SeniorNugg3t

2 heavy pours of Glaze Coat. There's about a half gallon on the table top.

As I'm typing this, im standing here with the hair dryer waiting to kill bubbles as they rise. The tiniest of gaps in between the boards hold air and can ruin the coating.

On 6/6/2018 at 9:25 PM, Ranchmanben said:

Man, that looks killer! That style is right up my alley for what I like to make too. How is the top attatched to the base?

Angle iron cap press-fit just like the bottom. drove it on until it was mostly level. Drilled holes and secured the top with lag bolts, and washers in between as necessary to bring up level.

On 6/1/2018 at 10:16 PM, SFC Snuffy said:

Nice joinery! How heavy do you think it is altogether?

Bro... it's so heavy lol! I had to bring it in separately and put the top on it inside.

Most of the weight is in the base. I added steel to the inside bottom of the base plate for weight. Post is prob 185-200lbs. Had to bear hug it and run up the steps to get it in lol.

Thanks!

The top is lightly torched, hard to see in the light

There is also some charring from fitting the hot steel straps. 

Glad you like it. 

Planning on tractor seat swivel bar stools

No need to bolt it its plently sturdy with the added weight, plus it's on tile.

I have some glaze coat I'm probably going to throw on it tomorrow. I hit it with some more stain this morning.

I know it needs a coating because the kids with that first cup of juice... but I'm working up the courage to do it lol!

First forge project was the straps.

Top is butcher block  pine 2x3's run longways. Framed in 2x3x1/4" L mild steel

Center post is 6x6 ties. 

Base is 2x3x1/4" L mild steel with a big heavy 3/8" plate recessed in for weight and stability.

Straps are 1"x 1/8"steel flat rod. 

I'm working with a 55lb track anvil and a 3lb slege for now lol. 

On 5/21/2018 at 4:55 PM, Mikey98118 said:

There are two kinds of  decisions guys make: the kind that can be easily changed; or through the kind that ends up at "through it out and start again". There are lots of burner improvements you can still make, but none of them are vital. Your forge is getting hot enough and I don't see blue flames in the exhaust gases. Further improvements will only ease your fuel bill, so go enjoy your work. 

The next improvement you really want to work on is providing a hot-face coating to further protect your insulation and your lungs. 

Thanks Mike, Frosty, and others who helped me get going.

First project out of the forge:

Table post straps

I've got a long way to go lol

8 hours ago, Mikey98118 said:

Well, I'm seeing a pretty hot forge there. The next question is "are you happy or not?"

Yeah it's working good. I'm going to bevel the air intake slots like you said though.

I appreciate all the help so far gents!

On 5/14/2018 at 5:05 PM, Mikey98118 said:

That will change once you release the handbrake. You have already done way too much work to end up with a burner poor burner.  

Didnt get to this point yet, but backed up the flare a bit and recessed the burner into the liner a bit more. There is a bit of flare molded into the liner. The flame moved out to the flare. Ran it about an hour. the new forge design works well so far.

5 hours ago, Mikey98118 said:

You did not bevel the forward ends of the burner's air openings; that's like running your car with the handbrake on and wondering what's wrong. A  cheap Harbor Freight rotary grinder with a cheap diamond encrusted rotary file can fix that in twenty minutes. Bevel the insde surface of the opening's forward ends and the outside of the openings back ends.

Okay, I can give that a shot. Gas pressure does move the flame cone out to the flare end but only at really high pressure. Increasing air velocity can only help.

I did shorten the flare, not much difference, until I started getting flame-outs

Okay, got hot pretty quick on first firing. Metrikote turned a light ashy gray.

Flare is still getting hot and turns orange pretty quick. How can I keep the flare cooler and still have a good flame?

Just back it up some more?

On 4/29/2018 at 11:26 PM, Buzzkill said:

Mostly it's to protect the far more fragile blanket from both mechanical and thermal damage.  It's a little bit of a heat sink, but once hot it acts a little bit like a "heat battery" in that it stores some of the heat and will help bring your stock back up to forging temperature quicker than it would with just the blanket.

