My new forge

[Erik Olson]

well, my old forge from last year isn't really working out the way i wanted it to. it's hot, no place to hide from the sun plus a white hot fire makes it very uncomfortable, if not unbearable. these are some pictures of what it looks like now, and where i'd like to move it. I (hopefully) have my barrel stove kit coming down, with that i'll be able to start working on swords again.

 

right now, with my little chimney stove thingy i can't work on anything bigger than about a foot, max, blade, tang and all. it sucks.

 

so post some comments and suggestions and i'll start to post some of the work i'm doing on a couple of my projects.

 

P.S.

my shed and work area are a mess, i'm cleaning it up, but i was away for a couple months, what do you expect?

 

 

[James Higson]

I use a chimanea forge too! Mine's cast iron though but the space issue is a nightmare. I cut a hole in the back of mine so I can slide through but I assume yours wouldn't be amenable to cutting due to the chance of it cracking? Good luck with the cleaning

 

JH

[Erik Olson]

i thought of doing that, i'm not really worried about cracking, i just never really got around to it and forgot. i suppose i should try it, i'll post some pics tomorrow after school.

[Erik Olson]

Well I lost my camera today, but I made do with my phone. These are the pictures of the chimnea that I use. The metal pieces are the cap and elbow to my fires air supply, but I left it on for the summer and it rusted together. I was able to get it loose after about an hour of greasing it and working it, but my hands will never be quite the same (it hurt and I couldn't find my gloves)

[Erik Olson]

so i worked on my forge again today, my chest has been acting up though so it's hard to work too hard, but you know what they say, even a rock will crumble if sat in a stream long enough. or something like that i guess. anyway, so this is the work i did on the chimnea, i plan on putting bolts in the back for a little flap that i can open when i'm using it. right now it's just a work in progress. but hopefully i have it up and running by the weekend and i'll be forging out something pretty. a friend also said he'd drop by and help, he wants to learn the art of smithing, so i told him to bring some bags of charcoal cuz i'm pretty much out.

[James Higson]

Looking good, going to need a tall fire to reach that hole but the bigger the fire the better in my book

[Erik Olson]

The hole will be a bit lower, but it's definitely not too high. You need 8 inches of coal to have a good fire, that's what I learned at least, and the bottom of the hole is at about 8. But like I said, I'm going to make it lower.

[Erik Olson]

i'm sick right now, won't be working until tomorrow. sorry.

[Erik Olson]

the bottom of the forge fell out today.

 

My dad and brother got down here a couple days ago, so i told my bro i'd let him forge (he's 20, gonna be 21 in exactly a month) so i got the forge ready after working on cutting out my new forge and let him smith for a bit, i gave him tips, held the steel a couple times and taught him what little i know. he started to get the hang of it, when out of nowhere i hear a shift of coal and sparks go EVERYWHERE.

 

the bottom of the forge had broken.

 

after 2 years of forging, the old girl decided she'd had enough. unfortunately for her, i have a young and brilliant mind, so i hosed it off to cool it down and dug a little hole in the ground and my put my air pipe down there and packed dirt around it and set my broken forge directly on top and continued forging (after scrambling around and grabbing all the fuel that had fallen out and throwing it back in).

 

if anything it almost works better now,but I've decided to only use it for smelting from now on, i need a proper forge, so i'm gonna keep working towards it.