Binesman

You realize you've been speaking to the author of that book and he has been telling you to please listen to the person you are ignoring.

Forge welding is an interesting thing. I've heard dozens of tricks from hundreds of smiths FAR better than myself. The best advice ive ever heard for it though is this. "Find what works for you and focus on improving that"

Do you use any kind of an IR? If not go get some plistex/matrikote/itc100. It will raise your max temp by a good bit and probably let you hit forge weld temps.

Ty Mikey.

As the title implies. I know the old rheal style burners where just a hole drilled in the side of a black iron pipe. I want to do pretty much the same and drill my hole in a black iron cap. Figured I would ask those of you way smarter than myself, if its a no no before I did it.

hit up your local farriers supply store. Not only will they be able to show you what they recommend and why, but also a lot of times they have piles of old files laying around they give away

sent you my # shoot me a text and i'll send you the photo.

or maybe I won't. tried loading it from 2 dif machines and it fails. So if you need the picture dm me and i'll send it that way but it takes 10 bricks for an chamber that is 13x4.5x9

I would recommend less castable for the sides and roof. There's really no need for a full 1" unless you intend to knock the crap out of the walls. As for the jenga of bricks it's pretty simple for the size forge you have designed. k26 2.5"x4.5"x9" your floor and roof is 4 of them stacked as two sets of 2 == side by side then your walls is just a single brick on the edge. I have some brick in the garage i'll go take a photo for you in a bit.

second forge is always good. I wouldn't even do a full inch of refractory btw. My personal opinion 2 1" layers of blanket and 1/4' layer of kastolite except for the floor put it at 3/4" to 1" Then coat that in a kiln wash. For forge length...why? there's no need for an 18" long forge for make an 18" long knife. The largest hardened item I've made (it was not any kind of weapon but a walking staff and only hardened because that's what the customer wanted) was 60" and my forge length is 12"

I think the next one will be some kind of a NARB.

do you have a way to fire the porcelain? or are you going to attempt to use the forge? I've been playing a lot with zirconium/boron/kaolin/bentonite some odd stuff called starlite and a few other things. All I think trying to do the exact same thing you are trying. none of it's worked. My next step is building a nice pitfire kiln in the backyard...cause why not have more ways to play with fire...and try to actually fire cone 10 clay and see how the resulting porcelain holds up as a forge floor. Of course now that I say that on here a dozen guys will chime in and tell me how and what they've tried in that regard and it will be back to the drawing board. but i'm still building my fire pit

Mikey will probably be along shortly to answer your questions himself.

few layers of kiln wash fills that in without worry.

Working on something like that for that very reason.

I would post a link but it would be pulled down as its to an ebay sale listing. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx There is a post with a link to a 66lb STEEL anvil for 115 with free US shipping.

green flame is RICH not lean. you are not getting enough oxygen. are you using a mig tip and if so what size. or did you drill your hole and what size? how long is your mix tube?

Lot of questions and 2 different materials. Starlite. I have made it. It holds up like a champ to heat. It does burn up. It would not work as a long term solution because as it burns it creates ironoxide and that pushes the heat away. So the more heat you throw at it the more it puffs up. And it drops a huge carbon deposit. I have altered the starlite. Do the exact same thing with zircopaxplus so it is pretty much just zirconium. The glue actualy provides enough carbon for the same reaction(I think its the glue in both cases) the difference is all that rapidly expandidng heat being caused by (I believe its called a black iron curtain) is getting sucked up by the zirconium so it heats up really fast and really hot

Fire starter. You cant vuild a forge from this stuff because of how it works. Fire starter. You cant vuild a forge from this stuff because of how it works. Here is my understanding of the science. Fire causes the carbon to start burning wich creates a black oxide shield that reradiates all of the heat almost instantly if zirc is there it takes that heat in and almost instantly vitrifies to porcelain(I blow out pieces of porcelain from my forge after messing around with this stuff) in other words it gets real hot real fast with some help from a fire. I think it could work great for you guys to get tour coals up to heat and ready quicker but again i dont use solid fuel so i have no idea how it could help

So here's the run down. I use Propane exclusively because I live in a yuppy part of a 100k+city less attention is a good thing. I've been playing around with a lot of materials and things trying to come up with a better refractory. One of the things I have come up with is a brick of starlite( GOOGLE IT)made from zircopaxplus(98%< zirconium) and just paste. While it is very fun to play with, in its current state it is of no use to a propane forge user. the reason for this is that the carbon in the glue burns up creating a blackoxide barrier. That carbon release realy jacks up a propane forge. However I don't know if it would harm you solid fuel users at all. and if you make the starlite from zirc like I did. That blackoxide barrier radiates the heat straight in to the zirc wich is highly refractory. I would have WHITE embers within a minute of firing. This stuff may be an amazing fire starter for you guys Can one of you test it out please. All you do is take Zirconium and mix in white glue until it becomes a dough like paste. you may have to work it some to get it to that point. but once there just tear a chunk off and toss it in your fire and see what happens.

It may get taken down as a sales link. however I don't know how to get an image of one without going to a site that sells them. [Commercial link removed] i run a connection from each tank to the Y connection on one of those then i put in a male to male connector then hook my 0-30 regulator and hose to it and run to the forge.

I've been playing with this xxxx all day. I'm out of glue my kids are out of glue my wood glue is gone. i'm getting ready to go to samsclub and buy more glue. here's the issue. the glue itself is burning as carbon. so you get a LOT of carbon build up so much so that it "pops" the zirconium seal and you get broken porcelain. Have you watched a video that shows how the couple in the video you linked made their Starlight into insulation? There is a better video for that from the guy who "invented" this LosTech. I have to say i'm glad you responded that way. I found this video last night and was like xxx. Then I spent the morning playing with it and again xxx. I was realy afraid I would post this and everyone would be like "oh yeah that's old news your behind the curve"

have you seen or played with this stuff? I've been using zirc/kaolin/boron with glue to make this stuff. It's pretty fun to play with. It will heat your forge up FAST but it is realeasing a lot of carbon as it does it. you get left with a very fragile porcelain shell then the center is just good spongey mats that you can rinse and repeat. I'm wondering if replacing kaolin with veegumT wouldn't allow it to sinter and maintain a solid structure. I have not clue how it will react to the carbon release however.

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0366-69132011000400013 talks about sintering porcelain (I believe the person using bentonite is doing this) it also gives a recipe to get porcelain at 1200C easily reachable by any decent built forge. I'm going to be playing around with this process as I think it is much more likely to work better than what we have been getting with vitrification (at least I think).

I like IFB but the price makes me reluctant. I am going I think to test the Z bricks out by casting them in KOL. I did the same thing for my forge but instead of brick I used 3" of blanket. with how well they seem to hold up to thermal cycling itself I think when cast they might be a great replacement for blanket.