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I Forge Iron

Micah Burgin

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Everything posted by Micah Burgin

  1. Micah Burgin
    The bucket was more expensive than the bag of concrete, that's why!
  2. Micah Burgin
    That's structural, sorry, should've cleared that up. Just going to be used to make the water cooling basin and the base, bricks and sand/mud/clay are the only things that will be near the heat.
  3. Micah Burgin
    Actually, I have a tub of kitty litter that I'm going to be using for the next one. XD I have a bag of sand, a bag of concrete, some bricks, and a proper tuyere with a valve on it, so the next one will actually come out pretty permanent.
  4. Micah Burgin
    Good to know! I'm going to be buying the stuff to make myself a slip-on horn and getting another sledge so I don't have to use our only one, along with a cross pein hammer, today, so I should be able to get the stuff all put together and mounted to a log today. I think I'm going to do a temporary mounting first, just to test out the system and make myself a horn, then I'll move to something more permanent afterwards.
  5. Micah Burgin
    Yeah I figured as much!
  6. Micah Burgin
    I have no clay, and as far as mud, it dried before I fired up the forge, just FYI. I realized that I should have mentioned it before, XD
  7. Micah Burgin
    Yeah, that just about sums it up.
  8. Micah Burgin
    Oh the cinder blocks were just because I didn't have a big enough pile of mud. Here's a picture to show you why I used them: The tuyere only protrudes like half an inch on the other side of the mud, and it was pretty fluid when I was making this, so I needed a form of sorts. The cinder blocks are exclusively to act as a shelf and stiffener. I even took the front one off. Also a lot of the things that look like rocks in the pic are actually bits of slag or charcoal. Anyway I need to make more charcoal for next time, so that's what I'll be doing tomorrow.
  9. Micah Burgin
    Haha! Yeah, well, I'm young and my knees will survive fine!
  10. Micah Burgin
    Seeing as this is my first forge, take everything with a grain of salt. I'd say that, since it heated up metal fast and easy, it works. Not much else. How I made my forge: Mud, square of cinder blocks, chunk of non-galv steel (Zinc is bad juju) that is tubular in nature, and then poured the mud into the hole in the middle of the cinder block square, made a hole in the middle of it, and pushed the chunk of no bad juju steel through to the hole. You could use rocks to make your circle too, though, so this is really a good on the go forge. I'd highly recommend pairing it with a splitting maul anvil! Keep in mind this design is not good by any measure, it gets steel hot well enough, but it does not hold in the heat all too well. That said, for the grand sum of anything from 0 to 5 dollars to make, it's incredibly effective for its cost. of course, I'm going to be making a new forge with some better materials and a nicer shelf, as well as putting it higher off of the ground and gating my air in. Pictures shall come tomorrow, it's kind of dark right now and I didn't have the camera out during the burn because I don't want to accidentally leave it somewhere it'll get destroyed.
  11. Micah Burgin
    It lived. Then dinner called. So, the mix of mud side blast forge and splitting maul anvil worked great! I'm going to need a proper air gate for regulating temp but that thing was cooking hot enough for welding and if I wanted to, maybe even melting! I got a nice charcoal mover and a knife blank in need of some serious post-forge dressing up, but it's only a quench and an oven away from being heat treated!
  12. Micah Burgin
    So anyway, made myself a nice side blast mud forge and it's dry enough for the first go, so I'll start a new thread with some pics and my first day's work.
  13. Micah Burgin
    Well, OF course, maybe asians are a better example!
  14. Micah Burgin
    Good to know! We've got a box of 20 mule team in the laundry already, just staked a claim on some of it for flux purposes. And I meant the plains indians, they had a better idea of it, lol
  15. Micah Burgin
    Thanks man! And in my expirience, the indians had it right with their old people. Best resource on earth!
  16. Micah Burgin
    Oh, good idea! I'll buy some of those cheap harbor freight ball peen hammers and make a reverse doming block too, should work pretty well. Thanks for all the ideas guys!
  17. Micah Burgin
    Yeah, I'm good with my mom as far as safety glasses, a sweater, and leaving the gaurd on as far as angle grinders go. I've gotten myself good on some hot steel already (Grinder hot, not forge hot, thank goodness) and I've had a third degree burn, not something I'm going to be repeating. I'll keep a wet rag around for grabbing and moving medium hot stuff, and my bucket is indeed big enough for the foot to fit in. and yeah, I've got a good bit in general shop, I know to dance when the metal falls! Not for me, I buy leather by the two pound bag of remnants whenever it's on sale. Nothing beats the real deal. But fiberglass welding blankets might be something to look into. Also, just grew out of a pair of jeans, I think I'll be turning those into some sort of chaps (Second skin over another pair of jeans, of course) and for the boots I'll just tie some leather to the top with a bit of paracord.
  18. Micah Burgin
    Yeah! I'm going to be working with an eight pounder with a hickory handle on it, and I'll be trying a log and some other mounting methods. I'll add a new topic on its viability after a few hours knocking around with it!
  19. Micah Burgin
    Electroplating may be your best bet. Problem is you need to make certain jumps, and electro is fundamentally limited to elemental things. I.E. no alloy electroplating. One interesting and easy way to copper-coat steel though is to quench hot steel in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar that's had copper sitting in it. you can also dry out that mix to get a concentrated crystal of copper oxide-y gunk, but I'm not sure if mixing that into water will have the same affect as mixing the afformentioned stuff with water. You get a leaf-thick coating of copper, and it's usually free of oxidization. Certainly looks nice though!
  20. Micah Burgin
    Yeah I'll check them, they're pretty similar to suede as far as the outside, but if they're no go on the synthetics, I have leather that I can make some chaps out of to cover over the tops and make sure they'll take the hot metal treatment in stride.
  21. Micah Burgin
    OH okay wasn't sure if it was a typo or an unfarmiliar term. I don't have an apron, but I do have combat boots, which are the only boots I trust with averting hot metal for long enough for me to get it off of said foot, a nice pair of leather gloves, safety glasses, etc. I'm going to get some sort of face-shield soon. As far as pants, are jeans good enough or are there some sort of chaps I should be looking at? Also, fire retardant aprons... I have leather to make myself one, going to knock that out before the whole hot metal hitting thing starts.
  22. Micah Burgin
    Ooh, that's very interesting. So just to be clear, the area is made out of gypsum dust, and when fires were burned on it, it would dry it to the point that water would cause it to harden? And yeah, water screws everything up. (Cue image from The Waters Of Mars Dr. Who episode)
  23. Micah Burgin
    FPE? For now, I just have a quench bucket that I can move so I can easily throw a couple gallons of water onto the coals. Last time I needed to use it it put them out nicely. I'll probably also keep a tarp of dirt for choking a fire. The charcoal that I made light easy but it also goes out easy.
  24. Micah Burgin
    I greatly prefer laughing at those people, yeah!
  25. Micah Burgin
    Yeah, I actually made his spot welder. The bits on the thing suck, if you're ever looking at making one, replace them with 1/2 inch copper pipe and end caps. Much more even heating and much less resistance. And some of it is just a version of an already-known working theory (His stick welder, rocket motors) and others are, indeed, completely conceptual. From what I've found, following his directions exactly is a good way to get burned.
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