Mellin

My first frosty t burner .

The gas is still good right

Made a 100g zircopax tile and a 100g cerium oxide tile today. I kind of botched the cerium tile as I think I added too much water, only drying will tell. With the extra mixtures I had leftover from making the bricks i coated parts of a foamy fire brick and fired the forge up. 20180329_225935.mp4 Kinda cool watching the patterns move on the cerium oxide patches. The cerium oxide turns yellow after it has been fired but reverts back to its Orange color after a couple of minutes. The black flecks I can either assume is contamination from fire clay or the actual brick melting. Mellin 20180329_225935.mp4

So I have been moving so I took the time to read threads and assemble supplies. Finally tonight I got out to the garage and set up my first two frosty t burners and rigidized the blanket on my test forge number 1. Picture 1 is my good burner at 10 psi Picture 2 is my good burner at 5 psi Picture 3 is the forge with my not so good burner idk psi Pic 4 is not so good burner at 5 psi Pic 5 is same burner 10 psi The first burner I show works better than the other but both seem ok. Maybe the second burning rich? The liner also looks like it was sagging but I fixed it while baking it. Will grab my scientific scale and measure zircopax and Veegum sometime soon this week and tonight I'm drawing plans for a correctly designed and sized forge considered just a single burner but since I started this one up I have been blown away. How hot should the mixing tube be getting on this burner? Mine got quite warm after 15 or so minutes. Mellin Here's the better burner burning 5 then 10 psi

Anyone looking into cerium oxide further should look at lapidary suppliers I have found 13 dollar pound prices to 10 in bulk 25-44 pounds. I am dissatisfied with having only 8 oz to work with so I will be ordering more.

You read my mind Maarten, I may even invest in a go pro to film my adventures. I'm assuming I will mess up a couple times and I hope 25 pounds of zircopax is enough retries but I will heed your advice by starting with making floor tiles and have everything fired professionally to cone ten then once confident I will continue with the actual chamber. my dream of a one piece inner chamber is probably not going to happen that is lofty even for project Prometheus...

I want to give myself a little challenge, what I want to do is to build a semi scientific instrument/ forge/ furnace. I am contemplating doing a single burner D forge with a Sealed pass through and a spot for a thermocouple to measure temp accurately my case will be made of sheet metal probably 18 gauge, behind that will be 2 inches of 8lb 2300 degree Kao-wool hardened with colloidal silica. I will then make a form or build the chamber in slab with preformed burner ports using a standard mixture of three percent Veegum t and ninety seven percent Zircopax plus aka zirconium silicate ( I use the trade name because that is what I bought). Unless I find a better available method of agitation I will use boiling water and a hand drill with a shear vane attached to put the Veegum T into suspension, as I have never done this before I will most likely use an induction cooktop to keep the water boiling as I mix because I want this stuff to work its best if that sound like overkill please let me know. As a final coating I will be attempting a mix that is cerium oxide bound by either Veegum or colloidal silica the dried ratio will be anywhere from 95-5 through 85-15. This will form the backbone of my forge. With inspiration from Maarten I will be attempting to make a floor plate that can be removed from the forge out of at least two different starting compounds the first being made from the same batch of material as the forge interior case. Floor plate number two will be made out of 48.5/48.5/3 Cerium oxide-zirconium silicate-Veegum t. A possible third floor plate could be attempted out of 97/3 percent cerium oxide-Veegum T however this seems to be a fully untested mix and could fail horribly. Having a forge capable of producing and handling temps upward of 2300 degrees would make that less likely. My goals in doing this are to create a long lasting small forge that is propane powered. Next I want to see be able to measure the performance of my burners and see how hot I can get the inside of that forge. This is my plan I will probably keep it mostly secret while its being built and post a full build and review. Any advice before I get started?

I want to explore a few different lines of this. For thin coatings Cerium oxide with Veegum binder, cerium oxide with colloidal silica binder, then I want to try a zircopax cerium oxide mix with Veegum binder as a brick.

Good enough reason to stop! I just realised consumer quantities are 20 a lb

Mike, Maarten I am really excited I found a patent on the use of cerium oxide as a highly emissive coating. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5668072 I really think it has potential the temperature zones are almost ideal, neutrality to acids and bases, ability to use pretty much ANY of the preferred RIGIDIZERS or Sodium silicate or veegum/ bentonite/hectorite as the binder. They also bring another technique up which I'm sure is common knowledge in the ceramics/potters world (but I haven't seen discussed here) and that's to use ethyl alcohol to alter viscosity I don't know if that could be applied independently to even the zircopax/veegum mix. This is what I do all night. I cant stay on one topic I just finished the forges 101 thread and was thinking about where I had heard about cerium oxide aside from the glancing blow mention of cerium oxide early on in the gas forges thread.

Thank you Mike for all of your help and thank you for taking the time to become the expert. I was told a proverb when I was young that goes along the lines of "it's better to be silent and thought of as ignorant rather than speak and be known as ignorant" like I said I should slow down and take my time more but it's against my nature.

