MODERN BLACKSMITHING 51 



serve to decide a bad fire from a good one. A strong 

 sulphur smell indicates a poor fire for welding. In 

 order to get a good fire there must be, first, good coal ; 

 second, plenty of it. - It is no use to pile a lot of coal 

 on an old fire, full of cinders and slag. The fire-pot 

 must be clean. Many blacksmiths are too saving 

 about the coal. They take a shovel of coal, drop it on 

 the forge in the vicinity of the fire and sprinkle a 

 handful of it in the fire once in a while. In such a 

 case it is impossible to do good work and turn it out 

 quick. Have a scoop shovel and put on one or two 

 shovels at a time, the coal should be wet. Then pack 

 it in the fire as hard together as you can. Sprinkle 

 the fire with water when it begins to spread. In this 

 way you get a hard fire. The flames are concentrated 

 and give great heat. Saving coal is just like saving 

 feed to a horse, or grub to your apprentice. Neither 

 will give you a good day's work unless he has all he 

 wants to eat. The fire, of course, should be in pro- 

 portion to the work, but in every case should the fire 

 be large enough to raise it up from the tuyer iron as 

 much as possible. In a small fire the blast strikes 

 directly on the iron and it begins to scale off; in a 

 good fire these scales melt and make it sticky, while 

 in a low and poor fire the scales blacken and fall off. 

 This never happens if the fire is full of good coal and 

 high up from the tuyer iron. 



Good strong blast is also necessary for heavy work. 

 There is an old whim about the fire that everybody, 

 farmers and others, as well as blacksmiths, are infected 

 with, and that is, if a piece of brass is put in the fire it 



