Portable Forge for Shows.

[_scorpio_]

Help please.
i would like to make a medium sized portable forge to take to old style / outdoor shows. it will be taken by car so can be fairly heavy, and can be put together on site and taken apart to travel if easier than it being built and carried around complete.
it needs to look really old, not even slightly modern or technical.
so no blowlamps or gas, just charcoal and stuff. it wants to be made of house bricks or something old looking with a fire cement lining i think.
it will get air from a antique pair of bellows with an air pump hidden inside like i said it can be really clever and high tech, but hidden behind pre-Victorian forge things.
in most of the places, as long as they arent too strict, i will probably dig out a section of the turf and put it to one side and use the dry ground beneath as the base, or put a slab of fire bricks down, but as long as they are hidden it doesnt matter.
it doesnt have to be very accurate, very few of the people at these shows will know about forging so if i am making knives out of mild steel at half the preferred temperature, it doesnt actually matter. as long as warm metal gets hit and turns into something it will be good enough.

it needs to be 2' wide and 1'deep and 3 bricks minimum tall.

my plan is to make a 2'x1'x1' box of cheap house bricks without the top and one 1' side and with the bottom being made of fire resistant bricks. then line the house bricks with fire cement on the inside.
then just digging a hole at the site and putting it in.

yes or no?

 

[launditch1]

Sounds like it would work fine to me.Ive seen a forge set-up at my local medieval fair that was just a wooden box about 2 1/2ft square lined with clay, the air was supplied by a double bellows type thingy.

 

[QDanT]

it doesnt matter.
it doesnt have to be very accurate, very few of the people at these shows will know about forging so if i am making knives out of mild steel at half the preferred temperature, it doesnt actually matter. as long as warm metal gets hit and turns into something it will be good enough.
yes or no?

Come on if a job's worth doing and all that
you might get someone like myself, who goes to look at your set up to try it at home, then there's the ones who do know. Why don't you sell "Snake Oil" instead
just my 2p cheers Danny

 

[Graham_S]

Come on if a job's worth doing and all that
you might get someone like myself, who goes to look at your set up to try it at home, then there's the ones who do know. Why don't you sell "Snake Oil" instead
just my 2p cheers Danny

QFT

Faking it?
I wouldn't.
As to how to set up a forge, you should speak to Dave Budd.
If you're going to do something, do it right or don't do it at all.

 

[Whittler Kev]

Might as well make one you can use for real. Using mild steel makes for easier hammering and keeps the cost down from using high carbon steel, but old files are cheap and the metal in one can with for thought, go a long way IMHO

 

[Matt.S]

If you're removing turf anyway you might as well go for a full-on ground-forge. It's period-correct for most periods, works surprisingly well and is free.

 

[Toddy]

David Hodges sells this set up at the reenactors markets.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/blacksmiths-F...acks-away-/160460146854?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3

It's sound and it works.

Another vote for do it right, and the old files, or lorry leaf springs.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[_scorpio_]

yep, wont be tricking the audience, a simple hole in the ground will do. however i will still use the electric air pump to get it up to temperature.
i need to get a load of scrap mild steel for people to have a play about with, and will ask my dad to keep any leaf springs he takes of landrovers at work.
is the steel in old coil springs good for tools (knives and stuff)? im at work at the moment so i will go for a forage in the landrover graveyard out the back.

 

[Eric_Methven]

i need to get a load of scrap mild steel for people to have a play about with

Are you seriously intending to let the general public have a go at shows? Great - if you feel confident enough to do so, but you will definitely need public liability insurance and insurance for audience participation will cost a fortune. Chances are the organisers will insist on you having PLI, and on seeing the insurance documents. Just something to ponder on if you have not already done so.

As far as a period authentic forge goes, I have used an off the ground assembly before (because the arthritic knees won't let me kneel for more than a few minutes without great discomfort). The one I used was a box like affair (like the link Toddy posted), except it had an inner brake drum section on the tray for the fire. It had logs built up around the legs of the frame, pre-cut in log cabin style so they slotted together and looked solid when built.

