Easy forge/Foundry

I went out to my scrap pile to find material to put together a forge for knife making but also wated to be able to use it as a foundry for melting down aluminum chips from the lathe and casting them into new parts. So I found a old brake drum and a old turkey fryer base that fit together perfectly. I ran to the hardware store and got 1.5" galvanized flange and bolted it to the brake drum. I used a 4" galvanined nipple with a T for my air intake and the bottom side of it is the ash dump. It works great as a coal forge and melts aluminum easily. Just thought I would share to help anybody else out if they where considering building one.

Attachment 24927

MountainMan
Very nice, I would like to see a few more pics.
Very nice build
Nelson

Attachment 24936

Drilled a few holes threw the break drum to line up with the flange

Attachment 24937

All the pipe attached to the brake drum

Attachment 24938

Some aluminum from my first pour. I plan on mixing it with brass so I can mill some aluminum bronze :thumbsup:

Easy DIY Coal Forge
Parts list:
Old Brake drum
1 1/2" pipe flange
2-1 1/2x4" nipples
1-1 1/2x6" nipple
1 1/2 cap
4-3/8x 2" bolts with washers and nuts

Excellent build and salvage work. Nicely executed! Built one years (~40yrs) ago using an old bus 16" brake drum with a crank blower I salvaged and some exhaust pipe legs and a 1/4" plate from something. Actually melted brass in it using coke and rough cast some pieces but only got to use it for 3-4 months before life changed and had to give it up...All a hundred years ago now.

Thanks for sharing and the memories!
PJ

My original plan was to use a old hand crank forge blower but those things are no where to be found in my area (South east) so for now I have a hair dryer strapped to the intake line with a rubber boot. I believe the duty cycle on the hair dryer is about 2minutes. After the 2 minutes it turns off and wont turn back on for 5min. I either need a commercial hair dryer or to stumble across a forge blower at a fair price

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Originally Posted by MountainMan

My original plan was to use a old hand crank forge blower but those things are no where to be found in my area (South east) so for now I have a hair dryer strapped to the intake line with a rubber boot. I believe the duty cycle on the hair dryer is about 2minutes. After the 2 minutes it turns off and wont turn back on for 5min. I either need a commercial hair dryer or to stumble across a forge blower at a fair price

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MountainMan, I got mine from an old farrier I met at the Renaissance fair. It was a Champion as I remember that he had tossed in his scrap pile because the ring gear was cracked and the hand crank missing. It was pretty well worn but didn't know the vintage. Think I gave him $10 and helped him a few times and he taught me some, Real nice guy! Took it all apart and bevel ground the crack and silver brazed it, cleaned it all up and it worked fine for my use. Sold the whole thing for $60 plus half a bag of coke...only had about $25 in it, wish I still had it now.

They are hard to find even here in No. Cal...looked a while back and used (rode hard and put away wet) are going for a couple hundred bucks 6-8 years ago. Check around with some farriers and country flea markets. Most of the farriers have gone propane but they might have a lead.

As for the blow dryer: If it has switches to only blow air try that first. It also may be the wall wart on the cord if it has the GFI built in, which most of the newer dryers do. If not you can disconnect the heating element and the bimetal component (thermal overload)...usually a little silver cylindrical component and just blow air which is all you need. Another thought is to find a computer fan with about 80-100CFM (E-Bay ~$10-15) and run it from a wall wart but you will have to build a plenum and housing. Axial fans are not ideal because they don't have much static pressure available but might be able to overcome the back pressure with enough CFM and diameter.

Good luck and hope to see more of your build and projects with it.

Thanks,
PJ

MountainMan
As Pj said open up the hair dryer and snip the wires to the heating element. They have a thermo switch that stops them from combusting. It should blow as long as you want it then. Good luck, looking good.
Nelson

Awesome tip guys!!!! Thanks I will give it a try.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MountainMan

My original plan was to use a old hand crank forge blower but those things are no where to be found in my area (South east) so for now I have a hair dryer strapped to the intake line with a rubber boot. I believe the duty cycle on the hair dryer is about 2minutes. After the 2 minutes it turns off and wont turn back on for 5min. I either need a commercial hair dryer or to stumble across a forge blower at a fair price

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I bought what was advertised as a leaf blower from ebay, in reality its way too small for this clearing an area but perfect for the forge, mine has probably been running for several days over the last 6 months. ill try and find a link, im in the uk but im sure itll be available over there, really like your work.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-...4AAOSw95lbGeM2

Dave;

Great thread! Nice forge the other guys have covered fixing the hair dryer but there are other options if that doesn't work out.

One use a vacuum cleaner. It doesn't need to be large, the size of the forge is an issue but for this sized forge just about any cheap vac will do. I used a small vac that i couldn't find bags for to stress relieve a small weldment in my weber grill. Now i had no way to measure temperature but the parts got to a really bright orange temperature so im hoping they actually did stress relieve. Only did a bit of damage to the grill.

The biggest problem with anything electric is getting the power to where your forge is. One way around that is 12 VDC fans of which there are hundreds of designs. Electronics supply houses like Digikey or newark list many types of fans.

