camp fire forge?

C

cwhittington

Joined
Sep 6, 2002
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106
My buddy and I are camping this weekend and want to do some forging if we can. We wont have an air source unless the wind is blowing.
I want to know if we'll be wasting our time without a blower of any kind.
Anybody try this before?
Thanks
 
From my experience, yes you will be wasting your time without some sort of forced air. I think you could probably get the fire hot enough with one of those air blower things for fireplaces(Bellows?) I usually just use a hair dryer. Maybe you could just bring a long pipe, and take turns blowing in it really hard? I wouldn't do it, but it might work.
Kyle Fuglesten:)
 
Some tricks I've seen and used....

The one I've used...
Get one of the little air mattress inflators (easy to find at Wal-Mart and many other places). They have both battery operated and ones that plug into your car adaptor. Get a length of pipe (recommend at least a few feet long, might want to use something as a heat sink if it's going to stay in the fire long) and jam one end of the inflator adaptor in there (doesn't take a very tight seal to work well). When I had to use this, it worked beautifully as am improvised bellows after gathering the pieces from people at the event.

Another one I've seen (Ron Hood's video, Survival Camping) was using a trash bag with a fiberglass pole curled up inside as an expander to create a basic bellows. I think they left one end open to let air in, then squeezed it closed while compressing the bag to force the air out through a tube into the fire.
 
Originally posted by kile
Maybe you could just bring a long pipe, and take turns blowing in it really hard? I wouldn't do it, but it might work.
Kyle Fuglesten:)
Click to expand...
I wouldn't reccommend this method. Because if you accidentally through the pipe, you'll fry your lungs. Of course, you'll never draw another breath after that.
 
Charcoal fires with bellows have been used for years.If you will be hiking in and are worried about weight,I would suggest a small pipe and a manual air mattres inflater.They have them that are hand pump and I have seen a foot pump style.These are lightweight and would let you control the amount of air you will be using.The bigger the bellows and pipe the bigger your bed of hot coals will be...Good luck and have fun,but don't get hirt by trying to do it by mouth,takes allot of air to get the steel hot and just blowing on the fire with your mouth isn't strong enough to heat much of anythinf as you won't be able to keep the air flow consistant(this would be a Emergency case only situation for me)
Let us know how it goes.
Bruce
 
pump up the air mattress,attach tuyre (duct tape) and get somebody to sit on the mattress:p :)
 
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