Heres a photo of part of my shop showing my old hand crank coal forge

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/2300199/aview/MVC-128S.JPG

Made 100s of knives and axes [amoung other things] in this forge and made a pretty good living using it for many years. Paid $40 for it. Simple low tech tools like this is all you really need

For blacksmithing you should use low sulfer soft coal, is sold as blacksmith coal. You can use regular coal but is harder to light and sulpher can be bad for the steel in knives etc. Many knife makers prefer charcoal which is not that hard to make out of fire wood

You need to know how to build the proper working fire, the "green" coal you start out is burned till it turns to coke and that is what you use for your working fire. Just rake it from the edges into the fire as it cokes up.
A proper fire will not have a lot of flames because you are mostly working in hot coals. With most work you don't want to heat it to fast because of the danger of burning and ruining the steel . Burnt steel will have a blisted look about it and break right apart
Also if you put alot of air into the fire to make it hot real quick you run the danger of the air from the blower hitting your work causing scale.Scale either from blower air or from not having the work in the coals is probably the main reason people have a hard time learning to forge weld.
A slower heat with your work burried in the coals out of the air is what you want

Lots to making horse shoes, not only have to be the right size but also have a groove put into them and nail holes punched then of course fitted to the horse

Blacksmithing is not hard but you do have to know what you are doing and practice. While you can learn some from books, classes, videos etc. in the end it comes down to ptactice in the real world and just doing it.

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