Backyard Forge, a fun DIY project

It was a beautiful day out today, and I felt guilty about sitting in the basement doing nothing, so this afternoon I decided to build a backyard forge. I’ve had a forge in my backyard before, a couple summers ago. It worked really well but it was something I built as a temporary ‘proof of concept’ sort of project, and it only lasted a few weeks or so.

Simple, effective, but temporary

During the short time that I had it, using the forge was a fun little hobby, and I managed to create 3 different knives on it using railway spikes as my metal stock. They were nothing particularly special, but it was a pretty cool feeling being able to take a chunk of metal and hammer it into whatever shape you want. You don’t have to be exceptionally talented or creative to still enjoy the process of creating something.

Bend to my will!

 

A forge is a relatively simple thing, all it has to do is contain some coals and allow you to bury some metal in to heat it up. Having a way to flow air through it helps to get the coals white hot which in turn makes it more effective at heating the metal. There are of course plenty of advanced designs and builds that people have done including using propane or coal, but I like to keep things simple (and cheap). Besides, the results are what matters, and I daresay my results were satisfactory with my primitive setup.

Not bad for an amateur?

 

Since tearing that temporary forge down two summers ago, I’ve attempted once to rebuild a more permanent one, but I encountered some real big snags. I had figured on using cinder blocks for the general frame, and lined the inside box area with fire brick. This setup gave me a good flat bed area to stack and light my coals, however when it came to airing the coals I was just blowing the air in from the top.

This worked ok, but was definitely not efficient nor convenient to do. The result was that it took an incredibly long time and a huge amount of coals to heat and re-heat my metal each time. The other major failing of that design was that even through the layer of fire bricks, the cinder blocks simply couldn’t handle the heat, and after lighting the forge only a few times, they started crumbling apart rather quickly.

Seemed good at the time…

 

So with that experience behind me, I had some definite goals in mind for today’s attempt at a working forge. For starters, I needed some materials that wouldn’t crumble away after a few exposures to the heat. Fortunately, one thing I have plenty of is rock, and so I figured that would be the best option for holding up to the heat, plus it would match the rest of the decor in my yard.

and with that pile my workout for the day is done.

 

The next thing I knew that I would need for sure was a way to reliably and conveniently flow air into the coals, preferably hands off. Lastly, I of course needed a way to contain the coals. My solution to these problems was to buy a 4 gallon stainless steel utility pail as my container. At the bottom of this pail I cut a hole and fit a brass drain tube, which in turn sat in a 1.5 inch PVC elbow. The PVC elbow attached to a 4 foot length of PVC pipe, for which I dug a shallow trench. The PVC pipe lay in the trench and stuck out of the ground at an angle for easy access for my shop vac.

Stainless steel pail with brass drain tube at the bottom

 

The pail sits on an old brake drum which was handy because of the hole in the center allowing access to the PVC elbow, however the main purpose of it was just to give the pail a flat, solid surface to sit on, and this project would have worked just as well without it if I merely flattened out a patch of the dirt appropriately.

A handy solid surface for the pail to sit on, but you could just as easily flatten out the dirt for the same effect

 

Once it was all attached and sitting flat, I filled in the trench around the PVC pipe with dirt and topped it off with some gravel to blend in to my existing pad and to help keep it from moving around too much.

Easy access, but protected enough to walk over it

 

After that, I started stacking the fire bricks around the pail. Due to the round pail and square bricks, it is not the most efficient insulation, however I think I covered enough area for it to do what it needs to do. The bricks should help to keep most of the heat redirected back into the pail and I should have minimal loss through the sides.

Getting first layers established

 

As I stacked the layers of fire bricks around the pail, I started to fill in rocks around the outside of them to both hold the bricks in place and give the forge it’s final look. I had enough fire bricks that I was able to do double layers although I have no idea if this will actually effect the heat or not.

Tried to get as much contact as possible between the bricks and the metal for minimal heat loss

 

As I built up the layers of fire bricks around the pail and stacked rock around it, I used some limestone gravel to fill in the empty pockets between everything. I am hoping this will help with the insulation of course but the main goal here was to add some structural integrity to the rock stack since I am not using any mortar or anything to hold them together. With every rock I placed and every pocket I filled in with gravel, I gave a good hard shove and wiggle to the stack to make sure nothing was going to slide loose.

Filling in the cracks, making sure everything is nice and solid

 

It took a fair bit of time, and was sort of like putting together a puzzle, but eventually I got a nice sized ring of rocks stacked up to the edge of the pail. Everything was pretty solid and nothing was about to come tumbling down even when I gave it a light kick.

Looking good

 

With all of that done, I dragged over my work bench and anvils, and plugged in my shop vac. The shop vac nozzle fit nicely into the PVC pipe without me having to hold it in place, which means I will be able to turn it on and let it work while I do other things. I have one small anvil which I got from an antique store and has definitely seen better days, and my main anvil is simply a piece of railroad track that I found along the tracks near an abandoned station.

My motto is cheap and easy

 

After everything was in place it was time to light it up and see how it actually worked out. I stacked in some paper, kindling, and charcoal bricks, doused it with a liberal amount of lighter fluid, and sparked it up. I let it burn for a little while to get the coals going, and then the real moment of truth approached as I plugged in the shop vac. The nozzle fit nicely into the PVC pipe and I pushed the power button, not sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised.

forge is up and running

We have liftoff!

 

The air flow worked flawlessly, almost too well in fact as the flare up quickly lit my workbench on fire. I flicked off the shop vac, smothered the flames on the workbench, and moved it a little further away to a less fiery position. Β The test was a massive success though, once the flames died down a little and it was just the coals that were glowing hot, the railway spike heated up very quick and evenly to a nice red glow. I didn’t have time to actually start making anything today, however with the whole setup seemingly performing as designed, I am looking forward to firing it up in the next couple days and crafting another knife for my collection.

No complaints here, onward to crafting!

 

If you missed the sneak peek on our Facebook page, here is a look at the whole setup running full blast.

 

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