Brad_Blazer
Veteran Member
I've been thinking about building a coal forge for a while. There are all kinds of plans out there from very crude to very nice. I decided to spend a couple of weekends building something decent since I have plenty of material laying around.
Main inspiration came from here: My-Portable-Forge and here: Centaur C36 Floor Model Coal Forge - Eligible for Free Shipping. See Home Page for full details-Centaur Forge
My table is 1/8" steel from the backplane of an old electrical control cabinet. It's about 24 x 44" with a 3/4" turned up lip on 3 sides. I welded some bed rail underneath to give it some stiffness. The fire pot is a brake rotor from a 1988 Camry. It's all cast iron and the disk is not vented. I have it clamped under the table with some homemade dog clamps. Hopefully they'll allow for thermal expansion.The pipe for the riser/ash dump is 3" EMT. I welded an EMT slip coupling to a flange plate that bolts to the rotor. Some slots capture the clinker breaker which is an old piece of stainless steel tooling with shafts welded to it.
The air inlet is some new thin-wall 1-1/4" tubing left over from another project with an old 1-1/2" ball valve for air control. I have an old blower from an upright vacuum with a Router speed control from Harbor freight. It seems to blow pretty hard even on the lowest speed setting.
The angle iron frame underneath was from a crate. I just cut it to height and welded on the top and wheel mounts. Now I need to paint it so I can move it out of the shop.
The hood is something I had. It might need some modification to draft properly. It's just sitting there right now and I plan to play with placement and modification of it when I get a fire going.
Main inspiration came from here: My-Portable-Forge and here: Centaur C36 Floor Model Coal Forge - Eligible for Free Shipping. See Home Page for full details-Centaur Forge
My table is 1/8" steel from the backplane of an old electrical control cabinet. It's about 24 x 44" with a 3/4" turned up lip on 3 sides. I welded some bed rail underneath to give it some stiffness. The fire pot is a brake rotor from a 1988 Camry. It's all cast iron and the disk is not vented. I have it clamped under the table with some homemade dog clamps. Hopefully they'll allow for thermal expansion.The pipe for the riser/ash dump is 3" EMT. I welded an EMT slip coupling to a flange plate that bolts to the rotor. Some slots capture the clinker breaker which is an old piece of stainless steel tooling with shafts welded to it.
The air inlet is some new thin-wall 1-1/4" tubing left over from another project with an old 1-1/2" ball valve for air control. I have an old blower from an upright vacuum with a Router speed control from Harbor freight. It seems to blow pretty hard even on the lowest speed setting.
The angle iron frame underneath was from a crate. I just cut it to height and welded on the top and wheel mounts. Now I need to paint it so I can move it out of the shop.
The hood is something I had. It might need some modification to draft properly. It's just sitting there right now and I plan to play with placement and modification of it when I get a fire going.