If you really want to go retro and human powered, a bellows is always a possibility. They are certainly easier to make than a crank blower.

Around where i grew up a lit of farms had forges with crank blowers. These where crop farms with no animals to speak of. If you are in farm country it doesn't hurt to ask around. The problem of course is that few would be willing to part with the blower


The final option would be Craig's list for a used industrial blower.

MountainMan,

That is a really cool assembly! Great job! My brother is into knife making and would like this so I will send him a link.

Congratulations MountainMan - your Easy Forge/Foundry is the Homemade Tool of the Week!

Brake drum + turkey fryer base is clever, and the "Easy" homemade tool theme seems to be buoyant these days. In fact the tool build with the second-most Thanks votes this week was Bony's Easy Lathe Indexing Tool.

Some more nice picks from this week:

30°-45°-60° V-Block by rossbotics
Low Profile Milling Clamps by Stevohdee
Tow Stinger for Tractor by Frank S
Bending Fork and Plate by Philip Davies
Knife Grinding Jig by Turboconqueringmegaeagle
Poultry Water Trough by Frank S
Golf Ball Handle Ends by Bony
Tension System for Power File Attachment by Tuomas
Plastic Ball Handle by garage nut

MountainMan - we'll be adding your tool entry to our All Homemade Tool of the Week winners post. And, you'll now notice the wrench-on-pedestal award in the awards showcase in your postbit, visible beneath your username:

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...OfTheWeek4.pnghttps://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...eWeekIcon4.png

You'll be receiving a $25 online gift card, in your choice of Amazon, PayPal, or bitcoin. Please PM me your current email address and gift card choice and I'll get it sent over right away.

Nice work! :thumbsup:

Congrats MountainMan! Great build and write up. Keep em' coming and adding to this one as you can. I sure enjoyed your build.

PJ

Congrats MountainMan, great write up

Doug

Good deal....thank you all!!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MountainMan

My original plan was to use a old hand crank forge blower but those things are no where to be found in my area (South east) so for now I have a hair dryer strapped to the intake line with a rubber boot. I believe the duty cycle on the hair dryer is about 2minutes. After the 2 minutes it turns off and wont turn back on for 5min. I either need a commercial hair dryer or to stumble across a forge blower at a fair price

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You could always use a heat shrink gun or paint stripper gun instead of a hair dryer. They are more industrial and can also provide heat if necessary.

I got the forge idea but I’m lost on your Concept of melting on the turkey frier. First, how do you provide heat under the frier(gas?)
Also looks like your drop down pipe from the forge is in the way of sitting anything on top of the frier plate. Does the picture not show what I’m missing or another explanation.
Thanks
By the way it is an excellent build and easy enough for most people to build with a little luck dumpster diving.

Very cool I just made one a month ago only no bottom flame basket ,good job al

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Originally Posted by zetuskid

I got the forge idea but I’m lost on your Concept of melting on the turkey frier. First, how do you provide heat under the frier(gas?)
Also looks like your drop down pipe from the forge is in the way of sitting anything on top of the frier plate. Does the picture not show what I’m missing or another explanation.
Thanks
By the way it is an excellent build and easy enough for most people to build with a little luck dumpster diving.

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I just used the turkey fryer for the stand. It is a coal forge....you dump the coal in the brake drum and use a source of air on the intake side of the Tee and the bottom of the Tee is capped off. It is used for a ash dump after the forge cools down. I will post a video of it this weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MountainMan

My original plan was to use a old hand crank forge blower but those things are no where to be found in my area (South east) so for now I have a hair dryer strapped to the intake line with a rubber boot. I believe the duty cycle on the hair dryer is about 2minutes. After the 2 minutes it turns off and wont turn back on for 5min. I either need a commercial hair dryer or to stumble across a forge blower at a fair price

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I have an old draft inducer off a furnace I am going to use to make a blower its 110v. So all you need is a switch to operate it but you can find them cheap on ebay like around 40$-80$

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Originally Posted by John2014

I have an old draft inducer off a furnace I am going to use to make a blower its 110v. So all you need is a switch to operate it but you can find them cheap on ebay like around 40$-80$

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That's a awesome idea John. I wonder if a dimmer switch would work to control the speed of the fan. I think those blowers run at a really high rpm so if there was a way to control the speed it would be perfect. I'm going to look into it and ditch the hair dryer.

I use a very similar design and works great, if the hair dryer cracks up like the one I pinched from the missus, then try a cheap heat gun, cut the wires for the heating element and it will run forever.
Nice job

If possible also try to use just regular mild steel instead of galvanized steel because if it gets hot galvanized material can give off some nasty fumes that can make you sick. I know that the location of the parts will not be in direct heat but the chance is still there or use in a well ventilated area.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MountainMan

That's a awesome idea John. I wonder if a dimmer switch would work to control the speed of the fan. I think those blowers run at a really high rpm so if there was a way to control the speed it would be perfect. I'm going to look into it and ditch the hair dryer.

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You can control the air flow by partially blocking off the inlet side of the blower. Make something you can slide across the inlet to adjust the air flow into the blower. Less air in less air out.