[TheForge] 65 Ton Pickle ;-) - fire starter

[Steve Bloom]

At 03:57 PM 7/22/2003 -0700, Calamity wrote:
[snip]
>I have been burning this coal in my 1/2 scale steamer
>for years but I have never tried to build a
>blacksmith's fire before. Everything I have read about
>smithing talks about lighting the fire (something I am
>very accomplished at) but nobody talks about laying it
>out.

As Fred Caylor taught me -- get some newspaper - like 6..8 sheets (more if 
it's a green coal fire, less if there is abundant coke). Lay the sheets at 
angles to one another but all centered on the same spot. Place your fist at 
the center and start gathering the paper up around your fist. Extract the 
fist and tightly wad the paper to the center -- you're going for a mushroom 
with tails (the corners of the sheets). Light the tails and place the 
'sroom tail down in the forge. Place coal on the top and start gently 
cranking. Add more coal as the mushroom cap starts to burn.  By the time 
the paper is gone, the fire is lit.  After that just keep banking coal on 
the sides and moving it towards the center as the fire becomes 
hollow.  Hopefully, all of this makes some sense -- it took longer to write 
this than to start a fire.

Steve
Steve Bloom, IronFlower Forge. Archer, FL
     Webmaster for the FABA web site:
	www.blacksmithing.org