Windy Miller
Semi-Professional Potterer!
- Messages
- 3,511
- Location
- North Kent, UK
I'd dish that plate a bit to create a pit around the ducks nest (the circle with holes in your forge). I'll take pics of mine when I get home, I have a quite big portable forge which can handle welding heat well when burning proper coal. The trick is to let the coal convert into coke before starting to weld, charcoal also works but it burns way too fast for my liking, and as I have access to a source of proper blacksmiths coal I wouldn't bother with charcoal. Look for a centrifugal type blower, it looks like a big version of the compressor side on a turbocharger.
Very little chance of beating the plate into a dish - it's 8mm thick!
Yep, if you can make a big dish to go round your bowl it would be great, and you can cut a piece away to let you shove bits in the side. If you hook a cylindrical vacuum cleaner to that and fill it with coke beans you will be rocking....
And forget all this nonsense about "cherry red" You want your piece bright yellow before you start belting it, and when it goes to dull red it goes straight back in the fire.
I'll give that a try - won't be able to get onto it for a few weeks, but I'll post up some pics when I do.
I'm a little bit wary of using an old vacuum cleaner though, as I am conscious of making too much noise and pi$$ing off my neighbours just the other side of the fence. The hair dryer is really quiet, so I would like to find something that won't drone on and on for ages. Any suggestions?