I will have to look into that when I have more time and Covid is gone. It was just luck I was able to save this stuff. Especially the bags of coal, its sticky coal so you can mix it with charcoal and make a fire you can easily build up and hold together around what your heating ( trick I learn from my chum )
I made an improvised forge out of the bottom of a steel drum and filled it with clay to make a trough. I used a shop vac with the foot switch and dimmer to adjust airflow and I tinkered with it. Ideally i need to get a big steel brake drum and cover to keep the fire smaller and better blower.
I never really made anything with it, Its just been used as a source of heat for straightening and forming rather than real black smith work.
The Anvil sadly is int he flower garden right now, but I do drag it off and use it now and then. Its a good one 110 pound of Japanese steel…
AS my grandfather used to say "best way to never hit your fingers is hold the hammer with both hands. "
I have the blower off a power vent water heater on mine. I’ve tried several others including one that came off a wood stove to blow hot air through some tubing. The power vent one seem to be just above right for volume.
I found one of these in my electrical junk a few minutes ago. Perhaps it would work. It is not a toggle switch though, but must have pressure on it to stay on:
Steve,
That’s spdt, simple on/off. A dimmer is continuously variable. I have my foundry furnace blower (old vacuum cleaner) on one. It works perfect.
Use rheostats only on brush type motors. You will kill an AC motor it you put it on a rheostat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s safest to just use on/off switches.
Just an on-off switch is fine for a forge. It just has to be located so that you don’t have to look away from your piece in the heat for more than a few seconds. you don’t have the same problems with propane, but I’ve never made a propane forge. I find it questionable watching those guys on Forged in Fire on TV as they push a 3 foot sword blade back and forth though about a one foot long forge and get a quenched blade that is evenly heat treated.
I f you use a blower where you can restrict the inlet that will not harm an AC induction motor. Complicated to rig a trap door you can operate by foot however…
Ya I don’t think they have a decent heat treat on that stuff.
I was lucky enough to watch a my chum who was the kind of black smith that made tools as well as decorative iron work. I will never claim to be able to do what he did, but I could understand it from a steel course I took in college.
There used to be a saying first you get good then you get fast. I feel bad for some of those guys on that TV show that do metal work as a hobby and are probably good at it. The format of the show forces them to rush and make mistakes for drama. It must be really crushing to leave the show on a failure when you know you could have done something much nicer without all that pressure to be fast.
Why is it always swords and knives ect. There are so many other things that could be worked into the show, ask them to make a tool without telling them what to make and the best tool wins…
Wallace- I feel the same way you do about Forged in Fire.
At least one guy in our club refused to be on the show for the reasons you mention.
As to "why is it always sword and knives, etc.?:
That’s what the viewers want to see. These days anything that smacks of death and destruction gets all the attention.
Since that program first aired, the size of our club almost doubled, and guess what most of the new members wanted to make?
All too often, when I demonstrate blacksmithing to the public, young men tell me they don’t really want to learn blacksmithing; they just want to make a sword. I tell them that you learn blacksmithing first, THEN you start learning how to make a sword. Of course, most of the time we never see them again.
A person who doesn’t make tools isn’t a blacksmith.
Re: " You will kill an AC motor":
Depends on the type of AC motor.
Here’s one that Centaur Forge has been selling for many years. I think they even sell a companion speed controller.:
(Terribly over priced, in my opinion.)
Note that this one has a “shaded pole” motor.
I have had a similar one on my shop forge since about 1985.
So here’s my furnace and now forge blower. I got an old vacuum cleaner at ARC Thrift Store, and added a dimmer switch that was left over from remodeling. I also added a dimmer to a short extension cord to turn down the heat on my soldering iron. The blower allows me to melt 20 lbs of aluminum in 20 minutes using propane as fuel. Both these things work really well.
Warning. Use rheostats only on brush type motors. You will kill an AC motor it you put it on a rheostat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s safest to just use on/off switches.
Watch a guy make a tool like a set of tongs or a chisel, hammer that’s impressive!
Or case hardening with some fire clay and charcoal…
I saw a guy in Cuba making wood drill bits and wood working tools that was impressive. Saw some impressive vice work too. In absence of machine tools a man make do to a lot of fine work himself. But you do not see that on TV.
You can even make you own blower out of wood with a motor from just about anything. Add rheostat to a 12 volt automotive cooling fan motor repurposed to run a blower…
Maybe even a heater from a car would work and then use the heater controls.
First tool I ever made was a set of tongs, and another set. And another.ect ect ect. I was the first one in the metal shop in high school that wanted to play with the forge, so I built every tool needed to work in for 3 years of that class every semester. “Where is Marcus at?” " He is in the shop hammering away on something I don’t know" was a pretty standard answer for most of school haha. To my knowledge those tools are still on the rack I built next to the forge some 14 years later used by each student who uses the forge. A lot of things in the metal shop I built. Tools, plasma table, gates, half of my go kart is welded to the wall in the metal storage area as an example of what could be built just for fun in the shop. Was great friends with the shop teacher and still see him now and then. I don’t have a forge yet but still make custom tools all the time! Hope to get back to it someday
Here’s another way to make a forge blower: https://ar-dev.info/black/enudn9HSenmTapE/primitive-skills-piston-bellows-fuigo.html
Start watching at about minute 12.
We saw a group of Vietnamese guys using just such a blower on a forge they made back in about 1987. A lady in the north suburbs of Mpls, Mn had donated an old one car garage and site for them to establish a blacksmith shop. They turned out some pretty complex stuff there.
Nice JesseN, to have set up this dedicated blacksmiths topic.
I got curious about ChuckW’s referring to his homesteads made forging with wood systems. I’ve never blacksmithed. And ass-u-me’d you always needed pre-made wood charcoal.
This was the best I’ve viewed so far:
Presenter “Cori” has much to say about wood, wood species, wood sizing, dryness and even ambient air temperature and humidity effecting getting her best hot coal bed.
This ALL is applicable to woodgasing too!!
She has a very smooth, professional delivery.
And just flat nice to see a young person, a hands on DOer in real.
And an antigen to some of us old grumps here on the DOW who fail to see the good in the newer, up and coming generation.
Yes, very informative and very well presented. I’ve never thought about using raw wood for forging . Makes sense. Very similar to coal in that for coal you are actually coking the fuel at the edge of the heat core and then feeding it into the actual heating zone. In the coking process you are removing the impurities in the coal just as here you are removing the impurities in the wood as it transforms into char. Forging is actually more of an art form than people realize. It’s all about color and learning to differentiate the subtle differences between one alloy and another.
“Forging is actually more of an art form than people realize. It’s all about color and learning to differentiate the subtle differences between one alloy and another.”
You sure said a mouthful there TomH.
The real irreplaceable resource is the human resource.
The skilled learned-experienced human resource.
Time and time again History teaches this.
And time and time again this gets forgotten; overlooked; minimized.
She says the color of the burning woodchar can match the color of the steel you intend to achieve.
Ha! And ChuckW has taught her that the flaming can act as an oxygen excluding cap.
S.U.