For the doors you may want to consider just using fire bricks that you can slide in to a channel or rearrange as needed for your openings.  A problem that can happen with steel doors is warping from repeated heating and cooling cycles.

Okay, got it. 

I had firebrick doors before. Thx

Got the front door built and hung so now the shell is all closed up.  IFB has been rigidized and metrikote applied. Mixed a little blue food coloring with it to show coverage. 

I put a heavy coat of Metrikote on it a few days ago. It's not as hard as I thought it'd be. Actually it's quite soft and kind of chalky.

Does incrementally firing it harden it more?

I'm leaving the back open and planning on just stacked bricks for the rear wall and adjustable exhaust vent.

It's rough looking still and I haven't cleaned it up yet. Pics coming once it's more presentable.

I'm well acquainted with them lol. I'd love to build one for a tow pig and swap an old 12 valve in it.

36 minutes ago, Buzzkill said:

Mostly it's to protect the far more fragile blanket from both mechanical and thermal damage.  It's a little bit of a heat sink, but once hot it acts a little bit like a "heat battery" in that it stores some of the heat and will help bring your stock back up to forging temperature quicker than it would with just the blanket.

For the doors you may want to consider just using fire bricks that you can slide in to a channel or rearrange as needed for your openings.  A problem that can happen with steel doors is warping from repeated heating and cooling cycles.

Okay, got it. 

I had firebrick doors before. Thx

Rework progress...

Okay, busted all the brick out. (2) 1" layers of IFB all the way around. Rigidized sort of. I ran out pretty quick, have some metrikote on the way. The floor of the chamber has hard split bricks that are replaceable over fire blanket. Have a beer bottle pressed in shaping the burner hole. Got some 1/16" steel sheet metal to closeup the shell.

Bought some heavy gate hinges for the front and back of the chamber and i'm going to build some doors. Have some more IFB on the way to line the doors. Trying to figure out how I'm going to make adjustable openings on the doors. Maybe use stainless pins or something. 

I'm sure I'm going to hear about something I missed. Fire away...

Question, is a castable liner more for longevity or is it going to up the heat?

I see forges running both ways.

^^^ super cool truck!!

20 hours ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

I've yet to get my M38A1 out there to see what it will do. Around the place it will climb a rough barked tree but I doubt it would compete with the real rock climbers some of the gang have.

An M38A1 with a good driver picking lines can go about anywhere. Plus the cool factor or those things can't be beat.  

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 11:21 AM, ThomasPowers said:

(must be what we sound like to outsiders when we get to talking smithing....)

LOL!! yeah man.  It's like being in a Southern California Starbucks. It's like a language of it's own. I'm all, "I just want a coffee...?"

7 hours ago, Hans Richter said:

Aluminium Silica mortar to connect the bricks and fill some gaps or line/cover future Superwool structures

So an alumina-silica mortar can be used to cover fire blanket?

So I found what i think is a good deal on some IFB and rigidizer on eBay...  also some K-Bond.

Are these good deals?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/201581718286

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263583477883

I think I'm going to keep the hard brick floor i have, cover it with some refractory, and knock out the hard walls and roof brick and replace with with 2 layers of 1" HTZ and button up the outside with sheet metal.

Is the K-bond going to work going over the IFB as a hard liner?

Do I need to do the whole thing, or just the walls and floor?

I was thinking of pressing a hard split brick that I already have into the side of the IFB  where the flame reflects off the floor. shouldn't be too much of an issue since I'll have an IFB liner and it should help my liner live a while longer.  

