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I Forge Iron

VainEnd84

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Everything posted by VainEnd84

  1. At Mikey’s request I am posting a build of my forge. This is iteration 1.5, I built the original a while ago and was not getting the type of performance was expecting and indeed hoping for. I will start with a supplies list and then get into some of the specifics as well as some photos and video of it running. The body of the forge is an auxiliary compressor tank, 9.5" diameter and 16” long. I cut a roughly D shaped opening in either end, and left the flap attached to on of the ends, originally this was supposed to support the stock, but I found that is served much better as a place to have a firebrick to close off the back. I then decided to add an extendable front stock support. The body is tack welded to a section of sheet metal which sits on the forge stand. The body is lined with 2 layers of 2600F rated 1” ceramic blanket, which has been rigidized and coated with ~1\4” of castable refractory, that is similar in composition to plistix. The floor of the forge has ~1\2” of a bubble alumina castable refractory, and the whole interior was then coated with a kiln wash, the kiln wash was supposed to add an additional hard facing layer as well as be resistant to flux, but it froze overnight after applying it and the layer crackled, so it has some small protective ability against physical damage it doesn’t do much else unfortunately. The burners are two ½” T-burners built (finally) to Frosty's specific specifications. ¾” run with a ½” branch. And a .23 mig tip that has been trimmed down, the mig tips are mounted in a drilled and tapped flare fitting with some pipe dope in the threads to prevent leaks. The flare fittings are screwed in the top of the pipe T which has been drilled and tapped to the same thread pitch as the threads on the exterior of the flare fitting, I used a steel washer as a spacer between the flare fitting and the pipe T as the threads on the flare fitting don’t bottom out and when screwed into the T would wobble. The flare fittings are then connected to gas rated ¼ turn ball valves which are connected to a common supply point by some very ugly if functional plumbing. I have a 0-30psi adjustable regulator at my tank. The burners are mounted to the forge using some 1 ¾” pipe that have two conduit locking nuts (one inside the forge shell and one outside) to hold it in place. I formed a nozzle on the interior of the forge using a wooden form(turned by a friend of mine) to hold the castable in the correct shape. While writing this the temperature here has dropped to -16C so when I fired it up for the purpose of taking some pictures and video, I wasn’t getting great performance as my tank started icing up pretty quickly. This is a video of the forge running, the first half is at 8 or 10 psi, and the second half is at 1.5psi https://youtu.be/j1j43lz2sEE Next are some photos of it running at about 3-4 minutes intervals, as well as photos of the thermocouple showing the temperature reached. The last photo shows the forge running at 1.5psi and the temperature it holds with in a 5F range. Overall, I am quite happy with this forge, it does have hot spots as it heats up but the even out fairly well as the forge runs. I couldn't get it up to its max temp, or atleast the max temp I've run it at due to the xxxx winter here. Here I have attached a photo of what it did to the jackhammer but that sat in the forge for about 15 min running at 12psi on a warm day.
  2. I have a copy of it somewhere, I could post it, but I'd like mr. Porter and one of the admins to give the ok first. That is assuming it is not too large of a file to post
  3. I certainly can do that, though it will have to wait for the weekend as I wont have a chance to get to my shop until then.
  4. I would, and I know many others will agree, at a minimum use ridgidizer on the ceramic blanket and preferable use both ridgidizer and a castable on it. There is a pinned post about the health concerns of uncoated ceramic blanket, but in short it will eventually cause silicosis and possibly mesothelioma, similar to fibrous asbestos. Another thing of note, I know nothing of industrial hydraulic components but ensure that they are rated for use with lpg, which can cause degradation of components that are not made of the appropriate materials, it is fairly caustic.
  5. So, I had been having issues with getting my forge hot and anything less than 15psi, So I went back through the T-burner thread and the forged 101 and burners 101 threads, and I rebuilt my burners and relined my forge. I made new jet ejector assemblies to hold the mig tip dead centre, my first ones were misaligned just a bit, and I cut down the mig tips a bit shorter than last time. I replaced just the inner most layer of ceramic fibre blanket and put new cast able on the entire inside, as well as casting a removable floor from a bubble alumina cast able, and gave the bottom a coating of a kiln wash ti increase the flux resistance even more. On the whole it looks basically the same, but holy cow does it work better! Prior to the rebuild I was getting up to about 1800F at 15psi, now I'm hitting the maximum temperature range of my thermocouple at 10psi, that's 2750F. Now it's a cheap thermocouple and cheap display, I probably spent like $25 on the pair so I wasn't convinced that it was all that accurate. Wellp, I was forging an oldish jackhammer bit in to a chisel and got side tracked for like 10min, also having forgot the my regulator was set to 12psi, because I was practising forge welding earlier. I took out the jackhammer bit and low and behold the tip is burnt xxxx near off, and melted a hole in the kiln shelf I was using as the back door. So I guess my forge does get that hot... now it runs at 1500F at ~1.5psi, though it will only run like that for about 7or8 minutes before the burners start popping and farting. And I dont dare run it higher than 12psi because I feel like I might actually melt the inside of my forge.
  6. Amen Charles, and SLAG that was very well writ
  7. Another question, did you test your lines for leaks before firing your forge? If not then you need to, had you moved your forge or line after firing it? If so you should check after each move or is easy to bump a line and break/loosen a connection. Glad you had a fire extinguisher on hand!
  8. That better be a beautiful cake otherwise that knife is going to put it to shame! Beautiful work man
  9. It's funny, originally it was going to be a small camp knife but I was careless while rough grinding and took a bite out of the blade do I had to reprofile it, and I like the shape better now, thanks for the compliments!
