Cleaning the Coal Forge without Dirtying the Shop

If you have a coke-fueled forge in your home shop, remember it needs to be cleaned from time to time.

During work, ash from the fuel must be dumped so that it does not block the air source. One way of removing the ash is emptying the forge and using a whisk broom — but this can often result in dust being spread around the shop. Woodstock, Ill., farrier Joel Nielsen has another approach.

He uses a shop vac fitted with a ½-inch square wire mesh filter to clean the forge. Not only does this result in less debris being spread around the shop, it enables him to leave behind the big pieces of good coke and clean out the dust without having to completely empty the forge.