Latticino

You need to allow for the reduction in length that the insulation at the ends makes (24-6=18). Then you need to add in door openings, of some sort.

Word to the wise: sarcasm aimed at those trying to help you will likely get you ignored by folks who could save you a lot of grief. Incidentally I get approximately 2,770 cu inches, assuming you are going to line the ends with fiber blanket as well. If you factor in some openings in those ends, also assuming that you are planning on having doors that fit over those openings instead of inside same. Including those openings, assuming they will be around 6" diameter x 3" long, you have closer to a total interior volume of 2,940 cubic inches. In any event a rather huge forge for an individual. As Frosty noted if you are going to run at forge welding temperatures you will likely use up a lot of propane. Unless you have a power hammer or a good striking team you will be hard pressed to hammer a length of stock heated to an 18" length. Stoichiometric calculations are all well and good, but those calculations should be taking into account the required airflow at the heating rate you need, not the blower static pressure, per se. Of course if you have done the static pressure loss calculations for the required airflow for perfect combustion at the heating rate you have determined (presumably from the combination of radiant, conductive and convective losses from the forge interior, and factored in the losses due to exhaust of heated combustion products, not to mention choosing the correct skin friction value for the assumed airflow characteristics in your shop) you should be fine, as that will set the characteristic system curve for you to coordinate with your blower's fan curve. By the way, what loss coefficient did you project for the custom forced air ribbon burner? Any idea about the optimal multi port opening quantity and sizes to coordinate with the anticipated flame velocity for the variety of heating rates you are going to want for your forge? Frosty has done empirical tests that worked for designing his ribbon burner. Unless you get lucky, just winging it won't work. Of course you could do the computational fluid dynamics calculations for the fuel air mixture, but if you miss something it is going to be a lot of effort for an unexpected result. And you are going to build your own blower as well. I'm really impressed that you have been able to anticipate the external static pressure it will put out at the airflows you are expecting. I'm pretty sure industrial blower manufacturer's have to empirically test their new designs to ensure they meet the required fan curves (check out the AMCA standard testing for example). Perhaps you would be better off sourcing a used blower from the same type of place you got the high temperature insulation and refractory for only $10. Hey, I once picked up a high pressure blower from a liquidator for $25, but that was quite some time ago. In my limited experience of building forced air gas fired burners 25" WG is more than should be required, unless you plan on including a lot of equivalent duct length and a control valve or two.

I'd get as hot as possible at the 100 deg/hr rate recommended in your oven, then candle it slowly in the forge. As long as it isn't load bearing, or restrained from expansion and contraction I've been petty successful with that. Remember to vent the oven periodically to allow the moisture out. You will be surprised at the amount of vapor driven off and the temperatures it still is produced at. I know I was. I used to use my annealer to fire Mizzou. If you know someone with a temperature controlled kiln, that will work well also. Recently preheated a Mizzou ribbon burner in my heat treat oven.

Fond memories of listening to him singing seafaring songs when I was a youth. He had a marvelous voice.

I'm going to stick with simple answers, as subtle ones don't seem to get through: You are probably not anywhere near ready for forging swords, or even making them by stock removal. Make a couple of dozen knives first, starting with 4" blades and working up to 12" blades. When you can do that successfully, then start to think about swords. When you are ready, take a class in sword smithing from a teacher who knows what they are doing. Expensive, but will likely cost less than getting completely setup yourself and going through all the trial and error necessary. You are lucky that there are teachers out there these days. For my interpretation of what you are looking for I would suggest 1084 or 5160 for your work. These are relatively easy and forgiving steels to work with. Unless you are really excited about smithing, and remain that way after getting burned, cut and bone tired from forging and the extensive grinding and filing needed to make a decent blade, you should probably look into either commissioning an actual sword smith to make your dream sword, or do better research to see if one can be purchased that will suit. Places like Cult of Athena sell a wide variety of replicas at cheap prices. Note that if no one has made your dream style in the thousands of years that swords have been forged there might be a good reason (like it is only practical in fiction).

