Saw a weird forge setup at a county fair in Springfield

I was at the Illinois State Fair last week and stopped by the blacksmithing demo tent. One smith had his coal forge built into an old washing machine drum, with the blower run off a car battery. It worked, but the heat seemed really uneven. I'm torn between thinking it's a clever reuse of junk and worrying it's a safety hazard waiting to happen. Has anyone here run a setup like that long term?

4 comments

4 Comments

keith_gibson2mo ago

Sounds pretty sketchy honestly. That uneven heat would drive me nuts. Seen a few janky forges that just aren't worth the risk.

corap212mo ago

Has anyone asked the smith why they built it that way? Sometimes those jury-rigged setups come from a real lack of access or funds, not just being cheap. I wonder if they're making it work with what they can get, which changes how you see the safety part.

shane_park922mo ago

Wait, they're running a forge off a hair dryer? That's a new level of scary right there. You can't control the heat at all with something like that. It's just asking for trouble, no matter how tight money is.

leehall7d ago

You do have some control though. A hair dryer on low heat and low speed is a lot less air than full blast hot. Most of these setups use a dimmer switch or a cheap router speed controller to dial the airflow up and down. Not ideal, but it's not just stuck on full blast like a leaf blower. The bigger issue is usually getting any kind of even heat across the coal bed, not the lack of control.