Single Burner Forge

[Matt Shade]

Cold fitting shoes for smaller horses is relatively easy but as the shoes get bigger the job gets tougher. It has gotten to be a chore and the other day I broke a hammer handle fitting a shoe on our draft cross and decided it was time to have a forge at the farm.
I looked at some of the commercially available farriers forges and found them to be very expensive for how simple most of them are. So I took inventory in the shop and decided that I had half of what I needed already and I started building a forge. I also have been on a kick to get things more organized at the farm and decided to set this up as a work station with a small table top with racks for tongs and punches and a rack to store shoes on .

The base is made with 1" square 14 gauge tubing and has cast iron casters. The table top and forge floor are both standard firebrick. The body of the forge is 3/16 mild steel, which is overkill but I had a partial sheet and I don't have to worry about it burning up in my lifetime.