forge for heat

[rocktire]

Do any of you use a forge to heat your smelting pot. I have a homemade forge that I built from a brake drum. I am going to try to melt my WW's in my pot on the coal forge. should work well but I thought I would check to see if anyone has experience with this.

[clodhopper]

I have not used a forge for lead but was thinking about what would be needed to melt copper jackets to store in ingots. I have throw away a bucket full because I did not want to store them. my work hours and the local recycler hours are the same but just to many stop lights apart.

[RayinNH]

You betcha. I did smithing as a living for about 15 years so I have a good setup. That setup includes a good drawing chimney. The forge will put out a lot of heat, enough to make the lead glow red ( a very good way to heat small spring for hardening by the way), in fact you can actually boil lead. This is something you do not want to do, ever. So as long as you pay attention to the air flow, you have a great heat source there...Ray