Coal vs charcoal turned out to be a real thing

Always figured people arguing about coal vs charcoal were just being snobs about their fuel. Then I spent a Saturday at a demo in Denton, Texas where a guy fired up a coal forge after I'd been using charcoal for six months. The heat consistency difference was night and day, my welds came together cleaner and faster. Anybody else switch fuels and find out your technique was fine but your fuel was the problem?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia44217d ago

Wait so you're telling me the coal actually gave you cleaner welds too? That's wild because I always thought charcoal was supposed to be the "pure" option for blacksmithing, but when I switched over I noticed my steel was way less scaly and the heat stuck around longer in the center of the piece. What kind of coal were you using on that demo? I've heard the bituminous stuff with high sulfur can mess up your steel if you're not careful, but the anthracite I tried once was a total nightmare to light and never got hot enough for forge welding. Honestly makes me wonder if half the "technique problems" people post about in the smithing groups are just bad fuel choices nobody wants to admit to.

the_jordan16d ago

Oh man tell me about it, I switched to smithing coal from a local supplier and it lit first try with way less smoke.

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