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Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

(OP)
Greetings fellow hobbyists...

Several years ago (7-ish) I had a blacksmithing workshop on my dad's property. It was fun, it was good exercise and I truly enjoyed it... for all of 2 years. Then I moved from the rural south to the great frozen north of Wisconsin, and the city.

It was a coal-fire forge and I found the anvil and some tools in the barn on my dad's land when I was in my early twenties. Since then I have earned a degree in Materials Engineering and I find the draw to do forging (pun intended) growing stronger. I will be moving to the rural south again to be near-ish family (various reasons) but the property with my original forge may not be available much longer.

I was thinkng of setting up a nat-gas furnace with fire-brick, but I obviously don't know what restrictions I would be facing with housing/location since I haven't found a home to rent/buy yet. I imagine this would be the main restriction. I have, however, put some thought into this setup. Plumbing in a nat-gas line from the existing to an exterior shed, proper gas-monitoring equipment, shut off-valves and regulators, likely an array of burners depending on the work, etc. Moveable fire-brick would be used so I can 'shape' the fire-box to match the pieces I'm working on and for heating efficiency. I would mainly be producing small ornamental ironwork, simple tools, and kitchen knives.

If this isn't possible I do have experience with coal-fire forging and I'm sure I could whip up a setup fairly quickly and easily if the laws/rental agreement allow

My questions to y'all (trans: 'all of you') are:
-Who else has forging in their blood?
-What is your set-up?
-Does anyone have a nat-gas set-up similar to what I described above (and if so, what were your biggest challenges/benefits)

Feel free to answer any or all of the above questions.

"Metal Health'll cure your crazy
Metal Health'll cure your mad
Metal Health is what we all need
It's what you have to have"

-Quiet Riot
Bang Your Head (Metal Health)

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

Strange, but where I lived some years ago, they had a once a year clean-up, and I found that when I threw out an old hot water heater, it disappeared before the city had picked up the junk. I later found out that some people used the burners for cooking in special made ovens (home made ovens).

I also know gas does get hot enough, as I have seen it used by glass blowers. And wood does get hot enough to warp cast iron grates (really annoying when they are so hard to find).
So you can use gas, or wood chunks with a blower, or even charcoal.

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

Welcome to Wisconsin.

Are you in Milwaukee? That could be a bit of a trick to find a place to build a forge.

I work in MKE and live in Sheboygan County. A reasonable commute and plenty of elbow room.

The area from MKE to Madison is increasingly infested with new money types who hate the smell everything but their own farts. Probably not forge-friendly.

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

(OP)
Cranky-
Nat-gas is definitely going to burn hot enough, and when I was first getting started down south I used a little charcoal before I got a good coal supplier. I actually work in a Mini-mill (we melt steel from scrap, cast billets and roll to wire/rod sizes 7/32" up to 1 3/8"). Our re-heat furnace actually goes >2200 F and is pretty much 100% nat-gas... I was interested in it mainly because it is cleaner to use and easy to shut off when not in use (just put cut-off valves in all the right places).

Tick-
Moved to Milwaukee proper in summer 2007, moved outside of the city (barely) west last year, moved 20mi north this year... Looking to move down south soon (Tennessee, north AL area), which would be where I am going to try to establish my new workshop.

I did look into areas around here for this several years ago, but when you're renting an apartment it kind of becomes a non-issue... they don't like fire in the building too much...

"Metal Health'll cure your crazy
Metal Health'll cure your mad
Metal Health is what we all need
It's what you have to have"

-Quiet Riot
Bang Your Head (Metal Health)

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

I live in Toronto. We have an ordinary backyard- not a real downtown cheek-by-jowl postage stamp of a backyard, but an ordinary residential property. I don't forge anything, but I do castings- bronze and aluminum.

I have a firebox on wheels, which is pretty small, but definitely big enough for what I do. I wheel it outside, onto the back step of my garage/workshop, whenever I need to do castings. The firebox is very simple: it consists of a 12x12x2.5" tile of hard refractory firebrick that serves as the floor of the hearth. Stacked on top of that is a box made of firebricks the size of typical household bricks (~ 3.5" wide, 2.5" thick, 8" long ish) stacked on their edges, interlaced at the corners, and held together by an exterior wrap of stainless steel wire. Two layers like this are dry-stacked on top of one another, with joints staggered. The whole works is wrapped with a batt of Roxul Flexibatt mineral wool which is similarly wired to gird it around the dry-stacked blocks. I have a lid which consists of two firebricks stacked side by side and wired together with the same stainless wire, with a ~ 2.5" hole drilled in the middle for the vent gases, and handles made from coiled wire (the way a handle on a woodstove door is made, but with thinner wire).

