Im building a forge for my kids.
It will be built with firebrick and mud inside a stainless steel pan.
I am chosing between a japanese style side blast forge or a Witlox style vee shaped forge that uses a horizontal perforated pipe as a bottom blasting tuyere.
If anyone is familier with either of these styles of forge, I would appreciate any feedback.
I decided to jump on in and build it from the tuyere out.
3/4 " black iron pipe runs the length of the forge.
Firebrick spilts form a "valley " that should channel wood or charcoal down towards the combustion zone.
I plan on cutting 9 slots in the pipe , one every 2 inches or so.
The Witlox forge uses a cleverly cut pipe inside the the tuyere pipe, to block off any number of holes simply by turning the pipe to a setting on a dial .
1/2" emt fits nicely inside 3/4" black iron pipe, so my simple minded alternative is to cut 1/2" emt conduit into 4 lengths, one each of 18, 14, 12, and 8 inches, and use them to block between one to eight of the air slots.
A single 18" length of pipe could work just as well, except it would protrude too much when blocking only a few holes.
The pipe between the air supply and tuyere has two 90° elbows and one tee fitting, which might induce too much resistance, but I wanted to tuck the blower away under the forge, out of the elements.
The ball valve acts as a dump gate allowing the operator to adjust the flow of air.
I need to cut the corners off of some of the firebrick, cut the slots in the tuyere, and maybe insulate behind the bricks with a mud and sawdust mix.
I'm excited to see how it performs.
If I like it I will probably add a hood with a flue
Well it's done and I've fired it,heated some rebar and hammered it .
It could use some insulation and a hood(maybe an insulated hood), but it works.
I even recorded some video, please overlook my goofy enthusiasm:
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