Making your own forge.

[Adrian_Faythe]

I'm laying out blueprints for making my own forge. It'll be small, nothing fancy, but sufficient enough to craft knives and even swords, if I so choose. It's loosely modeled after the basic design of the original field forges used in medieval Europe...they could repair broken weapons, hone new edges, and make other simple repairs.

http://www.geocities.com/adrian_faythe/FieldForge.bmp

That's the basic layout thus far. Sorry for the sloppiness, I busted that out in about five minutes with Paint.

As for the mesh over the top, it'll have to be a removable grate, so I can successfully fit the coal into the shallow pit at the bottom. In addition, I'll have to find a section of land where I can scorch the earth and scratch out an area roughly 6 feet across to prevent accidental fires.

[THErAPIST]

Just to make sure you don't make this mistake... DON'T use concrete in any part of this. It's a common mistake that people use concrete to make grills and other oven type things, and they are rewarded with a dangerous finished product. The reason being as concrete sets up it holds air bubbles in it. When the concrete heats up the air bubbles blow the concrete appart pretty forcfully. Sidewalks that have had fires built on them have blown dish shaped craters the size of a fist in themselves and imbeded concrete fragments in things that were a good distance away. this is alongside throwing the burning material atop the concrete several feet in every direction.

Ceramics on the other hand, brick, is a good way to go because it insulatesand holds heat well. On the other hand it also shields, keeping heat away (somewhat) from things near it. Good luck though. I wanna see the finished product :D

[DoctaD]

Sounds like an interesting project. Best of luck with it, and keep us up to date.

[Stone]

Hows this project going? Any pics yet?

[Adrian_Faythe]

Unfortunately, nothing yet. I haven't had the time to get supplies, look up my area fire-codes, scout out a location, or slap anything together.

Might wait until spring 2006 to get it off the ground, when I have more time to carry it out.

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Edit:

All right, well...one of my managers decided to go out to a Tractor Supply Company (TSC) and spontaneously buy all the materials, as well as welding the vast majority of it together on his day off for me.

I believe for the steel and various materials, it came to around $80, not including the electrodes and grounder he bought for his arc-welder.

It's almost halfway done, so I'll get pictures as soon as I can.

As for fuel, we're looking into local hardwoods, since coal isn't a readily-available resource in my area. :D

Only snags we've found so far are the fact that we're unsure of the canopy measurements, we need to move the damn thing before it gets any heavier, and how to fashion a custom bellows that suits the size and shape of the forge without either being too weak, or too fragile (AKA melting). Working those kinks out as we speak.