My Coal Forge and First Knife

**Sparky93** · 05-06-2013, 01:13 AM

I made myself a brake drum forge back in January and have made a few knifes in it. Id like to build another base for it so I can use it without the need for my truck hitch but it works for now.

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I have used lump charcoal in it, and because I'm cheap I walked the railroad tracks by my aunts house and collected about 50 lbs of coal that falls out of the train cars. The only problem I have with the coal that is mined around here is it has a really high sulfur content, but it still works.

Here is my first knife I've ever made

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I also tried my hand at a little spine filing

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Ive since made 3 more railroad spike knives each one a little better than the last, and all of them sharp enough to shave. I bought some old files at a flea market so that's the next thing I'm going to try to reshape into a knife.

Sorry for the large pictures, I couldn't figure out how to resize them from facebook.

**crashdive123** · 05-06-2013, 06:53 AM

Awesome job! Looks a heck of a lot better than my first knife.

**randyt** · 05-06-2013, 06:55 AM

that's awesome, nice job. But now you are screwed LOL, once beating on hot iron gets a foothold it never leaves LOL.

**greatgoogamooga** · 05-06-2013, 09:02 AM

I have a hard time finding coal near me, and use lump charcoal also. May not be the cheapest way, but it works.

What is that attached to the forge for a fan?

Goog

**randallss7** · 05-06-2013, 09:28 AM

Looks good, I used a brake drum forge for a long time before making my propane forge, I still use it from time to time. Those railroad spike knives will give the old arm a work out wont they...lol. Knife looks good.

**gryffynklm** · 05-06-2013, 10:07 AM

Both the forge and the knife look great.

**Sparky93** · 05-06-2013, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by greatgoogamooga

I have a hard time finding coal near me, and use lump charcoal also. May not be the cheapest way, but it works.

What is that attached to the forge for a fan?

Goog

An old hair dryer I found in my grandmas basement. I am planning on making a contraption to make my own lump charcoal from firewood. Like making really big char cloth lol

**greatgoogamooga** · 05-06-2013, 01:31 PM

Must be a compact dryer, it looks smaller than mine (size matters...). I was hoping you had found an alternative.

Goog

**crashdive123** · 05-06-2013, 04:06 PM

Sparky - you probably know this, but I'm going to say it anyway. It looks like you've used galvanized pipe for your air and dump tubes. Be careful if you haven't burned off the coating yet. It'll give off some nasty fumes when heated until you do.

**Winter** · 05-06-2013, 07:17 PM

That's a cool setup. Nice knife.

**crusher** · 05-06-2013, 08:41 PM

Great job.
I may have to try one of those

**Sparky93** · 05-07-2013, 10:08 PM

10-4 crash, I thought about that but they never get hot enough that I can't touch them so I think I'm good. I know the fumes if that stuff burns off is bad news, next time we burn trash I'll throw them in and let it burn off while nobody is around just to be on the safe side.

**oldtrap59** · 05-26-2013, 02:08 AM

Sparky. Forge and knife both look good. Keep up the good work.

Oldtrap

**rezmut** · 05-26-2013, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by greatgoogamooga

Must be a compact dryer, it looks smaller than mine (size matters...). I was hoping you had found an alternative.

Goog

I use an old cannister vaccume cleaner for my forge-works real nice.

**suthincomfort** · 11-30-2014, 01:12 PM

when i started forging i didn't want to crank the blower so i used an electric leaf blower with a speed control attached with a foot switch added it did a great job when i walked away from the forge a few minutes. step back on foot control it went back to heat pretty quick. i used it for quite a while until i had to sell my rivet forge. having a youngan needing a kidney take's precidence over everything else except for intermitent breaks you get when extremely lucky.