Mini Steel Forge

Air powered Steel Forge:

Spring 2018

This project was motivated by the simple question of “How quickly can you build a functional steel forge?”

Turns out working with high temperature steel is actually a lot easier to get started with than you would expect.

The forge started off with a rather large roasting pan I picked up at a swap meet for a couple bucks and just a few pounds of concrete mix.

The design works by pumping large volumes of air through a steel pipe with multiple air outlets to provide the air needed for forge temperatures. These along the pipe could be opened or closed by twisting bolts into them to effectively control the hot spot locations of the forge.

I decided to use a compressor to provide a variable valve controlled supply of air pressure, so there wouldn’t be any need to constantly manually operate a set of billows. The linear design of the forge made it effective for working with pieces of flat stock and for making blades and other small pieces. While it wasn’t hot enough for forge welding, this forge was great for forming steel and making some neat little custom tools.

With this forge, I made a few small blades and a rather unique twisted steel fire poker. For someone with little to no blacksmithing experience, I was rather happy with how well my design worked out, it also was a great BBQ setup as well.