The burner is very sophisticated. It consists of a small squirrel cage blower, plastic, surplus out of gawdonlyknowswhat, with a block of wood screwed onto the discharge opening with a hole bored through it to fit a piece of 3/4" sch40 stainless pipe about 18 inches long. I have a fan motor speed controller (I.e. a $5 dimmer suitable for shaded pole motors) so I can vary the fan speed. About half way down that pipe the wall has been drilled and tapped 1/4" NPT and a tubing male connector threaded in there, connected to a tubing needle valve which is connected to a propane barbeque regulator via a long hose. The burner shoves into the firebox through a hole bored in one of the lower firebricks, and I have a little shelf for it to sit on attached to the exterior box frame so it doesn't flop around. The whole works is in a box made of welded up angle iron covered with offcuts of drywall, with casters on the bottom. I do have an old thermocouple reader and I shove a type K thermocouple through a hole in the same firebrick that the burner goes through. Control is 100% manual- you adjust the air and gas flow by listening to the sound and watching the temperature.

Lighting consists of rolling up 1/4 section of newspaper, lighting it and shoving it in the box with the lid off and then starting the blower. Then I gradually add propane via the needle valve until I get a nice roar, then put the lid on. Once one of the walls is glowing red hot on the inside, (maybe 2 minutes tops), it will not go out, and at that point you can walk away for a bit to get your molds ready etc. I can have a 5lb crucible of brass scrap melted and up to pouring temperature in 15-20 minutes. I keep the propane cylinder far away from the work, have a bucket of water and a fire extinguisher handy, and tend not to pour in the heat of summer, but I've never had a complaint or an incident. Then again, my work involves a heck of a lot less pounding!

My dad had a coal forge which consisted of an old circular (wringer) washing machine base on casters to which he'd added a grate and an ancient canister vacuum cleaner as a blower. He used it out in the detached concrete block garage of our suburban home, also in Ontario- again, never a complaint. But he had a hard time getting blacksmithing coal- ordinary coal tended to fly away rather than sticking together and staying put over your iron, and charcoal was a complete waste of time. He didn't use it much but sometimes it came in very handy...

Propane's expensive but the setup cost is minimal- no hard gas line etc. But I wouldn't use it indoors...and it'll definitely get hot enough!

I wouldn't do this work in a building with a closed door, personally. The required ventilation can be more easily provided by a garage door or the like. If you're going to do this enclosed for noise reasons, proper ventilation is going to be very important or you're going to dose yourself with a lot of CO and worse. Nat gas or solid fuel would be safer in this case for sure, but if you go with coal your neighbours may complain right away- even good coal has too much sulphur and other nastiness.

Keep us informed, and show us some of your work!

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

I use metallurgist coal or propane. Coal burns well on a traditional flattop forge and you can make a "beehive" with the coal and insert the piece to help direct the heat. Most gas forges I have seen are enclosed. Gas needs either a blower or well tuned jet/venturi to really get hot enough and much of the heat would be blown away if not for the enclosure which tends to swirl the flame around the piece. Equally important to your shut-off valves etc is hanging around for ~30 minutes after you're done to make sure a spark or piece of salg isn't smoldering off in the corner. I'm currently in an apartment and not practicing, but my ideal house would have a detached garage/outbuilding so that if I did burn the place down I'd still have a place to sleep after the fire department left.

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

(OP)
Moltenmetal-
Your setup sounds pretty sweet :) I especially like the 'gawdonlyknowswhat' burner! The wire wrap for the fire brick sounds like a fantastic idea and I will definitely have to incorporate a dimmer switch for the air-control (nice tip). My old forge just had a shop vac (similar to a canister vac) and a cast steel t-junction with a modified damper so the ashes could fall through to a collection bucket on the bottom.

This would definitely be set up in an out-building, and I would have some kind of ventilation. I did survive the heat from a coal-smithy in the Alabama summer, so heat isn't too much of a concern for me at this point (as long as my hair doesn't burn and my skin isn't melting, that is ;) ).

Where did you get the thermocouple, btw?


