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I'm a newbie getting a shop together on a budget. I have one inch tread plate steel for material. After doing some research I want to make a coal/charcoal forge that is water cooled like an English side blast forge but bottom blast on an electric blower. My question is...couldn't I make a fire pot with a connected tuyere go into a one inch plate (hearth) and under that plate, a few inches of water connected to a tank of water like a side blast forge. So basically the fire is sitting in a one inch thick inverted pyrimid, partially submerged surrounded by water on the bottom. With the outside pipe of the tuyere going through water for a few inches then coming out of the bottom to the ash dump and blower... why cant I find anything like this? Am i missing something? Or will all that water keep the it from getting to the proper temp? It sounds like it would be really efficient and keep everything from melting/wearing in my head. Even maybe a connection for a garden hose to cirrculate fresh water in. It would never melt ?? I really want to build this and start forging. any input appreciated. Thanks.

Hey all, utter new guy here. Been dreaming of getting into blacksmithing all my life, but never saw an opertounity till now in my late 30's. Got a huge unexpected cash gift for christmas, and the day before I have been drooling over an anvil on craigslist. So now I am they very proud owner of a 360 pound Peter Wright anvil. She's a BEAST, but shes in pretty good shape with only minor damage $2.77 a pound, so not killer cheap, but within reasonable range from what I have seen. I probably still should have gone for a smaller anvil and had money left over to buy other tools, but it is what it is. I am a CNC machinist as my day job, so have tons of scrap mettal laying around as they don't care if we take home "unuseable" chunks and ends of steel bars. I need some help designing a forge, I came across several guides to making forges, but all of them seem to missing some details. I have some large peices of 1/2" plate steel I bought for scrap price. Was planning on making my fire box out of that stuff, little heavy, but I like over building everything I do, so it's fine. How deep should I make the pit? I got the basic idea from http://imgur.com/a/rbRdd/noscript His appears to be approx 3" deep, i don't know if that's a good deapth or not any suggestions? My pan will be different from his in that I was planning on turned up sides. I have a large peice of 12 guage sheet steel rusting in the barn, probably 4 foot square. I can take that into a friends wookplace and use their sheer and break and make a nice pan out of that in whatever size I decide on. Maybe 3 by 2.5 feet? Not sure, any suggesstions might be helpful. I havn't even begun thinking about the hood for it yet, figured I would get the forge built and worry about the hood later.