Easy forge/Foundry

[MountainMan]

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

[Turboconqueringmegaeagle]

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

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

[wizard69]

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.

[old_toolmaker]

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.

[Jon]

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:



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!

[PJs]

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

PJ

[rossbotics]

Congrats MountainMan, great write up

Doug

[MountainMan]

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

[Randyb76]

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

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.

[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.