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I Forge Iron

Monel

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  1. Does anyone know how the valving works and which part regulates the ability to control light hits and feather to heavier hits? I am having a tough time getting control on mine. It will hit light, then too hard then too light with lots of movement on the treadle. Any one familiar with these machines? I love this machine but it ends up just sitting due to this problem other than texturing material. R
  2. Done. And thanks for the warm welcome. I have forged a good amount of Monel. I would say 400 but last I checked it wasn't being made anymore but any nickel copper alloy around 60/40 forges fine and welds like stainless steel. A cheaper option is a copper nickel alloy or cupronickel c71500 and looks virtually the same. Now is the time to stock up since the price of nickel has dropped from $22 to around $6.
  3. My 2 cents on the forge subject is that the most important things in a forge is to have even heat. Saves a lot of time and hassle. Another thing is to have all of the oxygen consumed before the flame hits the metal to reduce oxidation especially when forge welding. And for it to heat up quickly. Also for the long term use of a forge, I would say if you are going to just be forging steel for the most part, use a venturi or naturally aspirated type of burner. If you are going to be forging aluminum, bronze or copper go for the forced air since it is easier to maintain a lower temperature on them. You can get lower heat on venturi burners but require more maintenance and dinking around to keep your forge burning smooth. Thats the burner part of it. Now for the refractory/insulator, you can go bricks, castable refractory or ceramic fiber blanket. Castable and bricks are more durable but need a longer heat up time and act more as insulators. Ceramic fiber blanket is a refractory/reflector and will heat up much faster because of less mass and the fact that it "reflects" the heat back into the chamber better. My preference is ceramic fiber with a 1" kiln shelf or Silicon carbide shelf and coat the fiber blanket with something like ITC 100 or slip to help keep it contained. You mentioned stainless steel inner shell for your forge? I make all of my forges out of stainless steel since it will last much longer than steel when exposed to the heat up and cool down cycles. Use a stainless shell if you want, or steel. You will get many years of use out of both. What I wouldn't do is put any type of metal in the chamber of the forge other than what your forging. Always have the refractory on the inside of the heating chamber for maximum efficiency. I have three forges. One for forge welding that can handle the corrosive nature of the flux, one forge for doing smaller stuff which is a two venturi burner type, and a two burner forced air large forge for doing bigger items and most of my bronze work since i can easily turn down the heat. I wont get into burner design on this post but it is worth researching because they all work differently and some better than others. The trick to getting that swirl in the forge chamber which contributes a lot to getting an even heat in the forge chamber is to have the burners coming in at a tangent and placed the longest distance from where the floor of the forge is. Think of the way a centrifugal blower is made but reverse the flow direction. hope that helped Monel
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