Make a small, practical forge

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introMake a small, practical forge

INCOMING NEWS FROM THE KHAE!

i'mma making another instructable, showing what you can upgrade this to without much work. coming soon!

This instructable will show you how to make a small (no more than 2 feet by two feet) forge for melting lead and/or heating thin-ish steel to shape it.

Unfortunately, i only have pics of the forge in action, as i didnt think of making an instructable until i came in.

Be careful with this, as it can produce high temperatures and will almost certainly injure you if you touch the bricks after use. Give it about a 2 day cooldown period just to be safe.

Make a small, practical forge

forge mk 2 side.jpg

forge mk 2 woodpile .jpg

forge mk 2 avec lead.jpg

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step 1Bricks!

You need them. anything from 5-11 will work fine. If you only have 5, you can only make one layer though :(

Also, something to put underneath it. I used roofing slate, and although it cracked because of the heat, it kept it burning REAL hot.

Bricks!

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89 comments	Add Comment

1-40 of 89

Mar 28, 2009. 2:56 PMjosh1324 says:

Great Instructable! I was looking at how to make a forge and all the other ones were too hard and expensive. :)

Mar 28, 2009. 3:40 PMkhaeotixs (author) says:

ayeaye, but i wouldn't recommend building this for anything other than melting lead/heating thin steel When i build my new one, there'll be step-by-step instructions on how to build it and it should be grand. the one i'm working with at the minute is amazing, it follows the same basic design as this, but is square and uses a lot more bricks. if you want more info on my new forge, send me a message or a comment and i'll be glad to help

Oct 8, 2009. 7:24 PMbobo64 says:

plz make an insatructable fir it

Sep 12, 2009. 9:37 AMbakabr says:

c'mon guy, just melting lead is a noob thing. u know what? u can do this simply using a tin/aluminum container and ur stove, c'mon, i know u r more intelligent than this guy, c'mon...

Aug 7, 2009. 11:43 AMCrail says:

So, what's the deal with a burn permit on this. Yes, no, depends on...?

Aug 7, 2009. 2:49 PMCrail says:

nevermind, just figured out it wasn't an open flame

Mar 25, 2009. 12:18 PMiloveairsoftstuff says:

no offense, and i realize that i am not an expert in this area, but lets just say there are better ibles.

Mar 25, 2009. 1:18 PMkhaeotixs (author) says:

There are. i've improved this massively since then. it now runs on coal and is highly efficient... melted thin steel plate a while ago :( it was my crucible for melting lead... i looked back and had lost the bottom of the crucible.

Feb 6, 2008. 5:39 PMjoey2542667 says:

Is it possible to melt alunimum foil?

Sep 1, 2008. 1:14 PMAar000n3y says:

Unless you super size this, no. The melting point of aluminum is 1220 degrees F, and he said it can melt lead, so the forge probably goes up to about 621 degrees F (melting point of lead). Just google the material and 'melting point' and you can usually find the temperature pretty easily

Feb 6, 2009. 11:06 AMAklash, The hunchback says:

your plain old average campfire can get steel and iron red hot as well as melting lead

Jan 1, 2009. 11:03 AMvolquete says:

could it melt steel?

Jan 1, 2009. 11:12 AMjoey2542667 says:

It would take alot of heat but it may be possible. just make sure that for the crucible you use something that has a much higher melting temperature than steel.

Sep 1, 2008. 2:01 PMjoey2542667 says:

ok

Sep 1, 2008. 1:38 PMkhaeotixs (author) says:

you could do it if you added a better air system... mostly what i used was my own lungs and the natural draw, which usually lead to me being out of breath

Sep 1, 2008. 2:02 PMjoey2542667 says:

lol, OK well I have an air compressor.

Oct 2, 2008. 10:14 AMGrey_Wolfe says:

Blow dryer works good too. btw. And a cheap low-power one will be less expensive to run then your compressor. You won't get as much air pressure, but that really shouldn't be an issue. It should be plenty for aluminum. Aluminum foil melted can be used like paint. Very neat effect.

Oct 2, 2008. 10:35 AMjoey2542667 says:

OK thanks

Oct 2, 2008. 2:07 PMGrey_Wolfe says:

If you decide to use the paint idea, be careful. If you use it on glass make sure the glass is fairly warm first. Think ice is hot water, only more dangerous. You probably already realize that, but I figured it was worth saying.