The square tray was then filled with large cobbles (from a garden centre). These were placed to give the effect of the wooden frame being filled with cobbles (as would have originally been the case historically - especially for a portable campaign forge).

The charcoal fire in the brake drum then looks like it is lit in a depression of cobble stones which prevent the wooden frame from burning.

Eric

 

[Matt.S]

is the steel in old coil springs good for tools (knives and stuff)? im at work at the moment so i will go for a forage in the landrover graveyard out the back.

The thing you need to appreciate with scrap metal of any sort is that, short of a professional analysis for each individual piece, you won't know with any certainty what it is. Sure there is a lot of scope for some basic tests (spark, heat-treat, feel under the hammer etc.), visual inspection and some common-sense (e.g. wouldn't use cast iron for springs) but it boils down to a larger or smalle amount of 'hit it and hope'.

 

[_scorpio_]

we have PLI because we are traders anyway at the shows, this isnt the main thing i will be doing. this year i sat around making spoons and bowls and lighting fires with flint and steel and bow drill. people came and watched, a couple asked to have a go, we let them, one hurt himself with the file he was using to strike the flint but wasnt about to start sueing people because i was covered in scratches from doing it too (bigger bit of flint next time i think). i dont plan to be doing it as the main thing, i plan to be doing it because i will be bored otherwise and the ground is particularly suitable (and i had an anvil and hammers and scrap metal and tongs and charcoal and an air pump in the car anyway ). if someone wants to watch, they can. if someone asks me a few questions and seems compitent and sensible and asks to have a go i will let them, if they dont seem clever enough to hit a warm bit of steel but clever enough to sue you for getting injured then "no you cant because we arent insured to let you" will be the response.
if someone says "no you idiot your doing it wrong" and wants to show me why and how to do it properly then they can have a go too.

 

[Stew]

we have PLI because we are traders anyway at the shows, this isnt the main thing i will be doing. this year i sat around making spoons and bowls and lighting fires with flint and steel and bow drill. people came and watched, a couple asked to have a go, we let them, one hurt himself with the file he was using to strike the flint but wasnt about to start sueing people because i was covered in scratches from doing it too (bigger bit of flint next time i think). i dont plan to be doing it as the main thing, i plan to be doing it because i will be bored otherwise and the ground is particularly suitable (and i had an anvil and hammers and scrap metal and tongs and charcoal and an air pump in the car anyway ). if someone wants to watch, they can. if someone asks me a few questions and seems compitent and sensible and asks to have a go i will let them, if they dont seem clever enough to hit a warm bit of steel but clever enough to sue you for getting injured then "no you cant because we arent insured to let you" will be the response.
if someone says "no you idiot your doing it wrong" and wants to show me why and how to do it properly then they can have a go too.

If only life was that simple.

 

[dave t]

no need to use house bricks [in fact could be dangerous if at all damp] just buy some fire brick linea metal box,, pipe the draught in through the bottem via a plate with small holes drilled through. if yuor bellows are big enough dont bother with a electric blower. by the way what makes you think you have to get carbon hotter than mild to work ,if anything its the other way round.
if you;ll take alittle advice from an old farrier/blacksmith who stood the great yorkshire show for over 25 years be very very careful letting the public anywhere near hot iron its not to forgiving in the wrong hands

 

[Matt.S]

I agree with Dave; the erm... flat-earthers (politest term I could find) would be hard-pushed to notice the difference between mild and high-carbon under the hammer.

Does your PLI cover hot iron or vending?

 

[_scorpio_]

dunno really. i dont think its the best idea really. i will stick to letting them use flint and steel and bowdrills. then i can sell flint, steel and charcloth fire kits and they will now what to do.
shame i cant trust people to look after themselves.

 

[Whittler Kev]

Why not make a real one and make real stuff to sell while your there or to the re-enactment people rather than make stuff that is just for show?

 

[_scorpio_]

only because i cant make something im happy to sell yet. once i can make and appropriately finish tools and stuff to a useable and fairly nice looking standard then i will happily sell things as well as making them at shows.