One of the most heavily used tools for many farriers is the forge. It certainly is for me. I run every shoe — new or resets — through the fire. Heat makes shaping a new shoe easier on my body and also makes cleaning up a used shoe and prepping it to reset a snap.

I forge weld my shoes in my forge and also use it to apply Drilltek (hard surface material) to shoes.

The flux used in forge welding really wrecks the brick and robs the system of proper heating ability. I have learned over the years that taking care of a forge will make it last a long time.

The forge I’m writing about in this article was bought new in 1993 and was my primary truck forge until 2006. After I retired it, I sold it, and then when the opportunity arose, I bought it back. When I got it back, it was in terrible shape and desperate for a rebuild.

Getting Started

The forge is an NC Tool Whisper Lowboy. It’s a three-burner forge. The liner was not kept up and excessive heat had burned the top plate around the central port (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The top plate around the central port is burned out.

Figure 2. A new top plate made from 1/16-inch plate scrap steel.

A new top plate (Figure 2) was roughed out with a cutting torch out of some scrap 1/16-inch plate steel.

The new top plate was tack…