We will need the following materials:
- Fire brick. The most common refractory bricks are red and fireclay. Even though I used red, I recommend taking the second one. Since it can withstand high temperatures, and red can crack and break over time. You only need 12 bricks.
- Fireclay clay. Any refractory clay will do. But fireclay is the most common. I bought a forty kg bag, but it's too much. Ten is enough. It is ideal to take twenty kg, so that if there is clay, you can cover up cracks, make injection molds, etc.
- Construction sand. If yours is not new, like mine, it needs to be sifted through a special screen.
- Iron pipe with a diameter of 25-30 mm.
You will also need some tools and consumables (a bucket, gloves, a hacksaw, etc.), I’ll tell you about them later.
Forge chamber
First, let's figure out what the forge will look like. I visually arranged all the bricks as they would be in the finished furnace.
The blowing will be sideways. Oxygen will be driven into the forge chamber through an iron tube. It needs to be filed at 45 degrees on one side, although I never did this. We insert it into the camera at an angle too. The photographs show how we will lay bricks together with clay.
Let's prepare the clay
I mixed it in a nine-liter bucket. Mix clay and sand in a 1:1 ratio. Next, add clean water. Knead the clay until it reaches the following condition. You need to roll a small ball, put it on one palm, and start pressing it with the other. Cracks should appear when it is squeezed halfway. In terms of consistency, it should resemble... Well, it doesn’t matter what.
Next, generously lubricate with clay all the joints between the bricks, all the internal and external parts. This way the heat will remain in the chamber for a long time. Lubricate the joints between the iron pipe and the bricks well with clay. The brick that serves as the back wall can be left unattached. This way you can move it aside and work with long workpieces. Of the top bricks, I attached only the outermost one with clay. This way the forge can be used both open and closed.
The pipe can also be improved to regulate the air supply. It can be sawed in the middle and threaded on both sides. Now we screw into the part in the furnace a plumbing tee with a tap, something like this:
So, by opening the tap, we can regulate the air supply. But I gave up on that too.
A few words about the air supply itself
Of course, something must force delicious oxygen into this pipe, which will heat the coals in the chamber to hellish temperatures. You can use blacksmith bellows. The kind our ancestors used in their forges. But this is not the best option, you need at least a couple of bellows to get the required temperature, and it would be nice to have an assistant who will tirelessly press the bellows.
It is much more productive to use electric leaf blowers. For example, a turbine for inflating mattresses. I used an old Soviet vacuum cleaner. You can even twist the hose from blowing in to blowing out, but it broke. I had to tape the bag on the side where the air is blown out.
A little about using the forge
I used it for forging and casting. It melts aluminum and other non-ferrous metals in a matter of seconds. We were able to cast some parts using foam molds in sand and clay molds. He melted aluminum cans in a special crucible. Next, the molten metal was cast into sand and plaster molds.
It is well suited for forging knives or some small metal products. We will talk about making knives from files in my next article.
One of the photos shows a heated forging, however, the color rendition is not at all the same. Due to the bright sun, it is impossible to determine the temperature of the workpiece by color. That’s why the forges used to be in twilight. Here is a video of the forge in action.
Lighting the forge
Everything is very simple here. The forge runs on charcoal, so you simply pour coals into the inside and light them like in a barbecue - using a highly flammable liquid. Next, apply air.In a few minutes the forge will heat up to 1000 degrees, and this is not the limit; the heat will also remain in it for a long time.
Blacksmithing can be both an unusual hobby and a highly paid profession. Professional blacksmiths receive very good money for their hard work!
