I'm glad you found it helpful!

I just got done cutting and making one out of a milk jug, have no heat resistant concrete, nor money to buy it, so I'm gonna go full ooga booga on it and just pack it with mud to hold everything in place and seal up gaps where heat could escape

Great to hear! Try it out--let us know if you have any questions!

:)

Thank you for this! I think I have been shocking my bricks.

Hi, I'm glad to hear it! I'll be demonstrating the foundry eventually, but for this series I'll be covering more basic uses of the forge :)

How’d you get into blacksmithing? I started this year using wood and now I am using homemade charcoal. I would’ve never began forging without learning everything off the internet, so it’s interesting to hear that you have used wood as fuel for so long, even when coal was probably much more available and affordable. I’d love to try it, but a 50 pound bag costs 55$ online and I can’t buy it locally.

@@jackruggiero968 How do you make your charcoal, I'm starting and this intrigues me

Our shop has a lowered false ceiling, with a chimney, creating a draft that effectively captures smoke. It lets us have more than one forge and move them around. You do need to be careful with where you place the forge, to be sure! Some customers have permanently installed their hoods, hooking them up to a chimney. Others roll the forge outside to use it.

The building has a dropped ceiling structure that has a chimney out the roof. The hood of the forge open vents into that to take smoke and sparks away. This lets us move the forges around or have more than one forge using that top chimney. The smithy itself is well ventilated with the entire wall being a door that is left open, and the walls themselves are board and batten: not well sealed.

Yes you can forge weld with the Whitlox Forge. It's a good idea to use charcoal for that, either saved from past fires, make it separately or buy natural charcoal. Of course, if are forging with very dry softwood you may find it is already plenty hot, but extra charcoal is insurance. Yes they reach temperatures adequate for heat treating.

freebird46250 that is an excellent observation. I've been forging with a whitlox for about three years and I've found that a good forge weld can be obtained fairly easily using the hand crank by not forcing as much air up through the coals. Also creating a really deep bed of charcoal helps me as well. By really deep I mean several inches. I also use liberal amounts of borax to help ensure that there is little to no oxidation in the weld. So three fold. Only put in as much air as you need to get to temperature. Place the material well into the heart of the fire so that the air is consumed well before it hits the piece. The resulting heat will transfer into the piece. Lastly put on some insurance in the form of borax. I have found that a lot of the principals concerning fire management for coal with regards to welding and oxidation apply here as well. Hope that answers your question!

@@p38sheep it does, many thanks for your experience based input. I forge with charcoal and the images in the video prompted my question about oxydising the metal. Your answer might solve many headaches and disapointment in Whitlox Forge users. Cheers!

The point of this method with the v-shaped fire bed is actually to skip the charcoal making step entirely. Make wood chunks, blacksmith: simple. It's about putting the ability to blacksmith in the hands of more people by designing a tool that uses a common (+renewable+cheap+plentiful) fuel source. There are still a few advantages to using premade charcoal over wood. Mostly in projects where I want more intense heat (forge welding, larger pieces, etc.) or a larger bed of coals with no cold spots (knife making, thin blades get cold spots easily) I will prefer charcoal over wood. This allows me to skip many of the fire management techniques in the video.

I think you can. It just going to be a a mess and not worth it . I made a dakota fire hole for a smelter. Shot air into. It failed but i melted soft metals glass and turn the dirt around it. About an inch think to turn to pottery. My guest for the temp in it is around 2,000 F. At the max I say 2100-2300F. Iron scale a few layer in the heart of the flame Compression was the key to hold the high temp .

It can, if you use a lot of water at once.

It can, but it depend on the amount of water and fire. I often put my fire out with water when I'm done forging. I just try to use enough to kill the coals without rapidly cooling the bricks.

16 y/o, yeah. Most kids our age are to busy playing video games.

@@ThomasisaNerd they think its boring but for us its fun even though it's hard.

@@landerocampo8933 It's fun because it's hard :) It's really satisfying, and it makes you feel great when you finish a project, right? You don't get that outa playing video games or something like that.

@@ThomasisaNerd nothing wrong with forging in the mornings and video games in the evening!

They can melt steel so I would assume so. I've never tried it in mine but again I would guess it could.

Hi, I actually tried forging brass for the first time recently, and it worked surprisingly well- it just crumbled off the end of the rod and melted when I overheated it. I also just looked up the melting point of brass and came up with 1650-1720°F. Steel that temperature hasn't even turned yellow yet, so I'd say that's plenty of heat for working brass :)

@@corimessenger I can imagine. ;)

I'm sorry I should have been more specific, can the crucible you guys sell with it get hot enough to melt brass?