thegunslinger19 Posted September 2, 2014 Share Posted September 2, 2014 Hello all, I am very new here and very new to forging/black smithing/blade smithing. I made a quick and cheap gas forge from an tin bucket plaster of paris and sand mixture with a home made venturi burner. It was on the fly cheap and works ok for what me and my son are doing now but the plaster is breaking up after 4 or 5 months of hard use and i finally gathered proper insulation materials. Soooo i have a copper cylinder that is just about 1/8" thick give or take and is 22"diameter and 32" long. Will this melt at forge welding temps? Im thinking it would but figured id ask around. Id hate to waste my blanket and coating. Oh yeah im looking to do forced air this time around and see if i can get less fuel consumption. Im currently burning a 5 gal tank every 6-8 hours of forging. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW Posted September 2, 2014 Share Posted September 2, 2014 Hello and welcome. Do yourself a favor and add your location to your profile so we know where you are at all the time. Lots of guys here from Cali, and you might find one local to you who can help out. A few generic thoughts on your new forge. Insulation serves a couple of purposes. #1 it keeps the heat inside, where you want it. My 1st gas forge I used standard fire brick vs insulating fire brick. The forge got hot, but it took a long time to heat up all that mass. When I go and rebuild it, I'll go with 2" of kaowool next time or insulating brick. I went thru a lot of gas simply heating up the brick pile. Related to that, how much insulation you have will directly affect how hot the shell gets. If it's insulated well, you can keep the outside temps down. 2nd That's a really big area to heat. That size is almost the same size as the entire table on my coal forge. You'll either be packing it with a ton of insulation to reduce the volume, or you'll have a real gas hog most likely. As far as copper working or not, I can't really say. I'd most likely try and save a nice size piece of copper that big as it's easy to locate steel stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccustomknives Posted September 2, 2014 Share Posted September 2, 2014 Since copper melts somewhere around 1900F you probably wouldn't have any problems other than where the forge flame might come into contact. Personally, I'd sell or save (for another use) the copper and find a suitable steel shell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 3, 2014 Share Posted September 3, 2014 Welcome aboard, glad to have you. There's a large gas forge section on IFI with more forge and burner designs than a person could use in a lifetime. Unless you like tinkering around building a proven design will get you working faster. Nothing wrong with tinkering around, it's a common trait with the gang here. No matter what type burner you use a forge chamber 22" dia. x 32" long is more than 12,000 cu/in. Are you starting a spring shop or what? No matter how you cut it a forge that size will require in the neighborhood of 20 ea. 1" burners to bring to a welding heat. No wonder you go through 5gl. of propane in a few hours. Making a gun burner will not reduce the amount of fuel you'll need, nor will it work "better" than a properly tuned NA burner. Either type will deliver a flammable air fuel mix to the forge chamber in approximately the same quantity. Sure you can over charge the air with a blower and just feed it enough fuel to make a proper ratio but the velocity of the mix is so high all you end up doing is blowing flame out the doors. Both gun and NA types have advantages and disadvantages but they're both about equivalent for our purposes. The major advantages of a gun being ease of construction and insensitivity to back pressure. Their down side is having to adjust both air and fuel if you want to change output. Not a big thing. and lastly you're tied to electricity. NA burners require precise construction and a little tweaking to get right, once tuned adjusting output is just a matter of turning the gas psi up or down and no elec needed. The downside being sensitive to back pressure or breezes and they take bench work skills to get right. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodge Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Hello all, I am very new here and very new to forging/black smithing/blade smithing. I made a quick and cheap gas forge from an tin bucket plaster of paris and sand mixture with a home made venturi burner. It was on the fly cheap and works ok for what me and my son are doing now but the plaster is breaking up after 4 or 5 months of hard use and i finally gathered proper insulation materials. Soooo i have a copper cylinder that is just about 1/8" thick give or take and is 22"diameter and 32" long. Will this melt at forge welding temps? Im thinking it would but figured id ask around. Id hate to waste my blanket and coating. Oh yeah im looking to do forced air this time around and see if i can get less fuel consumption. Im currently burning a 5 gal tank every 6-8 hours of forging. Thanks in advance. That copper pipe seems like an awful burden to have around. Piece of junk, really. Send it to me and I will dispose of it properly :ph34r: Seriously, as others have said, properly insulated, it should be fine. I don't think I have ever seen copper pipe that big. Actually, polish it up, put some bands attached with some chrome acorn nuts on and a few random levers, dials, gears or pairs there of, tubes in and around the burners and and I can picture it as really neat "steampunk" style forge :) Welcome aboard! Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 . Actually, polish it up, put some bands attached with some chrome acorn nuts on and a few random levers, dials, gears or pairs there of, tubes in and around the burners and and I can picture it as really neat "steampunk" style forge :) Welcome aboard! That's a great idea Scott. I know someone who does a lot of "found object" steampunk style art sculpture. I'd love to see what he'd do with a project like this having seen a lot of his other creations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 Price out what that piece of pipe is worth new $$$$$$ (around $150 just as scrap) kinda of a shame to make a forge out of it. I would use it for some other project , maybe even one that might make me more money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.