brand new to forging

[paulc]

so what is a reasonable, cheap oven/furnace for a beginner?  I have a couple rail road spikes that I could heat and hammer on...would coal or wood fired heat be enough?  Blower needed?

I have access to old propane tank, 2 or 3 gallon size, that I could cut up and insulate...somehow get a fire inside it?

Thanks for the help.  You tube links you like?

Paul

[TrevorM]

I believe you do need a blower with coal to get it hot enough, not sure if you could use wood.

For the old propane tanks check out this post, osage outlaw did a great job: https://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,64724.0.html

[Mr. Woolery]

My primary forge was meant to be a stopgap until the refractory materials for a larger forge could be obtained. I have the larger forge, but seldom use it.

I used two soft fire bricks (hard ones don’t really insulate, spend the extra couple of bucks on soft bricks) and hollowed a half cavity in each. Either bind them together with chicken wire or make a sheet metal trough for them. I had the sheet steel lying around.

The heat comes from a large pencil tip torch head made by Mag Torch. That’s about $25. Also a hose that is meant to connect a camp stove to a 20 pound propane tank. I get 25-30 hours from the tank, which is a lot. Refilling it costs me about $15. (Go some place that actually fills it because those tank exchanges charge $20 and only put 15 pounds in.)

I’ll try to attach a couple of photos.

Patrick

[Mr. Woolery]

I’ve been preaching the gospel of the tiny forge for years. Nobody wants to use a little one until they try mine.

I make mostly small to medium knives. I can heat treat a 6” blade, which is more knife than most folks will ever need. My primary steel is overhead garage door coil springs. I can get a railroad spike to forging temperature in this little forge, but by the time I spread the blade portion enough to be thin enough, it gets too wide for the opening. I do spikes in the bigger forge.

If you want a spike knife, make sure the letters HC are stamped on the head. It won’t make a great knife, but I can get them hard enough to make a decent knife.

And if you can take a class locally, it is very much worth it for all the learning curve that you can skip over. I took a two hour class, made 3 nails and a hook. It was $160 through the local folk school. Worth every penny. Those 2 hours probably saved me two weeks of figuring it out on my own.

Patrick

[DC]

Could a person just use a tiger torch? Maybe with a few alternations?

[Mr. Woolery]

I don’t know what a tiger torch is. I did try getting steel hot enough to forge just using the torch flame. It can be done for very small sections and it takes a lot longer. Enclosed flame means a lot more heat in the forge.

I usually work 2 irons in the fire. While I’m hitting one, the other is heating up. As a rule, I can switch back and forth and have very little down time while waiting for steel to heat. So my tiny forge is efficient with time as well as with fuel.

At some point you really do want to have the actual forge instead of just an open flame. Like when you want to harden something more than 2 inches long.

Patrick

[paulc]

I found this on youtube...

https://youtu.be/m-R6iY-mY-Y

What do you all think of this? Would it heat a railroad spike?

Paul

[Mr. Woolery]

Absolutely!  Torbjorn Ahman is a heckuva good smith and the old BOD forge design is really a good and practical way to build a solid fuel forge. Not the best, but fast, easy, and adaptable.

You will need a set of tongs that will hold the spikes, so plan on that as well.

Patrick