DIY mini forge my way (not a good way)

[brunolundh]

Once again i'm out doing stuff i don't know how to. cool 1

This time i tried to make a mini forge.

I seem to have problem to get my steel hot enough. It only gets orange and get cold really fast.

Maybe it's getting better when the clay is dry?

I need some tips and trix to make it better.
How about the holes. To big? to few? to many?

About the coal, can I use regular barbecue coal or do i need to find special forge coal?

Anyway here is the pictures, and sorry for the english.

Thanks!

/Bruno

 

[Doug Lester]

Brudo, the basics of the forge is pretty good but I would double the number of holes in the tuyere and add a gate valve of some sort in the air line will give you more control over the amount of air being fed to the fire by that vacuum cleaner. I actually use a foot powered bellows pump designed to inflating rafts in my charcoal forge. You could also make the fire a little deeper. It should be about 15-20cm deep. You steel only getting to orange is probably a good thing, depending on the steel that you are using. You can run into a problem with excess grain growth in the steel when it is exposed high temperatures for long periods of time. A bright red is fine for some of the plain carbon steels. The charcoal that you are using if fine. I would avoid the brickettes as the binders that give them their shape can cause problems.

By the way, don't worry about your English, it's fine. If you have some problems with terminology we will work it out.

Doug Lester

 

[brunolundh]

the vaccum cleaner is pretty good i think because i can adjust the air from nothing to hurricane

/Bruno