/diy/ - Do It Yourself

For fuel you want to use Charcoal.
Brickettes are total shit and will spit at you and shit, so keep away from them.

Coal works fine but takes much longer to get going.

If you want to make your own charcoal it's easy enough. Get a tin of quality street or something and stab a few holes on the top. chock it full of wood, as much as possible, and leave it in a fire - BBQ will do fine, or, as I do, make a fire separate to your 'forge' and make charcoal as you burn it.

So you have your 'forge' and your fuel.
Now you need some 'bellows'.

Gonna have to reach deep for a second here in to the wallet.
$5, get yourself a hair dryer, $2, a copper pipe (1 m) and 2$ a real of duct tape.
See where this is going?

Drill some holes, about 20, in the bottom of the pipe, small ones; think tooth picks, and make the same end flat with no gap, or as little as possible. This can be done easily enough buy heating it up and hammering lightly on some concrete or something. Attach the other end to the hair dryer using duct tape. and there you have it, a 'bellow'.

Bury the pipe deep in the charcoal and only start blowing once the fire is going well.
when there's a good stock of glowing shit in the fire you're good to stick your steal in.