Can see why you treasure it. Inspiring work. Love the star inlay and the forge welded heart shape. That is some tight work, think Larry has some jewelry background as well?

Most "steels" for flint and steel sets I've seen are made from some kind of high carbon steel and heat treated, probably for durability, though I'm not sure. How does yours work/stand up?

Love his work. I still have one of his signature belt buckles that I picked up in a partial trade back in the mid 80's when I was up at Deer Isle for a glass blowing class at Haystack. Use it almost every evening when I change out of my work clothes .

Sorry to belabor this, but a couple more questions: Is your bracelet mandrel wood or metal, and is it tapered or cylindrical and stepped? Do you do the final sizing hot or cold? If hot, doesn't that eat up the leather mallet? Thanks for your patience.

Thanks guys, very helpful, as usual.

Tried to make something similar for my wife. Had issues with losing the inner definition of the twist when forming into a bracelet shape (I just used my anvil horn). Can you share your wrist mandrel design? Thanks.

Depends on what you are planning on making with it. As others said, if you don't need high carbon to harden for tools or knives or the like, you should probably try to use low carbon steel (10 series is good – say, 1030 or below; A36 in a pinch). If you do need high carbon steel 1070, 1080, 1084, and 5160 are all pretty forgiving. You can usually source 5160 from automotive spring shops (their cutoffs for replacement springs) for free or a box of doughnuts.

Thomas, agreed, as usual. I just couldn't imagine anyone using ceramic tiles for handle material. It is hard, brittle and difficult to shape without diamond tools and/or wet belt sanders, not to mention drill holes in and rivet. Most knife makers don't have those tools, and I can't imagine why you would want to go with ceramic tile handles when so many better materials are around. Of course that doesn't explain why I keep dreaming about getting out my glass equipment and heading down to Corning to blow some handle blanks... Think twisted, fluted glass handles. Totally impractical.

Cool legs, and congrats on the successful heat treat. What size is the anvil and how did you accomplish your quench? Just curious why you didn't bore a hardy and pritchel hole in it before hardening. Most of the striking anvils I've seen, including the one I've been working on for myself, have them. Also, it looks like you have welded multiple layers of 1/4" thick steel plate together around the perimeter. If this is the case I'd be interested in how it holds up to heavy striking without full penetration welds.

Be cautious. Some of the older floor tiling has significant asbestos content. I've been on a number of construction sites where the tile flooring had to be abated before construction could start. I would be especially careful of any flooring with a "chalky" residue. If nothing else a good quality respirator when processing, and encapsulation thereafter. Personally I'd just not use it, but YMMV.

Lovely, clean work. Ladder pattern is really nice, particularly in the clip, and I really like the raised head rivets and framed handle. I'm sure your friend will be thrilled. I certainly would be.

Heat transfer in a solid fuel forge environment is primarily by means of radiation. The white/yellow/orange... coals (of whatever source fuel) send their heat to the stock by radiating the energy over to the metal. Therefore if you have your stock surrounded by the glowing coals it will get hotter faster. Even if the fuel at the top of the arch isn't radiating in the glowing range, it is still radiating heat, and the taller heap of fuel also has an added effect of providing some insulation for the hot zone of the fire, which conserves on fuel use (the back side of the fuel arch). For coal fires one of the more optimum configurations is a "beehive" arch with an opening in the side for your stock to get heated in. Properly used it can also help with reducing scaling, by both limiting the amount of air needed and keeping your stock out of the oxidizing zone of the fire. I have not forged much with charcoal, but understand that it burns quicker (heat content of the material per unit volume) and sends up more ash. Typically slightly different forge configurations are optimized for charcoal over coal (as well as for anthracite coal vs. bituminous).

