Some kind soul has fly tipped two sections of 3" metal pipe, about 6' in length...
Seems a shame to take them to the tip, any thoughts!!
Leo
Seems a shame to take them to the tip, any thoughts!!
Leo
3 inch metal pipe...
- Thread starter Stanleythecat
- Start date
It's steel of some kind, probably 3mm thick.
Was actually keeping my eyes open for some scaffold bar to make a forge, unfortunately these are a little large really.
Leo
Was the first thing which occurred to me too. I've got some cast iron drain pipe which is going onto mine - would have been much nicer to be able to weld it on without needing unusual welding rods to do it.
No this is just plain rolled steel, 3mm thick and 3" in diameter... nice fusion of metric and imperial there but you get the drift!
Leo
you could make all kinds of knives and chisels and stuff in a forge with that. i wish someone would drop some of that off here! lol!
Hi Matt,
Planning a small charcoal forge, lo tech, primitive... well with a few modifications to make it portable and re-usable. Tim Lively ish, scafold bar with holes drilled in it, some kind of container lined with clay (or other material...), have a design in mind just struggling a bit with a design for some home made 'man' powered bellows or blower. Box bellows being a little large (size, not capacity) for the setting.
Have you made your own set up?
Leo
It's not painted red but I wouldn't know how to tell it apart, i'd imagine rolled mild steel as it is not cast?
Leo
Yup, several! Simplest is a hole in the ground about 6" across and 3" deep with 22mm copper pipe for the air supply (angled into the ground so it just comes into the 'wall' of the hole. Keep the earth around the pipe damp and it won't burn or melt, even when using smithing coke as fuel. I've forge-welded with this type of setup.
Never used a Lively style forge before, but apparently it's quite specialised for bladesmithing. I don't really do much of that myself, but so long as you're not trying to make massive blades I can't see why you might want such a long forge. After all unless you have a power hammer (or small team of well-trained strikers) you can only forge a few inches of steel at a time before you lose the heat. For the average 'bushy' knife or axe I can't see the benefit over a more conventional side-blast or bottom-blast forge.
Never really got a decent bellows system up and running, small electric blowers were always much more convenient. Squirrel-cage types from cars work well. Recently got an electric airbed pump for a handful of change -- it's a lot smaller than the blower I have been using from a DAF van so if it works well enough it'll be damned handy.
Take a file to it. Rough-and-ready test: if you can file it without much problem, it's probably mild steel.
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