Fire on the mountain | The Forge Fire | Forum

I spent some time at the conference watching that Whitlox forge.

My thoughts:

It's a neat idea and a neat setup. Elegant in its simplicity, but therein lies the problem- I think a lot of smiths will look at it and say "I could build that." and they might, or they may pass it over and think about building one and never get around to it. I kind of wish they sold an inexpensive version in "kit" form, no kaowool, no firebrick, just the unassembled bent sheet metal and fittings.

It definitely gets hot enough with the wood they use. I don't know how hot it would get if you were using fresh\unseasoned wood though. At scout camp we have an almost limitless supply of deadfall and such, but a limited amount of what we've cut and put up to dry from season to season.

One disadvantage I noted, though not a serious one- with coal you can kind of shuffle & shake your metal to move it deeper in the fire. With wood, it doesn't move out of the way as easily as small coal chunks, so you have to fiddle a bit if you need to reposition the wood. There's a lot more airspace between the fuel though, so maybe it balances out.

It burns pretty clean, though it does produce ash. Much better than clinker though!

I think this would be a good setup for someone with a farm and a surplus of wood, or a situation like we have out at scout camp, where we have a limited budget to buy fuel, but a lot of wood available. I imagine that this setup would work well to throw some charcoal on instead of fresh wood, too.