Oct 2, 2008. 2:08 PMGrey_Wolfe says:

Ice IN hot water. Weird typo, only missed by half the keyboard. lol

Oct 2, 2008. 3:22 PMjoey2542667 says:

lol ok, thanks

May 12, 2008. 5:26 PMjoey2542667 says:

With this forge.

May 12, 2008. 5:09 PM

thoraxe says:

With this forge or in general?

Jan 19, 2009. 12:30 PMardo6969 says:

could it harden and temper steel

Jan 19, 2009. 12:22 PMardo6969 says:

could it melt steel or not

Sep 25, 2008. 4:52 AMSora_1_2 says:

Is the roofing slate or whatever I decide to use just to keep the ground from burning or what?

Jul 10, 2008. 9:49 PMoctavian234 says:

what are the melting points of some metals like nickel, iron, copper, aluminum, tin, lead, and steel

Sep 19, 2008. 5:05 PMhalberdear says:

well copper is about 2000 degrees tins is about 600 degrees steel is like 5000 degrees aluminum is 1200 degrees iron is about 1800 degrees and nickel is 2700 dgre

Jul 27, 2008. 3:49 PMGryle says:

With the exception of steel, all of your listed metals are elements. A good periodic table should tell you what you want know. Wikipedia and a Material Safety Data Sheet are also good sources for information on metals.

Aug 28, 2008. 9:25 AMzerrodach says:

cool instructable but can it melt anything besides lead? because lead is soft and poisenous, and i dont like handling it

May 23, 2008. 6:18 PMgibsonlp96 says:

can this melt tin and copper, cuz i have a copper sword and tons of tin around, and wanted to make a bronze blade

Jun 11, 2008. 2:48 PM

thoraxe says:

hey try melting pennies b4 you ruin your sword. Make sure they're pre 1984 pennies though. After that they contain zinc, which will burn and be poisonous. If you do get it melted, put the tin into the copper after it's melted, or else the tin will burn away.

Jun 11, 2008. 5:38 PMnotjustsomeone says:

I don't mean to be rude but pennies shifted from 95% copper in 1982. Starting in 1983 all pennies are 97.5% zinc. In 1982 pennies were made of copper and zinc so just to be safe and make sure you're getting copper don't use any after 1981.

Jun 11, 2008. 6:52 PM

thoraxe says:

really? so thats why i found melted zinc and saw green flames when i melted that 84 penny.....hmm..thanks for that

Jun 11, 2008. 7:53 PMnotjustsomeone says:

Smug but wrong. The reason you saw green flames is because a penny minted in 1984 has an outer shell of pure copper with a zinc core. In fact the penny you melted was copper-plated-zinc, 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. Would you have weighed it on a fine scale you'd have noticed it weighed only 2.5g rather than 3.1g that a mostly copper penny weighs. I would suggest you do some research on the subject starting with www.usmint.gov so that you can be better informed when attempting to cast metals of potentially hazardous composition.

Jun 12, 2008. 7:58 AM

thoraxe says:

yeah that's what i meant it contained zinc. I cut a modern penny and half and saw zinc in the center of it, but when i cut a 74 penny it was difficult and i saw no silver metal in between. Same goes for the 84 penny, i coundn't cut it and i saw no silver metal, so i guessed it was pure copper all the way through

May 23, 2008. 11:24 PMkhaeotixs (author) says:

tbh i don't know. Try it.

Nov 23, 2007. 4:06 PMthegamer211 says:

Great Instructable, easy to make/understand! But will this melt (with just a wood fire) anything other than lead? And also, can anyone think of any household item besides fishing weights that are made of lead?

Jun 11, 2008. 8:02 PMnotjustsomeone says:

If you're still looking for lead go down to a tire shop and ask if they've got any wheel weights they want to get rid of. they're the little peices of lead on a steel clip used to balance tires. Most auto shops have a bucket of unusable ones lying around.

Nov 25, 2007. 2:14 AMkhaeotixs (author) says:

hmm... you'll be surprised. However, id recommend coal or amthesyte. It'll melt things like aluminium, but you might want to make a crucible for that. Also, if you're going to melt aluminium you may just want to stockpile at least 3 pallets worth of chopped up wood (I.E. chopping up 3 pallets ;))

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