Soo, where to begin.
I built a little trash can forge with one of those handheld burners for the heat source, after watching some YouTube videos and thought, that looks easy enough.. And straight off the bat I ran into some issues.
The burner is a Rothenberger Industrial, that runs off of a butane/propane mix (70/30% - Rothenberger Multigas 300, if anyone is familiar with it). The can says the gas can potentially get to 1900°C. The nozzle however gets to only about 800ish (it can get a 1/4" piece of steel to cherry red in about a minute or two).
Is that good enough to get a forge up to yellow heat? I just want to start forging, not looking to forge weld right now as I'm a complete novice.
Now, the forge itself is made from a 3 liter stainless steel trash can, that's open at both ends (attached the lid back on to serve as the back wall and is removable). The refractory is 2" of silica sand mixed with water glass (again, got it from YouTube) and it's somewhat solid-ish (it crumbles easily), but I think the fact that I couldn't get it to the proper temperature, to get it to set is one of the reasons why it's not working as it should be. It's also not that smooth a texture on the inside. The inside diameter is about 2" as well.
How deep into the forge should the nozzle of the burner protrude? Flush with the inside wall?
Should I put some high temp cement over the inside, so the heat doesn't dissipate into the forge walls that much? Or just throw it all out and get a ceramic wool refractory with a firebrick base (like the Devil Forges)
Could you give me some information where to start, so I can get everything going properly? If you need pics, I can snap some tomorrow during the day.