How to Clay a Forge

[FTB2]

Just gettin' started in this and havin' a great time. tryin' to get my "shop" together. I have recently purchased an old forge and blower. I have done some research (which is very cool) and found info on the blower - Otto Canedy Western Chief, but not on the forge. All I can tell is that it has - "Clay foge before using". I have purchased some fireclay. My question is - how thick to apply the clay? what about around the fire pot ? What else am I not askin'?

Having fun bringing these old tools to life again.

Thank you in advance and God bless all of you

Merry Christmas and Happy New year,

Mike
Buckeye Lake area
Ohio

Go Bucks!

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Mike.

Only use enough water to make the clay clump in your hand when squeezed hard. If it crumbles add a LITTLE more if it's sticky add some more clay or let it dry. Adding about 1 pt in 3 of sharp silica sand will help as well as will adding grog. (crushed fire brick)

When you have the right moisture ram the clay in about 3/4" thick and about 1" near the air grate. A wooden mallet is perfect but the end of a 2x4 or 4x4 is fine. You want to ram it as hard as reasonably possible, the mallet will begin to bounce.

Once it's rammed in use a sharpish object and scrape it smooth, the end of a 2x4 or a wooden spatula works well. For the final finish burnish it with a piece of burlap wrapped around a wood block.

The last thing to do is score it with a butter knife, etc. This is to provide expansion joints or more properly shrinkage joints. The clay will shrink check as it dries and crack like a lake bottom if not scored. The score marks will make it crack along them in a controlled manner. I usually do pie wedges and one or two cross scores, looks kind of like a stylized spider web.

Now you want to let it dry thoroughly before you fire it. If you have high humidity or cold temps you may need to hang a light bulb over it. Once it's dry build a wood fire in it with kindling a couple inches deep, let it burn itself out and cool, then repeat with a deeper stack of wood 4-6".

All this seems like a lot of work seeing as you can simply dig some clay out of a river bank smooth it in and go to work but doing it that way tends to make a temporary liner. This is actually preferable if you're going to use it for a mobile set up.

Anyway, ramming it damp, smoothing, burnishing, scoring, drying and firing will make for a much more durable liner that won't gouge easily and clinker won't stick to as easily.

Frosty

[Nelson44]

hello i to am haveing trouble with claying and makeing a refractory for my forge. Sounds like you have a coal forge. I am useing a gas forge and the mix i put together has melted it is goo at forge temp it took quite a while to get to the goo point. So any ways i am looking for a good refractory mix too what i used last time was 20 to 25lbs of fire clay and 25 lbs of morter mix and One small bag of vermiculite and proubly too much H2O. i am going to try something diffrent i think i still got 30lbs of fire caly left.

[Frosty]

Perlite has a melting temp of 2,000f and vermiculite is lower than that so that's what's gooing your forge liner.

making your own refractory for a gasser isn't usually very successful, I don't know of anyone who'd done it. Your best bet is to contact a furnace supplier or search out a company online that will sell you a castable or rammable refractory. Still, even the factory refractories melting temp goes down as it's insulating quality goes up. Unless you have the $ to buy bubble alumina.

Another option is to make a thin 3/4" or so hard inner liner and wrap it with ceramic wool refractory for insulation. My old pipe forge is a dual lined forge and it's served me very well since 95 or so.

Lots of available options.

Frosty