Start with two 200l oil drums

Make a cutout

Put in some bricks, arrange them around until it looks good

Fill with sand and clay and mold a firepit with an intake for air from the side

Burn in the clay with a fire

Oh yeah the 2nd drum is the chimney

Time to try the real stuff, actual coal (coke), never seen it in my life before, this is the big villain killing the planet and now I am burning it too....





Works.
Next time I bring out my anvil too

Started working on a poker to rake coals with

Was gonna draw out this part but a sudden downpour made me stop and I had to close up shop for the day...

I rebuilt the firepit again, by smashing the clay and sand mix and remixing it with water, also mixed in the ash. It's all good.
Second burn in

With the hair dryer going there is no smoke from the wood fire just a heat shimmer from the chimney. And it gets steel pretty hot

And that's where I am now. I am currently reprofiling a cheap hammer head to a more suitable weight, the 2kg sledge is a tad heavy...



Thinking I will anneal the whole head on the forge so I can machine it, then reharden and temper. A hammer doesn't need to be super hard, especially not for smithing so I think I will temper it a bit softer than it is now. Cheaper to dress a hammer than repair an anvil.