Showerthought: My old coal forge was eating up way too much fuel for simple heats

I was going through a bag of bituminous every other day just doing small scrolls and bends. On a whim, I tried building a small firebrick box inside the forge hearth to shrink the firepot area. I used three standard bricks to make a triangle about 8 inches across. It cut my coal use by almost half because the heat was so much more focused right where I needed it. Now I only pull the bricks out for bigger work. Has anyone else messed with their forge layout to save on fuel?

3 comments

3 Comments

dylanh811mo ago

Genius hack, man.

adam_thomas1mo ago

Oh please. That's not a hack, it's a duct tape fix that'll fail in a week. Seen this exact thing cause way bigger problems down the line. Short term win for a long term headache.

victor_carr541d ago

Three pallets of that same cheap tape failed on a loading dock I worked at last year, and @adam_thomas is right that it always comes back to bite you.