HojPoj

Have you looked at snagging some old water heaters? If you have any welding capability they're a good vessel for retorts- especially the natural gas ones (with a tube up the middle). I'd seen a video of a build of a nice looking retort with one of the big heating oil tanks as the outer vessel, and a water heater as the retort vessel (oriented horizontally). The other thing I'd offer is considering being more imaginative with the outer container, you could actually build that using adobe/mud bricks and not be limited to the size of whatever metal thing you can find.

That's a good policy for a number of other *ahem* things, too!

Just catching that now, got thrown off by putting the normal aircrete recipe down before. (still bears stating though, since someone will likely stumble across this thread via the google since I've seen a recent uptick in videos of people using the stuff for *everything* under the sun :-\ )

I've seen examples of people making higher temperature flame things using aircrete, but they generally only post about the first firing, and no follow up on long-term durability (which will be abysmal since common Portland cement loses its structural integrity at forge temperatures). To date I've not seen anyone try to make a refractory aircrete mix. If you've already got the foaming equipment, try it out and report back. The usual way we do it is to add glass microspheres to the mix- they burn out and leave small voids (the same as air bubbles). A good way to experiment using the foaming agent with refractory mixes would be to make firebricks or tiles out of the stuff. Good for lining forges or use as baffle walls. Then you can make fairly small batches and test pieces that may be easier to run experiments on. Though to reiterate, aircrete that's used as a construction product is unsuitable for forge temperatures- it will crumble to bits in only a few firings.

My siblings and I are taking our dad on his dream fishing charter next week down in the Florida Keys. I knocked these out to give to the charter crews along with their tips. Would've been a lot cleaner if I had time to attempt forge welding, but i can say they all work.

Only thing I ever did with them was make very small box opener blades from them. The style was a Wharncliffe Blade profile with a blacksmith style handle on it. Just had to square up the head material, draw out the taper to make the handle loop, and shape the blade. Quenched blade in water and hit it with the belt grinder to put an edge on it. Wasn't meant to be a fine blade, just something to cut tape on Amazon boxes and the like. Also, fits on a keychain! Don't have any pictures since I gave away the couple that I'd made.

No such thing as an impractically small forge, just ambitions that are too big to fit in it!

All I could think of when watching that video was "So that design makes Damascus of my gas flow?" Diffusion in these turbulent conditions is appreciable, unless you need a very compact design it'd be cheaper to add another elbow and a little more pipe length... or just snip a few blades to put in the pipe out of an aluminum can.

Jwmelvin, Clayworks in Alexandria should carry K26 bricks. There should be plenty of places you could check for castable refractory (boiler services, etc.). Also, look through the sites for the refractory manufacturers, they usually list distribution centers for their products.

I've found that some of the local ceramic supply places just repackage what comes from a larger vendor, unfortunately a lot of the relevant data gets lost in the process.

Man, not to sound ungrateful, but the fact that those were scaled drawings would've been REALLY good to know in the post that they're contained in! I've been scratching my head on specific dimensions for a charcoal-fired JABOD for awhile now (specifically where the stock should be relative to the top of the tuyere) because I'm having limited success in getting decent heats with mine... I end up fiddling with it for an hour, get fed up with how slow things are, and break out the propane forge just so I can accomplish something in the limited time I have remaining.

Got some time today to try doing a couple openers again, learning more of what works and what doesn't. Some of the things I want to do would probably be made exponentially easier with a guillotine tool. Also knocked out a chisel that'll need some more forging to correct some mistakes, along with a couple small drifts. Annealed everything at the end along with a couple punches, figured I would do a heat treat session on Everything later this week. Oh, and two days ago I painted my forge. Habitat Restore had brake paint for 2 bucks, figured i would give it a try. Also patched some cracks in the lining and put in a kiln wash to smooth things out a bit and see if it helps. Jury is still out, though.

I was gonna say, around here the big taste on steel is 5 cents a pound when dropping off, and 30 cents a pound to buy :-/

That strikes me as less of a poker/wand, and looks more like what I'd call a short sceptre.

Which ones JHCC? "I could get along fine with only 4 or 5 tongs"? In some circles that's heresy!

Nice tenons, Ted! Yeah I'd say you're spot on about the proportions. Finally finished the set of Ken's custom iron tongs that I've desperately needed to complete. Having not made tongs before or doing riveting, there were a lot of firsts. Took a lot longer than anticipated, too :-/ my neophyte status definitely shows. Splitting the bits on the bolt jaws took at least 4 heats, not sure if that's normal or not.

Today is my birthday, and my wife got me a 7" Makita angle grinder. Thing sure removes some metal!

That's an absolutely lurvly handle! If you get the mandrel made, it'd probably be best to do the video showing both ways.

That's why if one were to buy a new bolt for the express purpose of forging it, Black oxide or visibly galvanized are the only things I'd touch. No additional work for a BO finish, stripping required for galv. Anything with a color is, in my book, suspect (which totally sucks because I have free access to lots of aviation mil-spec fasteners, but Cadmium plating is the norm on these, and stripping it still creates hazmat :-\).

As far as coatings, you can buy galvanized and then strip it with an acid bath. The other option would be to buy ones with a black oxide coating. That I recall everything else can be a crapshoot.

Nice, Ted! I had considered doing something similar, but would probably just make a loop on the other end instead of a hook- the hook seems to put asymmetry into a design that seems to call for symmetry.

I hope you at least post the STLs of THAT.

Was pressed for time, but made something I hadn't before tonight. Didn't have all the right tools and for whatever reason it took something like six heats to get the slit cut. Was using a JABOD with charcoal for the first time as well, and had issues getting the heat right. The eye ended up a little too large, but felt like a good first start.

As most of the steps are self-explanatory, the video seemed fine to me. I would've put the closing sequence up front to give the context for the subsequent work, but other than the exposure issues I've no other critique. I could deal with the music, though a song that's a little less repetitive would be nice.

Aside from the things that've been discussed to death on quieting an anvil, the only other thing I could think of would be to take some of the noisier items (compressors, pumps) and build a closet around them. Sort of the same thing for the grinders (make a grinding room, has the advantage of containing the dust), make a wall and ceiling with staggered studs, fill with dense (like rockwool) insulation. There are much spendier ways to do it, but that's a more affordable option.