Anyone else here using a coal forge?

52 Ford

52 Ford

Well-Known Member
Just like the title says - anyone else here using a coal forge?

I forge with anthracite coal. Works great and I don't have to deal with propane cylinders. It only takes me a couple minutes at the start of a day to get the forge cleaned out and lit. And a bucket of coal lasts a good while.

I just keep a 5 gallon bucket of it next to the forge and throw a handful in the forge every once in a while.

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I really liked my old coal forge, but coal is/was so hard to find that I’ve switched to propane. Burned coal till I couldn’t find any, then charcoal, which was pretty spendy. I even experimented with burning corn, like the corn stoves for heating, but it didn’t work great. Shop did smell like popcorn all the time :))
 
Edwardshandmadeknives said:
I really liked my old coal forge, but coal is/was so hard to find that I’ve switched to propane. Burned coal till I couldn’t find any, then charcoal, which was pretty spendy. I even experimented with burning corn, like the corn stoves for heating, but it didn’t work great. Shop did smell like popcorn all the time :))
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Tractor Supply sells nut and rice anthracite.

I'm burning rice coal right now because I didn't see the nut coal there last time I stocked up.

The grate in my forge is a bit big for rice coal, so I just a layer of nut coal then top it off with rice coal.



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52 Ford said:
Tractor Supply sells nut and rice anthracite.

I'm burning rice coal right now because I didn't see the nut coal there last time I stocked up.

The grate in my forge is a bit big for rice coal, so I just a layer of nut coal then top it off with rice coal.



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Holy cow, that’s expensive! Just looked it up. Last time I bought coal I paid $100 a ton. But…. You had to buy it by the ton, couldn’t just get a bucket of it. Of course that was 30 years ago too, everything costs more than it did then. Used to love that sulfur smell burning off. Sit and have a cup of coffee, and let it burn off. Brings back some memories.
 
I love using cool but got away from it because of all the nastiness in coal and it got very hard to find and stupid expensive
 
Daniel Macina said:
I love using cool but got away from it because of all the nastiness in coal and it got very hard to find and stupid expensive
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Buying it in small quantities is expensive. I've thought about buying a few tons of it. Ever seen the mountains of coal in Norfolk?

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Originally I started with coal but I have Neighbors that are close! After that guy in Cohoes New York burned half the town down with it. I switched to propane after a few comments were made by my neighbor. Figured at least I could still forge and have had no issues fingers crossed!! I do like the fact that once you turn off the Propane forge it's pretty much good to go, no worries of stray embers etc...
 
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I had no idea there were so few seasoned old school smiths visiting here. I have been waiting to see if there were any other folks with an opinion on the use of anthricitic, rather than bituminous, fuels in forging steel. Curious, and eye opening. Oh well, carry on...:)
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
I had no idea there were so few seasoned old school smiths visiting here. I have been waiting to see if there were any other folks with an opinion on the use of anthricitic, rather than bituminous, fuels in forging steel. Curious, and eye opening. Oh well, carry on...:)
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I really like anthracite. When I first started out, I was really bummed that I couldnt get "blacksmith coal" in my area (without driving to West Virginia or Pennsylvania). After I figured out how to get anthracite lit and how to control the fire, it's great. It has less impurities than bituminous coal. Honestly, it seems like the only time I get a lot of clinker is if I'm forging really nasty metal.

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Here's a picture I took a few days ago when I was heating a piece of galvanized steel (DONT DO THAT) so that I could bend it. The flames on the right are from the zinc burning off. Flames on the left are just the anthracite burning. I'd call this a "low heat". The camera darkened it a lot. In reality, that fire is bright enough that I wear shade 5 welding glasses if I'm doing a lot of work with the blower turned up.

Edit: this is "rice coal" in the picture.the dark spot in the fire is where the steel flat bar is.
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OK, maybe 80 degrees, but that's with it being in the 60s outside. I can't run my big exhaust fan right now
 
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Don't judge too hard - this was all free hand with an angle grinder. Started out with some 1/2" thick leafspring that I had laying around. I just winged it - no drawing to work off. I think I'm going to take a 1/4 inch or so off the bottom of the butt. Would probably look better if it didn't come down as far as the heel/beard.

The handle is going to be another piece of steel from that same leaf spring. What I think I'm going to do is cut a female dovetail into the axe head and a matching male dovetail in the handle, fit them together, then braze it. I plan on cutting a small chamfer on the edges of the dovetail, so I get a nice 1/16" line of braze highlighting the dovetail. I'm going to be using copper or bronze for the braze, so heat treating the head shouldn't be an issue.

Then I'm going to make a stacked leather grip.
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