Camp Fire Equipment. What marvellous ideas from yester year that are so handy for camping. Along with nifty or just wierd ideas that may or may not work for anyone. I make all sorts and if it works, I use it and people see it and some times want it. A bit of scrap, a forge or just some normal tools and a welder, shake in a vegemite jar over medium heat for 30 mins and hey presto, your own camp fire stuff.






OK! So lets make a Mick's Backyard Bodgie forge.

Junk bits needed...an old disk and weld the holes up (leave the big hole).


The thread off some 2" water pipe and an "S" bend. Weld the thread to the bottom of the disk to make it dis-assemblable (takeapartable), I found some pipe to fit over the "S" bend or you could weld to it. The dish so you dont spill alot...I had an old steel Victa lawn mower base and patched up the holes.



The legs are three bits of Reo with two rings as supports that the forge will sit on.


The rings are made from the off cutts from a mob that make mower blades.

The 240 vac Blower I found off a piece of gear at the scrap yard ages ago and thought it was too good to leave, I thought that if the motor was stuffed I would put a 12vdc motor in it or use the housing, but stuff me it works! The piece of pipe was cut with some slits to slide over the "s" bend for the injection of air. The mount and "square to round" adapter was cut from offcutts of flat and the hole for the pipe was chiselled out by hammer, tacked together with the mig. A forge is, a sink of charcoal or coal etc, through the drain underneath you introduce air. Once you get your charcoal lit...then introduce the air...you end up with small sink of very hot charcoal that when shaped over some steel, acts like a little furnace and WILL make your steel sparkle and melt it away if you take too long to roll your smoke!. Thats all a forge is basicaly, a fire with added wind, on the same token, not a real lot of wind will give the same result.



The drain holes were drilled and the piece heavily tacked in place.


I left enough room when mounting th blower to slide the angle cut piece of sheet for the wind gate. this is to stop and adjust the amount of air you are feeding into the forge. All the way off to clean the bowl out! haha.


This may not be something to write home about looks wise, but as a forge it works perfectly enough.

The next thing is tongs. you can modify a pair of pliers by adding length to the handles or make a set. Several easy methods are on the net. One of them is what I call the twisted flat method. heat up two pieces of lets say 1" wide by up to 1/4" thick by say 4-5" long.

My email.. double_edge2@yahoo.com

These may not be redy yet so just WAIT!
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