[TheForge] Brake Drum forge

[peter fels]

When you get right down to it, the basic minimum material is...mud.


On Jun 20, 2011, at 9:01 AM, <wmullett at bright.net> <wmullett at bright.net> wrote:

> We (WRABA) have a wooden forge in our shop in Burton, Ohio.  The forge is a four poster with dovetailed corners and a drawer.  The grand bellows is mounted on tow posts off the end and the air feeds into a stone tuyere.
> 
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:56:52 -0300
>> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net (on behalf of mspencer at tallships.ca (Mike Spencer))
>> Subject: [TheForge]  Re: Brake Drum forge  
>> To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
>> 
>> 
>> Weeks ago, PF wrote:
>> 
>>> I saw a guy make a forge out of cardboard! He lined it with clay mud
>>> mixed with ashes. Worked surprisingly well. Just control the excess
>>> water you use managing the fire.
>> 
>> It was, I gather, not uncommon in Nova Scotia, to make forges out of
>> wood.  A guy who apprenticed here and then went to work in Tony
>> Millham's shop created a stir there when he built his own wooden forge
>> along the lines he'd seen here.
>> 
>> I've only ever seen one of these, one I dismantled in a shop I
>> bought. It was all wood, clay and ashes except for a cast iron affair
>> about the size of a small throw cushion which served as a tuyere,
>> throttle and clinker breaker.  It had been in use by a full-time smith
>> for decades.
>> 
>> One of these times I'll find and digitize the pics of the forge I
>> built when I was doing a couple of weeks of dune restoration on Sable
>> Island.  Made entirely from stuff salvaged from the government weather
>> station dump -- aluminum electric kettle, ceramic RF tuner insulator,
>> copper wire and yes, an actual, proper crank forge blower balled solid
>> with rust and sand.  Fuel was (1) dried horse buns, plentifully
>> available and then (2) coal, pried from the foundations of the
>> collapsed, 19th c. life-saving station where it had been used as
>> coarse aggregate in the concrete. (The buns worked but the coal have a
>> better heat. :-)
>> 
>> 
>> - Mike
>> 
>> -- 
>> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
>>                                                          /V\ 
>> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
>> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
>> 
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