maddog

Probably belonged to a quantum mechanic. They use tiny tools.

Those look like they will work. Did you make a replacement when the jaw broke?. Darn site better than the first pair I kept. It's easy to form cold shuts around the jaw. If you get any kind of fold, forge or file it out. Safest to stay with orange heat for bending.

Well I made the chamber by troweling 1/2" of mizzou onto the surface of some moist kaowool and wrapped the whole thing around a 4" cardboard tube. After the initial slow firing process to cure the refractory, I coated the inside with two coats of Plistix 900. Since then I've had the forge up to welding heat a few times. There is no sign of cracking. There are no holes in the chamber. Forge gets to low welding heat in about 10 mins from cold. Tomorrow I will coat the interior with ITC100. I plan to build a 3" dia forge using the same method. Mizzou is very resilient and very tolerant of different casting techniques. I initialy tried to do Monster's method but I couldn't get anything that looked convincing so I went ahead and troweled on the Mizzou. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Well today I had to draw out some 1"x5/16" bar for the reins on heavy tongs. I use hofi style hammers with a rounding face in place of the pein. I tried my 3#, 4# & 5# hammers. The 5#'er did the most work. No contest. The swing is much slower and the rhythm less than half that of the 3#'er but one blow would knock the bar down to half its width. It was noticeably more effective than the 4#'er too. No matter how fast I snapped the 3#'er down, it would not push the steel around like the 5# hammer and it took longer overall. 5# is my upper limit for a hand hammer. I dont have great accuracy with it and I only use it for the heavy moving. It's my power hammer. Then I do the finer drawing and dressing with the 3#. Of course this is a very subjective assesment. To do it right I would have to forge a bunch of tongs half with the big hammer and half with the small hammer and record the time.

I've been at it on and off for about 15 years. I used to do woodworking with hand tools. I got into making my own planes and found out how to harden and temper the steel for the blades. That was the thin edge of the wedge and smithing displaced my woodworking. I got a big boost when Jimmy Treadwell gave me an afternoon in his shop and made me my first two pair of tongs. The second big step forward was when my family ganged up on me and bought me a seat in one of Frank Turley's courses.

I'm sorry. Frustrating and disappointing. While I do think some HF and other imported Chinese tools are worth buying, a complicated machine is the sort of thing that I would only buy a reputable brand from a reputable dealer. But it's much easier to stick to that principle when you have the money to do so. Sometimes it's a choice between a Chinese machine or none at all and the temptation to take a chance becomes very strong. I've been there too. If it were me, I would resign myself to the fact that what I have is a kit and now is the time to figure out how these things work and see if I can find parts to get it back into service. Its a law of physics: The less money you spend on a machine, the more you will learn about how it works (or doesn't ) But you don't need lectures and "I told you so"'s now.

I agree with Matt. It would be a great project but I don't see it being economicaly viable. About 15 years ago (time is vague to me) there was a company producing Pure Iron. This was very soft iron with a very low carbon content and unlike wrought, no silica. I am not sure where it was manufactured, US or Europe but an industrial steel maker was involved. This was not a back yard operation. In it's heyday it sold for a little over $1/lb. Everybody extolled its virtues. It's ductility, resistance to cracking, ease of working, ease of welding without burning etc. Some even argued that if you took into account all the labor and wastage of material you saved by using PI, it more than covered the additional cost of the material. At the time, the product was widely known among the US smithing community and there was quite a bit of enthusiasm for it. Yet after a few years, the makers went out of business.

It's by far the best thing I have found. I use a correction fluid pen to mark a line to follow with the torch. I can cut right up to it and still see it clearly.

Forge looks awesome! Hows the scaling at welding heat? Also do you have any idea of its fuel consumption. Thanks for posting the video At $250 it's a steal! I build my own forges and I estimate around $125 in materials alone plus considerable time. Next time a newbie starts a "First Propane Forge" thread, I am going to suggest he go this route. It's almost a no brainer. Yeah the forge roar makes it hard to hear the voice. But hey, we are smiths. We are more interested in the sound of the forge than the commentary! :P

I have a hardy hole of similar size. I put in an L shaped spacer to reduce it to 1". Much easier to find material for hardy tools. Easier to forge too. Any you can buy ready made anvil tools with a " shank.

If you haven't looked at the Pine Ridge Burner page yet, it's a must. Pine Ridge Burners He uses steel tubing to meter the mix into the block. Notice the depth of the refractory block to hold back the heat. In this thread Tom from Pine Ridge discusses the design of his burners. Very illuminating. Ribbon Burner Thread I too have thought about drilling a hole in the plenum and sealing it over with foil or inserting a solid rubber grommet like they do with pressure cookers as a designed failure point. But I doubt the amount of gas/air mix in a small volume like that has enough energy to be dangerous even if it detonates rather than just igniting. There is an open path back to the airgate. Even if that is closed the extra volume in the connecting pipe should take the oomph out of it. In that thread or another, people have reported experience with their ribbon burners igniting in the plenum. All that happened was the plenum got very hot.