Nice looking forge so far. Pretty long though. Hope you have a power hammer, friendly striker, or are built-like-bull

If the furnace is rated for sufficient output I suppose you could flirt with keeping the entire gas train intact and just changing the burner outlet to one that is compatible with your forge. That could leave you with the entire safety assembly intact (though a standard Basso style pilot flame monitor won't work well for a forge). Might want to be clear on why the furnace was replaced in the first place though. I would certainly salvage the manual gas isolation valve, at least. Good luck.

Sounds like a great class. I'm ready to go back to school!

I'm going to put this very simply, as it appears we are not getting through to you: The most important safety equipment you will need is to have someone who already knows how to cast steel on hand to walk you through the process a couple of times if you are really planning on trying it. Thermal suits, Kevlar gloves, type 3 face shields, powered respirators are only tools to help that may not be effective in keeping you safe if you don't know how to cast steel. Most of us don't cast steel. The industrial process is well setup to provide superior materials at attractive pricing, and there is no reasonable way to compete on an individual scale, unless you are attempting to make inferior steels to show off the beauty of the impurities. That is a valid avenue, but Thomas's suggestion for making "scrap-mascus" or melting down existing scrap steel into a puck, which can then be forged, is a safer and more likely to be successful path (it also doesn't need a crucible and can be done on a blown air-charcoal fire...). Swords are not just big knives, they are vastly more difficult to design, forge, grind, heat treat and fit out correctly. If you haven't made more than a couple of semi-OK knives you may not be ready to make a sword. Please read the stickies and posts on the forum regarding this, I don't have time or energy to repeat them. While I think your goal of being a self sufficient weapon maker is laudable, it is also highly impractical and is unlikely to result in any kind of positive cash flow in the immediate future. I recommend getting a job doing something else to support your new passion. Adding making your own steel to the mix will most likely result in additional frustration. Imagine after working for a couple of weeks to forge and grind out your billet to find that you had a hidden inclusion that ruins the project. This happens pretty regularly to experienced folks who are only doing pattern welding or using blister steel for making smaller objects. The larger the project, the more chance you will have of a catastrophic failure. It is very unlikely that the mystery steel you will produce from scrap materials will be better quality than that coming from a mill. In any event it will not be a known quantity so a period of testing will be needed to develop an optimum heat treatment process to get close to the performance you will get from known steels. Of course this may not be important to you if you are only looking to make a wall hangar. It is also very unlikely that pouring out your steel into a form will result in any kind of efficiency in making weapons. The steel you make from scrap or raw materials will most likely need consolidation to bring it to the homogeneity that will be required for sword forging. That process will negate and advantage to pouring the material into a mold.

If you want to be safe, and your learning abilities are as described, I strongly suggest you take a formal class (preferably at an accredited school with insurance and an OSHA compliant shop). There is simply too much information to convey about safely making weapons like swords from bulk material to learn from videos and Q&A sessions on a forum. Hands on instruction will let you learn the subtleties, hopefully introduce you to shop requirements and practices, and give you an idea of just how much you need to learn just to take the first steps towards your goal. It will almost definitely be less expensive in the long run as well, as you will avoid costly mistakes in equipment selection, purchase and setup. Don't get me wrong. I've met quite a few fantastic young blade and sword smiths. It is possible, but hardly an easy path. Most of the ones I know have had direct, in person, formal training of some sort.

Very funny. As I recall you literally wrote the book on modern sword and knife forging and have just finished a lengthy series of stunning Japanese style blades.

Drop a 3/4" diameter ball bearing from approximately a foot above the anvil surface and measure the height it bounces back to (anything above 75% is good to great, anything below 50% is poor IMHO). What you pay for anvils is localized, as regards demand. A no brainer for me would be anything below $1/lb., but each to his own. If good rebound all over the face I would consider paying up to $2/lb., but I already have an anvil. If the seller is looking at e-bay pricing they may think it is made of precious metal. Prices there are quite inflated.

Suggest a hinged counterweighted ash dump instead of a pipe cap. Depending on what you are burning, that will make your life a lot easier IMHO.