The forge turned out well, to top it off i found a seam of coal by the road a mile from my house, so, free coal ! I got 500lbs or so in about 10 minutes just by picking up chunks out of the ditch.

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heres the anvil.

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very cool.  what are you going to make?

knives, spears, swords, etc.

the scrapyard guy had a nice pile of big files and rasps waiting for me today, iv already got about 50 pieces of leaf spring stockpiled, so im getting a nice supply of steel.

for our entertainment, please document your projects

I always wanted to be a blacksmith, maybe not for a living, but for fun.

Make a giant viking sword first :)

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Where-can-i-get-a-piece-of-3-4-AR500-How-much-will-it-cost-/5-2156936/

all i want to do is make weapons. spears, swords, ax's, knives, etc. i REALLY need a belt grinder now. Ill probably just play around tinkering until i get myself a belt grinder. probably build a quinch tank next.

the anvil hardening video is awesome!

Scored a nice 2x42 belt sander yesterday for $100 bucks, be great for making knives.

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will you be making a giant sword? :)

the forge works pretty well, but if i did it again id do it differently.

1. id have used a brake drum, and not a rotor. 2. id have used 1/4" steel for the top vs the thinner stuff i used.   the rotor caused several issues the way i attached it. i didnt want the lip on top of the table, so i welded it up underneath the table. however, the air holes in the rotor allowed smoke and fire to come out under the table causing issues. then i welded up the holes in the rotor, which helped, however due to the rotor lip being under the table it dumped a ton of heat into the table warping it, requiring me to weld in reinforcing bars.

if id have done it again, id have used a drum, and welded it flush with the top of the table... and used a thicker top.   however it works great and is getting the job done.

Got a shot of the underside of the firebox?

Only mod I might suggest is a length of pipe out the bottom of the T for falling clinkers/coal bits to accumulate in so they don't block your air flow as quickly.

There needs to be a "Ditch Coal" thread in GD.

Just sayin' ??

Very cool.

i found a guy on facebook who wants some coal removed from his property. im going to get it this morning, looked like about 3 tons or so, which when added to what i already have will be several lifetimes worth for me.

Super jealous of these sweet projects you do and the space to do them in

we ended up bringing home 5 tons of coal in all.

my woman helped shovel it.

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Nice!  What are you heating and hammering?  How's the homemade anvil working?

You got a way to grind that into nut-coal bits?  Won't be fun waiting for football-sized chunks to coke out.

Hell, you might consider making a coking oven with that much coal to work with.

Coal is brittle and easy to break up into smaller pieces. The coal I got last year was in small, thin flakes basically, the coal I got from the ditch was a lot like this new stuff. This stuff seems harder than the ditch coal, think it might burn better.

I used the anvil some last year, it works great !!

As far as actually using it though, I havent much. Most of my time is going into home projects, like my garage expansion. Im generally good for maybe 4 hours of work physically, due to my medical problems. I can do almost anything, just not for very long. So, when I HAVE felt like doing something, iv been working on the garage / yard / house.

I built a forging area last year, its basically a nook behind the garage in the corner where the retaining wall  makes a turn. Its about 7 feet wide and 8 deep. Metal garage wall on right, and waist high wall to front and left, gravel covered ground. Its pretty sweet. Unfortunately, I decided to move the left side wall back another 8 feet or so, so I will be able to make a cut in the wall to dig back into the hill side for a storm shelter. It will also give me a spot to park my tractor. Ill put in a over head cover as well, and will have a nice work space.

As far as forging, im planning on making spears and spear heads for a while. I have been bringing home steel and have a shitload for forging, ( probably 100 24" pieces of leaf spring alone )plus around 100 mower blades, bush hog blades, coil springs, dozens of old files and rasps, wrenches, axe heads, and other tools.  just need to finish my home projects first and ill have tons of time for it.

Heres my forging steel. The pile does not look like much, but its about 6' x 6' x 36" tall. Theres a lot of steel in that pile and 95% of it is spring steel, or other hardenable steel.

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My coal pile before I brought home the new coal. The pile is 2x as big now, than whats in this picture

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Nice!  Amazing how much heat is in that pile and how straightforward it is to get for you.

i used some scrap 2" pipe, a brake drum, and took some 1/4" plate and drilled a bunch of holes in it and welded it over the pipe to let air through, and keep coal out.