As the lone dissenter, I never cared for Bealer's book. It does have a lot of information in it and considering it's Bealer, every smith in North America should have one but I find his writing rather bombastic and I have heard that he was not always careful when researching some of the details he describes. However, it's a long time since I read it. On the strength of the glowing reviews here, I will give it another try.

I agree with arftist. The evidence isn't conclusive and there are perfectly innocent explanations. I am sure there are merchants that work with shills on ebay. After all it's easy to do and the worst that can happen is you have to relist the item and pay a small fee. But any such speculation should be very discrete about identifying specific individuals. As others have said, the way to go is to use a snipe program. This is a simple, free, web based program that I have used. Gixen Sniper

A 1/4" venturi burner would be a struggle. There will simply be too much back pressure from the pipe. The friction on a fluid flowing through a pipe rises very rapidly as the diameter decreases. Head Loss Friction Table. But if you are going to try, I'd love to see the results. Commercial propane torches do go as small as 5/16" perhaps smaller but I dont know how much heat they put out. Burning back into the plenum is undesirable but not really dangerous in my experience. The burner will make a lot of noise and combustion in the wrong place will do damage but it doesnt explode or go out of control. If the plenum containing combustible mix is kept small, it shouldnt be too bad. I've been toying with the idea of separating the plenum from the burner block. A grid of 1/4" steel tubes would take the mixture from a mixing chamber into the back of the case holding the burner block and feed into the holes in the refractory block. That would give a lot of surface area for the heat from the burner to dissapate in the air. Making the tubes smaller dia. than the holes in the refractory block would also created a barrier against burning back into the plenum. But I think this would need a force aired system and a fair amount of pressure.

I think that's a good plan. Get the thing running before you do more design. Once you've played with it a bit and have some real experience, you will have a more realistic undersanding of what you want. I suggest you set up a temporary mount with clamps and run it like that a few times. ( That doesnt mean slipshod. Take some care over it. If your fuel line comes loose in the middle of things, your life will suddenly get very exciting!) I have recently bought refractory supplies from an ebay merchant , Hi Temp Ebay Store His prices are reasonable, he was helpful and knowledgeable when I talked to him and he has or can get whatever you need. Just one suggestion for a source. You will only need a few sq ft of wool but you will need some kind of coating or liner for it.

Might try that. At the same time I could cut out the profile for the boss & jaws. Richardson gives a similar method for splitting a long bar onto tong blanks.

Jymm is the expert on these burners of course, but I wouldn't add a third nozzle. You have plenty of burner for that size forge. It's much harder to get a stable flame in open air. The forge chamber even when cold will help keep the flame going. Once it gets hot, its not an issue at all since the mix will ignite from contact with the hot walls. You just need one setting that is stable so you can get a spot in chamber to orange. I don't understand your fixed bypass scheme. You will need to run the forge at different settings for different temps. This means some kind of adjustment to the air as well as the gas.

Looks good. Slightly rich perhaps. Blue is neutral which is about where you want to be. The flame isn't stable. It's separating from the tip. But none of this matters. This burner is designed to run inside a forge chamber where you will judge the mix by the exhaust.

No pressure . I found your analysis of the heat draw as the propane evaporates very interesting. It would be great to have even a back of the envelope estimate for how hot and perhaps how fast the air must flow around the tank. If the tank can be kept at operating temp without any active heating that would be great. At least it would calm everybody down I wish I had taken a heat transport class at any level! As for using a plain fan, I could just do the experiment. I like to keep a fan blowing anyway to disperse any leaks that might pool and also to move the CO out. It sounds like it definitely could be a solution. Of course fermentation tanks go the opposite way from propane tanks in that they generate heat internaly. But the propane tank just has to stay above 0F to deliver a useful pressure. I had thought of using a heating pad - one of those things you sit on or wrapping it with pipe warming cable. Also one of those mini heater that you can sit on your desk might be enough. Thats why it would be nice to have an estimate of the required heat input if Jack can manage it. I am sure none of these ideas are sanctioned by OSHA, DOT, DOE, NFPA, FBI or XYZ either. So don't try these ideas at home unless you are a mad dog like me!! :D

I will try that today. Thanks

Great machine. Whats the weight of the ram? If you are going to open the floor, perhaps it makes sense to dig out a foot or more and pour a concrete block and anchor the hammer to that?

What's your recommendation for cutting leaf spring this way? Thanks

True. But how are you going to estimate the efficiency of the heat transfer from the moving air to the liquid content?

hmm intersting idea. Doesnt the wool just collapse and turn into a soggy mess with no air in it? I plan to wrap it around a carboard tube while it sets up. May even fire it that way.

Sweany, thanks for the info. I'm with you on everything except "slicing" the refractory. I am using Mizzou, a castable. I was planning to trowel it on to the wool. I could mix it up very stiff like a plastic and slice it. Is this what you have in mind? Added later: I am bearing down on this detail because it has to do with my main concern, that the refractory will cure into a sound shell without cracks.