenzel]

Better than nothing but you really need to get some surface made from high carbon or harden steel like RR rail for repetitive or long term use.

[youbaka1]

can you make a charcoal forge that uses belows instead of a hairdryer?and can you make it out of fire brick?

[shocker187]

Yes and yes. Bellows were the normal blower for thousands of years and still work fine .They can be simply built from wood ,leather and some thin metal sheet ,but as has been mentioned else where ,a blacksmiths hand crank blower is better .The problem I saw with that advice is that if you knew where to get (or had) a blacksmiths hand crank blower you would be unlikely to be asking how to build a forge ! A thing I had been considering was taking a scrap turbocharger from a wrecked car and adapting that to a hand crank.....a idea for you ? Makes you independent of power supply.

Fire bricks ,I had built a firebrick forge like a brick built BBQ ,just using the fire bricks at the business end .Just remember to build your tuyere/air pipe into the structure as is a sod to put in after !

[Wroger-Wroger]

No - bellows are crap, you need a continuous stream of air, not a pulsed flow of air.

Double acting bellows are an improvement, - but a double acting bellows with a weighted air sack is best as far as bellows go.

Either a motor driven or hand driven fan is the go... motor is better if your working multiple pieces at the same time - if you want to heat while you forge.;

[jchenzel]

They are not crap. They work just fine. The only thing is an electric blower is easier and cheaper in many cases.

[Uuvini]

Another option is a bathroom exhaust fan, You can usually pick one up for $20-$30.

[SirRahKnight]

If you visit your local metal recyclers you can often find chunks of large steel I-Beams from road demolition and plate for scrap metal prices plus premium that makes a nice anvil surface with a little re-work.

[JakeThief]

If your cement is on top of your airflow pipe, then how will the pipe even do its job? Someone please respond.

[nrthwiz]

If you look closely at the pictures, there is a hole in the refractory cement where the airflow pipe opens into the forge.

[Isurvival]

All I can say, this is one of the best instructables I've ever seen about making a small forge, and it looks great-I would only need it to temper knife blades, so I guess it'll be prfect for that job! Thanks for sharing-clear, easy and looks like a cheap but good method too-only one question-could you give some further iformation about the type of the refractory/fire cement-or I shuold just pick any type from a hardware store? thanks for sharing again! great!

[the walking stick]

When I wanted a cheap anvil I went with a 12 in section of old railroad. works great. If you live in AZ there are some blacksmiths and industrial places that will sell you sections. mine was about $20. Other then that, I don't have any idea where you'd get old RR track.

[youbaka1]

hey can you make a charcoal/coal forge? me and my dad have been looking around for anvils and hammers and all the stuff required for forging but we havent found a good design for a forge

[sharlston]

could you melt sand with this?

[kmccarthy666]

I doubt it since sand melts at about 8000 degrees and the only thing I can think of that burns at  that temp is hydrogen.. why do you wanna make your own glass bong or something?

[snowluck2345]

and acetylene with oxygen...

[sharlston]

i would like to make a little blob of glass

[wannabemadsci]

If you only want a little 'blob' you might want to consider using sunshine and a fresnel lens. With 'giant' size lenses (~1 m^2, ~USD $150) you can melt glass and even concrete.
One such supplier http://greenpowerscience.com/SHOPFRESNELHOME.html

[josh1324]

...      Why?

 

[sharlston]

just corious into makingo ne

[josh1324]

cool

 

[x z i t]

YOU NEED MANY CHEMICALS TO MAKE GLASS, NOT JUST SAND AND GLASS AND BAKING SODA. ALSO, THE FUMES THAT COME OUT OF THEM IS TOXIC. I SUGGEST METAL

[acoleman3]

sorry but glass is only sand and soda with some lime added.

The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, made of about 75% silica (SiO2) plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives. -wikipedia.

[snowluck2345]

First of all: Don't write in all caps, its annoying
Second of all: Sand melts at around 3000-3500 degrees fahrenhite. You could probably melt pyrex in this or you could melt sand when mixed with borax.

[acoleman3]

with the addition of soda and lime, it drops the melting temperature of the sand closer to 2k*. pyrex is the one tht melts around 3k.

[pleasedontspamme]

Borax Glass can be made in a kiln with little difficulty. The wonderful book Caveman Chemistry has an entire section on making a glass ornament from scratch.

[acoleman3]

to let you know....the best fuel for this is mesquite charcoal lump. its pretty easy to find since its the type used in the food service. i got 40lb bags of it for about $13 from a place called cash and carry. they cater to restaurants, but its open to the public. i use this when i was running my forge a lot. i was using the tim lively style bladesmithing forge and was only burning about 2 lbs/hr.

if you drill 3/16 in holes about every inch, you can run the pipe clear through so you end up with a tuyere and get a more consistent heat clear across the coal bed.

[jemtallon]

My grandpa used to make anvils from old railroad rails. I'm not sure how/where he got the rails cut down to size but I have one of his old anvils still and it works fine. If you can find a way to buy some old track off of someone and get it cut, it might be a cheap anvil for you too. The thing I like about it is that it's light enough to be portable but it's still pretty heavy duty. If you'd like a picture, let me know.

[Vendigroth]

sure, send it actually, i've been planning to get a bit of track, but it's tricky to find it and get it wthout the hazard of being hit by a train, so now, i'm going to weld some small steel stakes onto a sledgehammer head and try that.

[kcfreeloader]

I've seen lot of people use a foot long piece of hard steel sticking up a few inches out of a five gallon bucket with concrete poured around it. You could do the same thing with the sledge hammer head. Just leave a few inches sticking above the concrete.

[Vendigroth]

Yeah, i made one like that, it's set into a gallon of concrete. Thing is, the concrete's starting to crumble now, so ima need something more permanent.

[acoleman3]

make another one and reinforce it with a rebar cage. it'll reduce the interior shock stress and wont crumble as easily. this is what tim lively uses and hes had it for years now.

[thoraxe]

I heard u can get arrested if u get caught with railroad track without written permission from the station or company.

[jchenzel]

Possibly. RR Rail is illegal to sell or transfer without legal permission from the rail road. Laws have been passed to protect RR property from theft. Sometimes you can find a steel recycling yard that gets it legally thought from the RR or contractors and therefore can sell it to you legally. You don't need written documentation to posses it if that is what your saying. However, if you have a gross amount of it than you may want to make sure you have sufficient documentation to answer any questions if you are asked or accused.

[ElmoRoyD]

I think it depends on the country, here in Mexico is illegal to have railroads tracks, without a permission. thats becouse The government own the railroad tracks, and a lot of people steals it.

It may also depend on the size of it.