Wood Forge Fire Management - Whitlox Forge First Lessons Series
2019 ж. 11 Сәу.
28 240 Рет қаралды
Getting the most from your Whitlox Wood-Fired Forge starts with choosing and preparing your fuel. Cori takes us through getting the fire going and troubleshooting common issues.
Whitlox Homestead makes forges designed to burn wood fuel. Find them at whitloxforge
.com/
I bought a Whitlox forge last year and have been very happy with it. Glad to see this series of videos come out!
Great video for those like me that are wanting to try blacksmithing. I have subscribed and will watch the rest of your videos. I truly hope that you post more videos like this in the future. Thank you for keeping it simple and easy to understand.
This really has been more helpful than tons of the other videos I’ve watched on this whole subject. Thank you, thank you, thank you 🙏🏽 To add!! This is the first time I’ve seen wood being converted to coal WHILE heating steel!! Now that’s efficiency!! Kept getting videos about making it in barrels first 🤦🏽♂️
The best video I found on this - and I have been searching a lot. Thanks for explaining which parts are important and why. Great Video!!!!
I'm glad you found it helpful!
This is awesome. I want one!!!!!
I started forging knives less than a month ago and this video has been very informative. Thank you for making this video.
A great explanation, thanks.
Ya Cori! Awesome to see you back at the forge here on KZhead! I've had my full size whitlox for about 3 years and this is great confirmation that I've been doing things right! For those wondering I use cottonwood primarily in my forge and think it's fantastic. If you live in a city many tree services will let you have scrap wood for free, a lot of it will have to be seasoned (given time to dry) but no time like the present to start. Sometimes you can get wood from them that's been dead for a while too so that can be used right away. The cotton wood is a "soft wood" that acts much like a hard wood in the fire I feel. It produces a really hot long lasting charcoal that is excellent to forge with. Because it is a soft wood there is very little ash as well. Cori, I'm really looking forward to your coming videos!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You made things clear I was not doing right and I was getting a little disappointed in my slow progress . This video was AWESOME keep up the good work.
Great to hear! Try it out--let us know if you have any questions!
:)
I have a pit forge in this same configuration, and I can say all of this information is spot on, never even knew premade ones in the v config existed. Pretty awesome! Makes me feel good that I'm on the right track.
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 Video. Thank you😇
I love you and your video
Very useful information and a very confident presentation.
Thanks I'm new to forging and I did not know about the v shape part of the forge
Excellent information; very well put-together video as well!
This is an EXCELLENT video and you are a superb instructor. Thank you for this.;
Good stuff, thanks
Great video and your a great teacher!🙂
Great video. I've been running a campfire forge and am learning the same basic lessons on how to burn wood, though I have a lot more to learn. I really want to be able to forge weld but haven't gotten that hot yet, and get too much oxide build up. So I am experimenting more.
Thanks
Good stuff technically excellent , restoked my interés in wood forge ,
Very clever.
Nice video...lm just getting into blacksmithing.. I think I learned something from your video and I'm ready to test it out... thank you
Girl you doing a great job.
I am new to forging but I've never seen any blacksmiths use raw wood before. Dosnt seem like it would get forge weld hot but what do I know, I'm new at this. I will try it and see how it does. Thanks for the Info. Thumbs up.
I have been forging with wood since the 1970s. It is not as intense an heat as coal but I can weld and have worked stock up to 2" square. Because it takes more wood and charcoal I am more likely to forge at an orange heat than yellow. I will be interested to see how wood does as a fuel as coal becomes harder to get. I much prefer the smell of wood!
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
Good information.thank you
Hope I'm not repeating this from someone else. For your charcoal at the end of a smithing session, keep a metal bucket with a metal lid handy. You can then transport the burning wood into the bucket and snuff the fire with the lid. This will quickly stop the burning, and prevent shock to the firebricks from the water. Love the info from this video. Hope to acquire one soon.
Thank you for this! I think I have been shocking my bricks.
This is so well done and packed with practical information and supporting facts and history that provide an a genuine credibility your skill and experience... thank you for taking the time to document and share with the rest of us!! I have a silly question, when you mention not using aromatic or poisonous woods, the reason on the poisonous woods is obvious (hopefully), on the aromatic woods, is that a suggestion based mainly on not having to deal with the smell or is there a impact caused by the chemical make up of the aromatic properties and their byproducts when burned that is undesirable when working with metals?
Cori Thank You so much for this series, I have been struggling a little with the learning curve for this forge process. We live in Friday Harbor WA and have the same wood you use. Looking forward to the up coming videos. Do you plan to do any videos using you foundry kit. I have not tried that yet and have a few question as to the process? Great job on the video. Wayne
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 :)
Not enough women in smithing! Great review and very informative! Thank you for this video!
How long did it take to heat up the piece of metal?
Thank you for all the info.I,m planing of making one simulator to your. My biggest con concern Is the danger of burning my shop down. I thought you might have had a angled hood above your exhaust stacks to keep sparks from Entering your shop?
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.
Very interesting take on forging with wood. I have however a technical question: the concept of the forge kind of forces the smith to get the iron straight into the oxydising part of the fire. You'd need several inches of burning charcoal between your air intake and the steel to get in the neutral layer. How do you care fot htis problem?
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!
How many tree's does it take to make one sword?
Fro are safer on hands.But great job.
what made you decide on this method instead of just converting the wood to charcoal the usual way?
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.
What temps do these forged reach. Can you forge weld? Can they reach temps for heat treating blades?
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.
I'm new to blacksmithing. Is there a technique used with wood to create enough heat to melt carbon metals?
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 .
I notice your hood chimney doesn't exit your smithy. I'm just setting up the same in my smithy and was planning on piping out via another length of stove pipe and elbows. What is it yours is doing and if not exiting the smithy isn't there risk of CO poisoning?
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.
Anyone could explain a way to manage a charcoal fire ? How can I get it hot enough without consuming too quickly ? How to avoid decarbonation ? I cant find any videos not dealing with mineral coal. I thought this video was finally about it. Still interesting though !
What if you start with charcoal?
Will throwing water on it cause it to go from hot to cold too quickly and crack the fire bricks?
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.
I use the same way to forge and i bet young forgers like us are very rare. -18 y/old.
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!
Forging weapons to fight sentient robot wildlife
Super cute
First off you look adorable, secondly can these forges get hot enough to melt brass?
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?
A v8 engine block might make a good forge? 😂
Half deaf, and the MUSIC is annoying because I want to hear what she is saying...
I hate to be that guy but I have to be. You showed an ancient Greek instead of a Roman.