Erich Syzygy

Indeed. Or, like the root beer!

Former chemist, here. pkrankow- I imagine you got a lungful of vinegar vapor with a little zinc acetate particulate. I could see that there would be a vapor plume that you would walk into if the jug was near the door that you entered the garage by. But, such a strong personal reaction would be unusual; I'm guessing you are sensitive to it or there was some other leftover material in the bucket. The chemical reaction is not a vigorous one. On the plus side, you were probably protected from catching a cold for a couple of days. Hydrogen is produced by the hydrochloric acid (muriatic) attacking the metal and leaving H+ ions and metal chloride left over. The H+ (and some spare electrons from the reaction) get together to form H2, hydrogen gas. SAFETY TIP: Always pour acid into water, not the other way around. Diluting acid produces a surprising amount of heat, enough to boil water. If you pour the water into the acid it may micro-boil and thus spatter acid around. Whenever I need to greatly dilute concentrated sulfuric or hydrochloric acid I consider pouring it over ice. Re: horticultural vinegar- never heard of it before, great news! Nothing controls horsetails like vinegar.

I'm noticing that there tend to be two holes to bolt down the grate on forges like these. For this one, I would say the holes at 10 and 4 are for that. The two holes at the base of the spade may be for the blower. It may be off center to allow more room for the blower underneath the forge.

I had a forge like that, and the grate looks almost the same. The bottom, however, was flat.

And here are the pics: Here is the grill: The bowl: Some black piping: The concept:

Hello! Another new smith arrives, and seeks advice on a new forge! I have a forge a lot like what Mike started a new thread about recently. You can find an example of it around page 8 in the gallery, "First Forge". I mangled some rebar passably well until it self-destructed. One problem is that the bowl cracked from the edge to about 2/3rds of the way to the center. Prowling around the junkyard, I found a rusty, used Crown Verity BM-60 grill. It's basically 2' x 3' x 3" tray on wheels. Here is my plan: Take the bowl (tuyere?) and tie the crack together with some steel stripping and bolts. It's in good shape otherwise, the bowl doesn't wiggle or move when I hold it. I suspect that the banding will do little more than assure me that I've done something. Then, I cut off one bracket underneath the bowl so it can sit flat in the grill. A hole is cut in the grill to run some black pipe down for air intake and ash output. I have 4 hard firebricks that I can place in or around the bowl to give me a bit more depth. Air will be a hair dryer with a dimmer switch piped to a T-joint in the middle of the black pipe. That will fill up about half of the grill. I don't know if I should put come clay in any of it, on the bottom of the grill perhaps to make the bottom more durable to shock? I'm also thinking about putting two bars of flat stock that run the length of the grill to give it a bit more strength. I would like to anchor the bricks somehow. If I put them outside the bowl, I could anchor them in the clay, but that wouldn't really add any height. Photos to come.

Hello all. I'm not sure that it is the exact same one, but I had a forge much like it. The small nub with a hole on top is where pivot of the handle sits. A rod connects the far end of the handle with a triangle gear. The gear rocks back and forth as the handle pumps up and down. The triangle gear meshes with a gear on the flywheel axle. This gear has a slip, so it turns the flywheel only when it turns the correct way. The flywheel drives a belt that spins the blower's axle. When I look at the last picture, your triangle gear looks broken. The teeth and the nob that connects the gear to the handle is missing too, I think. Actually, now that I look closely, I think it's on backwards as well as broken. I also don't see any gearing on the flywheel axle, but there aren't any real obvious gaps where I would look for it. I had a picture of my assembled one before it started to self-destruct. I'll see if I can find them. Erich