Thanks Das,

The CJ7 I got with a fresh reman'ed Jasper 258 in it with a rebuilt drivetrain (T-176/D300). 1,500 miles on a restore that had been done about a decade earlier and garaged. Bought it from a rich elderly couple in Emerald Isl. I built it into a functional do-all wheeler/DD. It came with the CJ D44/D30 W/T combo.  I soon regeared and built/locked a set of D44 waggy axles front and rear for the strength and added width since it was lifted and on 37's. I also took the Np435 (Ford 4spd w/ granny) that I had adapted into my Maroon wagoneer and installed it in the CJ7 as well. The wheelbase is stretched a little and suspension is outboarded on the Cj frame. Tire carrier is home brew as well.  This thing climbed and crawled like a mountain goat and still would run 75mph on the highway just fine but became more of a DD than I wanted after I sold my bike. I was putting 40+ miles a day on it and burned off the 37's driving to work with only a handful of really awesome wheeling trips on them.  I stepped down to 35's and drove it for a while that way but couldn't justify keeping it since my three kids are getting bigger.

The maroon grand wagoneer i bought while stationed in San Diego back in '07. 2nd owner-family to the 1st PO. bone stock with a worn out motor and a terrible case of wag-sag.  Not a bit of rust on it and the body was perfect. Lifted it and threw on some 33's and ran that way for several years. Bought the white '88 waggy one for the fresh AMC 360 Napa crate motor it had in it for $700 and parted it out. Built the motor up and swapped  it into the maroon '89. Then I went crazy...  stretched it, locked it, converted the 727 auto to the Np435 manual. That was all custom as the later model wags didn't have option for manual trans and the floor pans didn't have any knock-outs. sorting out the linkage took some good math lol.  The thing would do 4 wheel drive burnouts on the street but was SUPER thirsty for what it could do! I'll never build another AMC v8 again for that reason. Inefficient as all get out for the power it puts to the wheels. You can build a Chevy or Ford motor of similar displacement for about 75% of the cost in parts and have about 25% more power using the same amount of fuel. I mean if I'm pulling 8mpg, I might as well have the big-block power to go with it.

Yeah, I'll build up another one someday but honestly I'm having fun playing with my two 7.3 powerstrokes and they spend a lot more time driving than broke in the garage. That leaves me time to do other things with the wife/kids or messing around with metal.

Mowar jee pics!

Loved this CJ7. Recently sold to buy another house and fund some other projects. I've had the bug since I was a kid. I've had a couple grand wagoneers, so Cherokee, and yjs.

The picture with the hose... 

The forge had not even been fired yet and hose was placed on the cart to keep from running over the regulator when pushing it into the corner. When the forge is hot the hose is well clear and safe. When it's running the tank is taken off the back of the cart and placed as far away as the hose will allow.

Thanks, much appreciated.

HAHA thanks Frosty.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002OU2Y62/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I thought this stuff would suffice. I have a good bit left lol! 

Eventually I'm going with the ceramic wool insulator and hard refractory liner as suggested.

So I put in some work this weekend. Had the forge running for quite a while yesterday bending up some 1/8" mild steel straps. I did back up the burner a bit. I need to tweak the burner some more I guess. I was getting a lot of huffing once the forge was glowing. Upping the gas caused the loss of flame at the flare nozzle and was causing ignition at the floor. turning it down very much caused back-flame: really touchy. 

The refractory on the floor didn't last very long- 3rd use, maybe 6hrs total time. I used Meeco's Red Devil 611 (3000*) refractory to bond the bricks, round the corners, and a thin layer on the floor. The floor refractory bubbled and cracked off.  After construction I had let it all set about a week, then fired it up to a low heat and let it run a while before cranking it up.

The first time I really cranked it up I had yellow-white steel within minutes with steel placed in the hot spot on the floor and yesterday I could only get to a medium orange with a glowing forge and about 25% fuel remaining in the tank. kinda sucked and required a lot more effort with the hammer.

So, I'm not up for breaking out all the brick just yet... but I may have to.  Just wondering why I had yellow steel with the current setup and now I'm getting orange. A lot of variables I know, but just kind of talking things out...

Just trying to finish this project before i overhaul my forge.