/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Here's one of mine I made for testing. It worked VERY well. I used both BBQ charcoal, soft coal, and hard coal. Hard coal gave amazing heat. Soft coal was best for my uses because it didn't get too hot. The hard coal melted my iron crucible in no time. The BBQ charcoal was TERRIBLE. It creates too much ash and that insulates the heat away from the crucible. BBQ charcoal is also effing expensive!

I would recommend making your own charcoal and using that as fuel.

>Making Charcoal For the Forge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzMdHB7QM-M

Also, the easiest method for a furnace to melt aluminum that is also the cheapest is to make one out of clay/cob/adobe. Essentially, you dig a hole in the ground, mix up some mud and build up the sides of the hole so you make a nice pit. Make a tunnel and make sure the tunnel is much lower than the fire pit to prevent back-drafting when the blower is turned off. So, you could make a mound of earth first with a tunnel inside it then make the furnace area on the top.

The higher you make it to waist level the better. Bending over to do things around this stuff gets old really quick. This is why most people use a second hand metal furnace like from an old propane tank or brake drum and a lid. With mine, I was using grating like in the pic you posted to hold the coal up but that melted. I found that I didn't need it after all. It is best to have the crucible hanging instead of resting on/in the coal. You can then lower it or raise it as needed. The blower would keep ash from building upon the bottom so that wasn't a problem during a melt. After a melt when everything was cool I needed to clean all remaining ash out of course.

>>274037
>>274080
Here we go.

I stripped the hair dryer down and removed the heating coils inside it. I then attached an AD/DC adapter to the motor. It works like a charm. you can use a dirt tunnel, but I decided to shove an old metal pipe in it and bury it. When of finally got some good hard coal instead of BBQ charcoal crap or the local soft coal, it got so hot that it melted the iron crucible I was using the melt aluminum in.

It works well for forging too. Since I was just testing it I didn't make anything except a mess when testing different temps and how the metal reacted. I need to get a block of tool steel and make my own anvil.

>>274081
ha

You should have see the anal pain that leaked out of the original thread it was posted in. I still have that knife. It still works really well. I use it for wire stripping, letter opening, and foam/plastic shaping since it is so thin.

>>251038
lol Sadly, my forge, foundry, and skills are not quite up to par with weapon and armor making yet.

>pic fully related