Sardonicus

My bad, thought I had filled that out.

Ah, no lol I haven't just asked random people. I kind of live in the middle of nowhere and dont see other people much but that did get me thinking. Seems like there are small family run pottery places around here in every direction. Might be worth a visit or a few phone calls to see if any of them might have a kiln they've retired and wouldnt mind passing on to a good home.

tpaaat? I only have about a KW for solar for charging some pretty fun battery banks, nothing too extensive, but the uses i have for a kiln are limited so im thinking for the few hours here and there work that I have for one that my energy costs would be pretty small.

I would love to buy a kiln that needs a bit of fixing up, but I can't find any in my area. I found a few but never got any responses from the sellers. I'm not overly concerned about the energy consumption, I also play around with lifepo4 battery packs and solar so either way the energy is essentially free. I do understand what you're saying about why plaster is a no go and will look into a refractory source locally if I opt to build before I get lucky and find one cheap or free to fix up. Frost, I'm not looking into photoelectric generation, and all this experimentation is just for fun. There is a variation on graphitic carbon nitride that is suppose to hold 10% hydrogen by weight at ambient temperature, so my plan is to build a moderate sized dry cell setup to keep the gasses separate so I can expose this stuff to straight hydrogen and then play around with fueling small engines with it. Might work, might not, it'll be an interesting journey either way. Arkansas would be a bit of a trek for me from georgia, Irondragon or I might well take you up on that lol. My chickens don't give me much free time for travel, I've got 20,000 of them lol.

I know kilns aren't exactly forges but my questions are regarding refractory mostly and I know people here will be very knowledgeable in that realm. I recently saw a video that mentioned using plaster and sand as a refractory for their kiln, and after a bit of looking around mostly what i see is a few brave souls that have just gone and used it without much detail on performance or longevity, and then the other side of that coin all the people shaking their heads saying its just bad for use as a refractory with a moderate chance of exploding. I assume this explosion chance is due to moisture. I am working on a hydrogen project and as part of my project I need a fairly sizable amount of graphitic carbon nitride, stupid expensive to buy, but very easy to make - assuming you have a kiln. So my actual question - could plaster and sand be used in a device intended to reach 600C. For doing what I want I really only need to get to 500 - 550C max. I am mostly wanting to use this because it is cheap and the kiln I want to make will be quite large. For the final stage of my project I will need 10kg of the graphitic carbon nitride , I dont expect to be able to build a kiln to make that kind of volume all at once, but I'd rather not have to do it in a thousand tiny batches either. Now, cheap is a big determining factor in what I can use , but not at the cost of safety, so I am definitely open to suggestions on other economical refractory options that are safer. If such a thing exists. The device itself is electric in case that matters. For size I am considering about half to 3/4 of a 55 gallon drum. I would like to insulate the floor and walls, have a door in the side and probably firebrick on top.

Very much appreciate all the responses, it was an idea that came to mind and I figured of all the people I knew this was the best place to ask it.

Has anyone attempted to use LP air (low pressure) 0-100 regulated down for the forced air on a coal forge? if so what pressures are you using. My thought is to regulate twice one constant at between 5-10 psi and a burst footpedal for increased heat when needed at a little more air. If i am way off base and compressed air will not work feel free to throw in your two cents worth. this would be substituted completely for a bellows or hand blower.

Yes, I have a great deal of space to work with, on this property is a 30 foot x 25 foot building, that believe it or not has no purpose. The forge will give it purpose.

Thankfully yes I can burn coal, I live pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.

I have read a similarly labeled post, but it vaguely answered the actual question about Gas Vs. Coal. I am very new, don't have any experience and a rudimentary understanding of forges and smithing and different types of metals and whatnot. If anyone is so inclined I'd like to really get a compare/contrast about these two kinds of forges. Just from an uneducated perspective, i see gas as being convenient and possibly easier to control, and I really know very little as to ease and control of coal fires. In all likelyhood I would like to start out very basically by crafting tools, obviously I will need tools and seeing as how I'm pretty well broke most of the time making them seems like a great way to start. Moving on to knives and eventually on to swords and axes, when experienced enough I would love to learn the art of Damascus steel, always thought it looked unique.