Any recopies for 5000 degree refractory in steel making?

[RainsFire]

Originally Posted by J. Bennett

Funny you should mention niobium oxide as a reactant. Oxides can be either, or both. I can make a refractory from aluminum oxide, but aluminum is the main engine that fires the candle...
Experience and a a touch of chutzpahs is all that's needed.

BTW, WHO ARE YOU? A blacksmith that knows the intimacy of fire, or some master at Google-fu?

He is the Ice czar!

cool, nice seein ya here J. Bennet
out of curiousity, is your start chamber furnace an orrigional design? It'd be cool if you could paten it.


Heh, I was just reviewing your posts on the other forum, and I finally understand what your doing with your furnace design!! I'm fairly proud of myself now lol..

just wondering, could you have used propane to heat the crucible? instead of the tuyers and charcoal? or would it not hit enough heat? just wondering, it'd be cool to make a more "permanent" design using something like a gas or wvo furnace blasting around your crucible (contained) just as a secondary heat.

have you taken metallurgical related classes? you seem really knowledgeable.

[J. Bennett]

Originally Posted by RainsFire

He is the Ice czar!

cool, nice seein ya here J. Bennet
out of curiousity, is your start chamber furnace an orrigional design? It'd be cool if you could paten it.


Heh, I was just reviewing your posts on the other forum, and I finally understand what your doing with your furnace design!! I'm fairly proud of myself now lol..

just wondering, could you have used propane to heat the crucible? instead of the tuyers and charcoal? or would it not hit enough heat? just wondering, it'd be cool to make a more "permanent" design using something like a gas or wvo furnace blasting around your crucible (contained) just as a secondary heat.

have you taken metallurgical related classes? you seem really knowledgeable.

Yes, I have patent pending. I couldn't find any other furnace design close, so what the heck. You can use propane burners. I like charcoal because it gives serious btu's. I might even use an oil burner. It's real versatile. I can change the shape to accomodate any situation.
I know little about metallurgy. That's one reason I join these boards

[Ice Czar]

Originally Posted by J. Bennett

BTW, WHO ARE YOU? A blacksmith that knows the intimacy of fire, or some master at Google-fu?

a long and sordid tale, lets just say I'm a seeker

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it." - Samuel Johnson

Ive yet to play with thermite, but reasoning suggests that oxides in the refractories would interact with the reducing agent and spall the refractory into the melt, leading me to think your looking for refractories where this is minimized?

[J. Bennett]

Hey thanks. I bookmarked that site.

Yeah, i think I'm pretty much stuck with MgO. I made a refractory out of wood ash and charcoal. Worked very well. The problem was that the liquid iron absorbed HUGE amounts of phosphorous. The 5000 degree furnace cement from Mcmaster is ok, but impart copper and other bad things into the melt.
MgO is very inert and even though it's melting point is rated @ 5k, I think you need a little more than that to liquefy it.

[Ice Czar]

Originally Posted by J. Bennett

Hey thanks. I bookmarked that site.

warning
its not an easy site to navigate...by design
in fact without this you'll never find it all

[RainsFire]

cool site, I wish I had some time to check it out..

[ThomasPowers]

Note that just because something has a higher melting point doesn't mean it won't dissolve in something with a lower melting point. Copper dissolves in molten Al to a surprising degree.

In steelmaking the composition of the furnace walls, and the slag has a lot of effect on the final products, hence the "acid" processes used to make steel from low phosphorus materials that used silica walled furnaces and the "basic" processes that can deal with phosphorus that used magnesia or hard fired dolomite walls.

Note that within 15 years after the basic process was invented England lost it's 100 year old title of greatest producer of steel to both the USA and Germany who had Phosphorus containing ores.

J. I'm sorry I mis remembered. The book I cited you mentions solid magnesia blocks for furnaces but not how they were made. It did mention using coal tar to stabilize the hard burnt dolomite blocks before they were fired.