Coal forge: buy or run?

[Timothy Artymko 39]

I have a contact who is looking at selling this old forge he has sitting in his yard, he want's $450 CAD for it and the blower, is that a good price? Or is that ridiculous? Thanks!

 

[M. Cochran 4]

I personal wouldn't pay it. That's simply because I could build one using stuff layin around. My current one is a wood table with a turning disk as the bottom of fire pot and the sides are old fire brick from a masonry fireplace.

[Timothy Artymko 39]

yeah, but this one has the blower... and it turns smoothly. That is soemthing that costs a bunch in itself

[Geoff Keyes 700]

If you are dead set on burning solid fuel, it's still a lot. I see the blowers on ebay priced all over the place, from $70 on up to $400-$500. The top end is collector prices, the bottom are parts. You say it turns, does it make air move?

 

I think tool price ought to be $200 or so, seems pretty high to me.

 

Geoff

[N. Runals 16]

It looks pretty good to me. The price really depends on availability in your area. Where I'm at that's a little steep, but it may be your best option for where you are.

[Gabriel James 90]

Before you buy anything, find where youre going to get your coal from first. IDK about where you are but coal is getting very hard to come by around my area. I have to drive closer to West Va to find any coal for some reason. Other than that, +1 what geoff says.

 

my coal forge is a spare steel wheel that was laying around + 15$ in welded parts and a 15$ bathroom vent fan from lowes.

[Timothy Artymko 39]

I have as much coal as I could possibly use (sub-bituminus, and almost like ideal forging coal) 45 minutes from me, so coal isn't the issue

[Simon W 7]

Use Kijiji as a local price check, but in my part of Canada that looks like a reasonable price. The blower itself is around $200, and I've seen forges range from $200 to 400.

 

You may want to consider the availability of coal & the time it takes to startup & shutdown a coal forge though. I'm really happy with my own, and there is certainly an aesthetic joy in using those old tools & the feedback you get from them. The short amounts of time I find to forge though, I've found my makeshift gas forge quicker to jump into a project, and certainly cleaner!

[Alan Longmire 3,881]

I think it's a little steep. Those are good blowers, but I notice the counterweight is missing off the handle. That isn't a big deal, it's just a 1" thick slice of 2" round steel (rather like a really big sword pommel!) with a slot for the crank handle and a set screw in the middle. But, it makes me wonder if there may be other things missing, like the ash dump or the clinker breaker. An ash dump door can be fabricated, but the clinker breaker might be a problem if it's missing. You can have one machined, but that may be expensive.

 

Only you can decide if you want it enough. I love my coal forge, don't even own a gas forge in fact. But they aren't for everyone.

[Timothy Artymko 39]

I figured it was kind of steep for it, and yeah, it's not in perfect condition, but still running condition. And the problem is, it's a city guy who knows not the smallest thing about forging who wants to sell it for cash as an antique regardless of it's real value :/

 

@Geoff, I offered about $200 saying that is what it was worth compared to other things on the market, but he wouldn't accept that... So I figured I should ask on here before I considered further

Edited April 20, 2016 by Timothy Artymko

[Gabriel James 90]

when you run into people like that that think these are antiques you have to tell them you do this for a living and you need tools. The fair tool price is what youre willing to pay, not some inflated "antique" price. I have a guy in my home town with some really nice stuff but its yard art and refuses to part with it unless youre willing to sign over your house and car and any small male children he might can use for labor.

[Timothy Artymko 39]

That is definitely a problem around here, unless you are talking to farmers, in which case unless it's sentimental, it's doign them a favor to clean up their crap xD But it's so aggravating especially with our low economy right now in Alberta, because people are desperate for money, and they think that anything that looks worth something is worth a lot

[Daniel J. Luevano 4]

In all honesty you could build a better forge with clay (I used cheap cat litter and sand) and build a bellows for probably less than $100 (or if manual air isn't a must just use a hair dryer haha) You could easily build one similar to mine, i used a steel pipe from the hardware store with holes drilled into it for my airflow.

 

 

 

I get steel up to welding heat in no time with very little forced air

 

The clay i made was 8 cups of kitty litter (Bentonite clay) and 5 cups of quickrete sand.

[Hoy's Forge 28]

Daniel is right Timothy. Make your own. For 450.00 you could buy fire bricks pipe a shop vac,or hair dryer or some other thing that moves air, as well as build your own bellows.That forge looks worthless too much rust, the blower is the only thing of real value there and as for antiques, they ain't all that rare. Sears sold them in the early 20th cent.I would maybe give the guy a c note for the blower and haul off the rusty forge for free! My 2 cents.