  10. Well I've finally done it, I made a knife, it is far from perfect, but I am quite pleased with it, the blade is 3 1/4" and the overall length is 7 1/8". It is made from an over stock tortion spring which I was told was basically 1070 with added chromium. The handle is ipe and leather with 1/4" copper pins. The blade was sanded to 600 then gun blue was applied and sanded back at 1200 to give a slightly darkened appearance to the steel.
  11. While I have never used these for making micarta, I have used them for other applications, I would recommend Envirotex-Lite, or a polyester resin. Envirotex lite is stronger but sometimes has slight yellow tint once hardened. Polyester resins such as Castin' Craft hardens crystal clear. There are other epoxy resins that harden clear but you'd have to check the specifics for each. I should clarify that not all polyester resins harden clear, some, like bonds fiberglass resin, harden with a distinct dark color. So check the brand.
  12. I don’t know why, probably because I’m over exhausted, but his made me picture a tall skinny pear playing a small pan flute ... I think I need to go to bed.
  13. As someone who practices Historical European Martial Arts, I can really appreciate the quality and design of a beautifully crafted blade such as this, it’s proportions look darn near perfect!
  14. Reducing viscosity does not increase the depth that oil penetrates, it reduces the amount of time needed for oil to penetrate but not how far into the wood it can go. Capillary action only does so much, there comes a point when hydrostatic pressure balances out with the pressure of the small amounts of air and water moisture that remain in the wool, a solvent can not counter this.
  15. Inwould like to add something to this. Adding turpentine or any other thinning agent to BLO and the like actually does not make it penetrate the wood better, that is a myth. In terms of the chemistry, turpentine only makes BLO less viscos, is moves the molecules farther apart, it does not and can not shrink the size of the molecules. It is the size of the molecules that determines how deeply the oil can penetrate into the wood, the only ways that I know of to increase penetration is to allow for longer soak time, stick the wood in a tub of oil and let it sit, or to put it in a vacuum chamber and draw the air out of the wood, then releasing the vacuum and causing the oil to be pulled in. Hope this helps dispel any myths about turpentine making oil penetrate deeper/better.
  16. @Canlib all of your questions have been answered in the Forges 101 pinned thread, I suggest and others will too, grabbing a drink or three and some snacks and reading through that thread. Good luck and hammer on!
  17. Check out pottery supply house psh.ca I believe, they are Canadian and they sell ceramic blanket by the foot
  18. A local blacksmith had purchased one of these "forges steel" ones, they also had another design that was "cast steel" and came in three weights 30, 60, and 120 lbs I believe. This one was OK, the hardie hole and "pritchel" hole were drilled only part way through, the face was decently hard, but it only had about 60% rebound. The other cast steel ones were better, with the hardier and pritchel running through, and they had about 75% rebound. They were no where near the quality of better manufacturers, and for the price the NC Anvils are still a better deal in my opinion but they are not bad and actually do seem to be made from steel rather than cast iron. Hope this helps! A note on the price, I've notice in Western Canada that anything under $6 a lb is a deal now, many anvils are going north of $8 a lb. Mostly because of the "art" market, it makes me grumble with disappointment when ever I see one.
  19. Well, yeah I guess they would be tangs ... now I feel kind of silly
  20. I will be bending the arms (not sure if that is the correct term) The blade is about 8" long and each arm is 5 1/2 inches.
  21. This is my first ever bladed tool, have never mad a knife or anything meant to hold an edge but I have need of a draw knife so I figured why not just make one! It is forged from a portion of leafspring off of a ford raptor. Not knowing exactly what type of steel it was I cut a small piece and heated it to forging temperature a few times giving it a few hits with a hammer each time, then normalized x3, then heated until non magnetic (my high temp thermocouple hasn't arrived yet) and quenched in mineral oil. It hardened to the point I could snap it in a vice with a very light tap from a hammer and it showed a very very fine grain. This all seemed to point to it being reasonably quality carbon steel and that my heat treating process was sound, on to forging! it is about 1/4" thick along the spine, and I have hand hammered the bevel to a relatively consistent point. I did three normalizing cycles and this is the product so far.
  22. @edennis I think Wayne is talking about the space between the internal insulation and the fire brick door, it does look like there is one which would cause a pocket to heat rapidly and cause the top bracket and shell to heat up that much
  23. Do Canadian suppliers of materials for building forges check out front step forge (located in Edmonton Alberta) they have a website and the owner sells some of the materials needed to make forges, he also sells forges, pottery supply house is a solid choise for the ceramic wool blanket.
  24. I tried using a 1/2" pipe cross to build a "T" burner and found that it could not be tuned properly, you simply can't get enough air, I suspect if you machined out the inlets so their internal diameter is the same as a 3/4" pipe T that that would solve the issue but that requires access to a lathe. I also tried using a 3/4" pipe cross and a reducing bushing so I could go from 3/4" to 1/2" but it creates a great deal of turbulence and an unstable flame. I suspect if you could get a properly machined reducer with a smooth taper this issue would be solved but that would require some very good machining. If there were reducing pipe crosses on the market that too would solve the issue but I have not been able to find any anywhere. I contacted a machining shop near me who could manufacture the part but the cost was about $300 and for that I would rather just buy an already machined and finished burner.
  25. I certainly am planning on making an internal wall. I have some soft fire brick, the 1" kiln shelf, and some left over ceramic blanket and refractory, what would you suggest I use for the internal wall?
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