No silicon carbide shelf I misread that paragraph.i am going to shut up for a while about forge builds I just keep proving my ignorance, I'll be back in a week after thoroughly rereading some of the important threads. While I'm gone here's a burner

Maarten please make a write up on your adventures I feel a little afraid to as I tend to jump the gun and make an idiot of myself. I'm the gag reel of incorrect forge making techniques.

Thank you everyone who has been helping me and I apologise for being that newbie who has all the resources but neglected to look into then thoroughly enough before starting. I have done allot more digging and found resources locally for getting the t burner built and getting a new efficient forge built. I even found a 12x24 inch silicon carbide kiln shelf locally for 50 dollars which I read is the holy grail of sturdy floors but it seems a little too big and I will never be able to cut it myself I'm still dreaming though. I love the burner and forge 101s however I wish they were more condensed i will probably take the threads put them into a word file and format it to a nicely paced read and I am looking for a copy of mikes book. I really would like to be able to incorporate the fancy kiln shelf to the next forge but without making an excessively large forge for my needs or exposing the shelf to the case with less or no insulation I don't see it happening. Thank you again for your time.

Thank you!

Maarten will you be doing forge welding on your bottom slab with flux, and if so do you believe the floor will stand up to the abuse.

mike I read through the section of burners 101 where the thread pitch variations was discussed, I should have thought that you would have already researched the subject. my only other thought is that based on the size and available threading on the actual tips really any of the options is not going to interfere until past the point at which it is threadable on the tip, hence my m6x1 thread tip screwing down all the way to the shoulder without being stopped. I used to go by the two turn rule when trying to compare thread pitches but that was evidently set on fire by these small diameter oddballs.

per esab/tweco

Alas by the time I tried to edit it would not let me, my fat fingers will forever tarnish the information in this post

I don't know if I can delete my previous comment or if someone could delete it for me but it should be tweeco 14 series tips have the correct pitch. Pipe goo I can get, however I also looked at the tweeco website and evidently the tips I bought come with a m6x1 pattern which would explain the bad fit. in my case I think its cheaper to go re buy the right part instead of buying a different tap to fix the problem. tweeco 11 series has the m6x1.0 pitch I bought these because they are shorter and should have had less cutting tweeco 14 series has 1/4x28 these are longer but have the pitch called for in the directions I will probably just eyeball my angles for drilling the hole in the tee maybe get a better holesaw

Pipe goo I can get, however I also looked at the tweeco website and evidently the tips I bought come with a m6x1 pattern which would explain the bad fit. in my case I think its cheaper to go re buy the right part instead of buying a different tap to fix the problem. tweeco 11 series has the m6x1.0 pitch I bought these because they are shorter and should have had less cutting tweeco 15 series has 1/4x28 these are longer but have the pitch called for in the directions I will probably just eyeball my angles for drilling the hole in the tee maybe get a better holesaw since

I picked up the materials because I am confident in my ceramics skills but I 25lbs of zircopax 1 lb of veegum t ordered 8 oz cerium oxide in the mail. The formula I am going off of uses 97% zirconium silicate, 3% veegum t which is easily formulated in grams and why I feel that the metric system is superior. I don't know how much water to add to the mix for say a 100 gram dry mix or how much cerium oxide to add or if it is even worth adding. I'm roughly going to estimate 3g veegum t mixed into 15g pure water, then into the zircopax/cerium oxide mix . I read digital fire on both sintering and zircopax and it actually has me really excited and confident.

Can veegum/zircopax be used in place of kasto lite 30? Will I have to follow a different process to apply this and cure/fire? Does this need to be formed and fired professionally to a higher temperature? Can cerium oxide also be added to increase its emissivity? Are there any other low cost additives that will give better performance? High Heat Refractory formula Zirconium silicate 97%, added to Veegum T 3%, forms a dense mold-able low shrinkage refractory. The Veegum will lower its rated temperature somewhat below zirconium silicate’s 4550 F rating; it has low thermal expansion ( giving terrific thermal shock resistance); it should be excellent for use as thermal tiles, crucibles, burner blocks, and for lining flame nozzles.

I just realized that I didn't include the pictures also the mig tip wiggles in the nozzle till it hits the shoulder is that normal?

I messed up when trying to drill the hole in the tee so the mig tip is off center. I will go pick up a new tee tomorrow. I went to every single commercial and farm supply and none had high pressure regulators with gauges so I ordered one and a quart of fumed silica. While typing this I also remember that I wanted a 1 inch ball bearing so I will order that too. I also took my die grinder to one of the cast iron 1 inch to 3/4 reducers and totally smoothed the outside but left the threads inside the flare. It is now small enough to fit through the floor and pipe burner mount I have. My next build will either be an 18 gauge d shaped 2 burner or I can use my old air tank.