BUILDING THE FROG POND FORGE
New! Page 2

My name is Tom Parrish. I became interested in blacksmithing after seeing Wallace Badur III at a few living history events. Wallace is a GREAT guy (and blacksmith), and was kind enough to show me the ropes. I was hooked, and started bugging my Father to build me a coal forge. We saw a forge at a rendezvous that got his wheels turning. He had been saving a washdown tray left over from a friend's hot-tank, and had some fire bricks in the woods from an old bar-b-que that used to be in the yard.
    Here is the tray (after I scraped 5lbs. of rust off of it):


I also had to knock a ton of mortar off of the bricks. My Father had some 3/8" plate left over from a job, and set out to design the fire pot. He has a CNC torch machine that he built a few years ago. He drew up the pot in AutoCad and came up with these:


Plan View





Cut drawing
From the cut drawing he generated this g-code for the machine:


g-code simulation
Here is the plate in the CNC machine:


And here is a pic of the drop. (Sorry, I didn't get a pic of cutting.):


In the meantime, Santa delivered this:


An anvil, apron, gloves and some hammers to get started. I'd like to have seen him haul that down the chimney! Then my Father tacked:




And welded:




I now had a fabricated firepot. The pot is 3/8" x 8" x 12" x 4 1/4"deep. Now we are getting somewhere! He CNC'd a hole in some 4" box tubing and cut it off on an angle to create an ashgate/tuyere. The air tube is 2 1/2" OD and about 1/8" wall. The ID is perfect for a shop-vac hose. Here are some pics:

Shut

Open
After that, we welded longer legs to the tray and cut some holes in it for the firepot and work. I lined it with my firebricks and dropped in the firepot. We are using a shop-vac with a router speed control for air. Wallace made me a couple of tools (shovel and clinker pick) to get the first fire started (Thanks Wallace!). I bought 200lbs. of coal and now I am READY to make some smoke. Here are a few pics of the finished forge:






I can't wait to get started! Keep an eye out here for more fun stuff! Thanks for looking, TOM

New! Page 2
Click here