Building a fire

Well this is the first post, im hoping to start putting alot more pictures into this and

maybe some videos of the lectures explaining processes.

Building a fire

Building a fire as its commonly known or starting a forge is the more classic way to get a 

forge going, this is abit of a new custom to me so i thought i would put this together

to remind myself the steps and tips ive been told from people.

1. The first step to lighting a fire is to check that the forge is ready, checking that the back bosh is full of water is a must have.
2. Second is to clean the fire out, using the poker shove it down and look for the klinker. The klinker is a large peice of materail made up of crap that has come off metal before, having one of these at the bottom of your forge really slows down the flow of air and can lead to alot of matenice cost. Once you have the poker underneath the klinker push upwards and put it in a bin away from the forge.
3. The third step is so push your coke (Coke is cooked coal) out of the way of the tue iron, you want to get push all the coke out to make a dome infront of the tue iron about the size of half a football.
4. Next you need to get the materals together for lighting, you need wood, paper and a lighter. Break the wood into large pieces and tiny thin peices.
5. Roll the paper up into a mushroom shape leaving a piece hanging out to light
6. Light the paper and shove it down next to the tue iron, put the thin peices of wood around it first then follow up with the thick pieces
7. As the big pieces catch light push the coke in around the fire, making sure not to smother it to soon
8. A tip i was told is as soon after moving it in to pick up handfuls of coke and put it on top of the fire to make it catch it easy
9. As soon as you can see a few of these peices of coke beginning to heat up bring in more coke to build a mount ontop
10. Stand back now as the remaining coke heats up and your ready to go.

Quick Tips

• Turn the pump on lightly around stage nine put only a little to help the coke get really hot quick
• On stage 3 a quick and easy way to clean out quick is to turn on the air but not for too long because it blows coke and dust everywhere
• The main idea is to let the fire build gradually, try not to throw everything on too soon

 If you listen to all of these steps and tips then you should have a pretty good

fire ready for forging.

A picture from a book i have explaining most points of the forge.