TheBlacksmith-
Good call on making sure the fire and debris is truly out. My old forge was a steel box with 4 sides (missing top and front) about 5'x3'x3' of 1/8" steel. I built a cinder block mini-wall to stand it on and it was in a solid stone out-building on sand and red-clay I had built just for the purpose. Single gable tin roof with a hinge at the top of the flat side so you could tilt one end up with a 2x4 for adequate ventilation. Complete with a cast-iron tub for a quench trough... sounds a little redneck, but did I mention it was in Alabama?

"my ideal house would have a detached garage/outbuilding so that if I did burn the place down I'd still have a place to sleep after the fire department left."
Amen, brother... Amen

"Metal Health'll cure your crazy
Metal Health'll cure your mad
Metal Health is what we all need
It's what you have to have"

-Quiet Riot
Bang Your Head (Metal Health)

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

I have one of these,

http://www.centaurforge.com/NC-Whisper-Deluxe-Atmo...

fueled with propane. I used to do quite a bit of field fabrication work and would set this up on jobsites or on the back of my truck. You indicated you wanted a flexible kind of forge. I ended up buying one because several years ago my home insurance agent was doing an inspection and wasn't real pleased with my earlier home made firebox. Getting a factory made one with a UL label made only slightly happier but honestly it has done well for me.

I got it in Wisconsin while visiting inlaws, place in Burlington called Centaur Forge, nice people, amazing helpful, lots of neat stuff, and if I buy enough at one time the ship free. http://www.centaurforge.com/

MikeL

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

The Centaur forges are real nice. While I am a hobbyist, many of the working blacksmiths (usually a farrier) I know use these to earn a living.

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

I build chemical plants for a living, so there's always a used thermocouple laying around in our shop that is too bent to put on somebody's plant...You can get one from McMaster for $30 or os. The thermocouple reader I have is a dinosaur age temperature controller device which has a vertically arranged analog gauge and an artwork range dial that you have to turn as the temperature goes up. But it works, and surprisingly I've gotten many many hours out of a plain old 1/8" type K thermocouple with a stainless steel sheath, running up to 1200 C. I'm still using the same one I originally installed. Not sure about your typical forging temperature but 1200 C is a bright orange heat. I assume you don't want to weld or melt steel, or else you'll need something better than type K and that will be much more expensive.

The dimmer I use is actually one for shaded pole fan motors rather than resistive loads like incandescent lights. A shop vac has a universal motor on it, with brushes- they draw a surprisingly large current. As far as I know, they don't mind being run at variable voltage since running a blower is a variable torque operation- the power draw drops fast as the flow drops. Not sure how much they'd like being run on chopped AC from a dimmer- guess it'd be worth a try. I feel a little ignorant, not knowing off the top of my head how the variable speed on an electric drill etc. works- those also have universal motors.

The insulating firebricks tied together with wire work great for my vertical furnace, but they're not durable enough for use in a forge. I have a hard firebrick tile as a "hearth" and it will last forever- I bought a spare but have never used it. You'd need a layer of hard refractory firebrick in front of any insulating firebrick you wanted to use.

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

(OP)
Catserveng
That portable forge looks pretty sweet. I especially like the two doors, so a longer piece could be heated along the length. Good point about a manufactured forge making a better case for inspectors/renters than slapping something together myself...
Now if only the wife will go for it... budget for a hobby-type item might end up delaying this whole thing anyway...

I also like the fact that the shop is in Wisconsin... I could save on shipping if I get it before I move :)

Moltenmetal
I plan to do a little forge-welding, but probably not much. Since the shop I work at re-melts steel scrap, I might be able to scrounge up some discarded thermocouples that can handle the temps... I'll have to poke around the shop a bit and see if they have any that are on the way out...
You'd need a layer of hard refractory firebrick in front of any insulating firebrick you wanted to use.

Good point, I had actually thought of it once, but then I got so involved in looking into just the regular type of fire-brick I didn't come back to it... that would suck if I burned out my bricks in the first few trials...

"Metal Health'll cure your crazy
Metal Health'll cure your mad
Metal Health is what we all need
It's what you have to have"

-Quiet Riot
Bang Your Head (Metal Health)

RE: Blacksmithing (or any other type of metal smithing)

As much as building a forge sounds like a great project and I have several acquaintances who have them here in Toledo the best way to get started is to use one of the cooperative forges that are in the area.
They include but are not limited to the Art Museum take one class and then you can rent time in there forge which is gas fired, or the is one in the Botanical Gardens you just need to be a member of the "club" there are also two sites for rein-actors that allow people to use and demonstrate in forges.

In the Milwaukee area there will be one or more working blacksmiths (they may be "artistic" or Practical smiths) and they might let you help if you asked nicely

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