Old Crew

Tink I agree it looks good and it looks hot. if I recall your set up is blown. That is the direction i was planning on going at first. After I read and re-read Frostys Narb thread with all its helpful Info from him and others . I decided to try and go all natural no blower. I will coat the flame face of the next Drilled Narb and see how it holds up and how hot it is. I have all my supplies to build my forge now and know how I want to build it (small and sensible) Unfortunately I will be out of town most of the next 2 weeks so I can't play. Congratulations on your build and your Tinkering David

Dan I ran the brick narb in the brick pile for about 1.5 hrs today with the same burner adjustments as in previous trials. In my first run with only AP Green bricks in the pile it didnt heat very fast, so I shut it down after about 30 min let it cool and rebuilt with the k2800 at the flame faces. I then ran it with the taper part of the hole at the flame face for over an hour at different PSI. It got hot but not as hot as i felt it should. After I shut it down i pulled the burner at which point it developed the partial crack. Today I flipped the burner brick over and ran it for about 1.5 hours it ran better and hotter with the straight part of the hole on the hot side. After it cooled I inspected it, the crack didn't spread and there is no degradation to the flame face on either side. I believe that if the burner is allowed to gradually cool and that if it is locked in place into the burner plenum with castable that it might be long lasting. I will be drilling a new block and casting it into the plenum next. I am also going to do a run test on the current burner, let it burn for many hrs and see how it holds up even with the crack. As i have said I am a novice. In the last picture with the steel at a bright orange/yellow at the end I am able to work the steel (to my limited abilities). Is it hot enough to forge weld ? With the burner faced taper side in it didn't get this hot, the k2800 brick on the floor didn't get discolored from the steel. This time it was hot enough that those bricks had some brown discoloration on them from the steel. As for the IFB breaking down I had thought about trying to coat the flame face with ITC 100 or one of the home brewed coatings. Plug the holes with something which has been greased lightly and paint it . Any thoughts on coating your burner face , be it cast NARB or drilled NARB ? Any one tried it? David

I ran it for over an hour and it was very stable I don't think it is burning as hot as it should though. The interior volume is about 240 cubic inches. Very slight pop at turn off. This was at 15 psi. I believe I need to play with the tip length in the t-burner David

The first brick pile was with the AP Green brick and it took a long time to get up to temperature. So I stacked it up again with the few K2800 bricks that I bought and it was much better. Even with the partial crack in my burner block I was able to remove it from the plenum turn it over so the taper side faced the plenum and re-pack into the plenum with kaowool. When I light it outside of the brick pile the flames were not as stable with the straight sided 1/8 holes as it was with the taper on the burner face. Maybe the 1 to 12 taper ratio that Frosty mentioned in one of his posts? I am to inexperienced to know. I reinstalled the burner in brick pile version 2.0 and fired it up. It again had the odd harmonic noise but only for a minute or so before burning quietly. This was much faster than with the taper facing the burner side. I don't think i have the t-burner tuned quite right yet, but up to now I have just been tinkering not testing. I probably need to do some more research before i move to testing. I believe with a little more work the Drilled NARB might be a viable burner. It may just need to be perfected by one of the masters David

Dan Here are 2 of the same pictures in larger format . You are correct about the flame being inside the taper. I built a rudimentary brick pile forge and was successful in reaching bright orange with an old bull pin (1-1/4 headed pin with a taper about 7" long) which i proceeded to beat on with glee! The burner created a loud howl/harmonic hum while the forge was coming up to temperature when it reached temp the noise stopped. I ran it for over an hour mostly at 10 psi and It never burned back into the plenum. I ran it down as low as the gauge would read and then up at several increments to almost 30psi when I reached there the flame went out and even though the burner face was incandescent it would not self re-ignite. The burner assembly was simply resting on top of the brick pile with bricks pushed up to it. The burner housing / plenum was cool to the touch after turning the gas off, so I made the mistake of removing the burner. The face was still incandescent , I set it down on its back and soon heard a small pop. I believe the burner was thermally shocked from being removed from the forge. So i put it back in the forge. Several hours later when it had cooled i removed it and it had a small crack across one of the lines of holes. I believe that the 1/8 holes work like you said and keep the fuel from burning back.

Here is a picture after several minutes of run with the tapered portion of the office incandescent this is at 2 psi When I shut it off there was a very small back fire. I haven't built the forge(any forge-ever) yet but will continue playing with it tomorrow . I have a bunch of old AP Green fire brick so I will try it out on a brick pile set up to see how it does. The fire brick is set into the plenum and has kaowool packed around it for testing. the tapered orfice is facing the hot side. Do you think that It would be of any benefit to flip the brick over so the taper to face the plenum. Maybe accelerate the gas flow? Regard less I am stoked by my results!!! Bear in mind that I have never forged anything and am greener than a Leprechaun's balls! as regards forging

Dan and Frosty Your experimentations have set me on a path, the harder but more rewarding path. Yesterday I built 2 Frosty T Burners Today with 1 of those I test fired my 112 x 1/8" flared orfice NARB which I also built today. It is nor cast I drilled a 2800F brick Here is the drill bit I used. It was not long enough to drill through the 2-1/2 " brick with a clean 1/8 " hole but the shoulder had a taper. I drilled the brick and the pushed the taper into the brick which compressed and flared the top 1/4 inch. Here a couple pictures of it burning This at about 5psi another at 5 psi

My questions are : 1 Mike mentioned in 1 of his posts to use as thin of a kiln shelf as possible for the floor. Why? 2 In the forges 101there is a post stating the volume capacity of 3/8 and each size larger burner . Is this based upon standard burners Mikes burners or Frosty T burners . Are the volume numbers still applicable to Frosty or others NARB burners. 3 With forge shape above what would you more experienced Curmudgeons recommend for burner placement and burner type (still contemplating pine ridge burners, not sure if I want to build my own NARB or just build Frosty T burners) 4 What am I forgetting/ doing wrong with this design ? I am planning to have front and back doors and a chimney . Thanks for all of the info and research done by you experienced guys (you know who you are)! David

I am a Newbie as such I have questions. I am building my first forge. To preface I have some character flaws which stem from my background. I can be very anal about things at times. I also am a firm believer in more / bigger is better ! I have been a welder for decades , I have a steel fab and erect business . I am German , born in Germany raised in Oregon and have lived in Texas for the last 20+ years. To sum it up I have proper German anal sensibilities mixed with a large dose of "everything is bigger in Texas" Before I found this site I had started planning to build my first forge out of hard fire brick with a counter weighted and hinged lid so that the entire top lifted up easily the interior dimensions were going to be 12" wide by 9" tall by 36" deep. It would have a modest 2.25 cubic foot volume ( 3888 cubic inches ) with a removable baffle at 2/3 of the depth and 2 Pine Ridge ribbon burners 1 small and 1 large. I figured that would take care of all my needs with 1 Forge. I (my wallet) am VERY thankful that I found this site. Soooooo after reading all of the ribbon burner pages all of the forge 101 pages and many other pages from the burner section and others. I have decided that maybe the forge I was planning was to big. ACCEPTING this caused me PAIN , mentally , emotionally (as much as can be for Germans) and Physically, My stomach still hurts from typing it for the whole world to see! After several round s of denial and finally acceptance I was back to the drawing board. My round 2 thoughts after some of this helpful reading , was starting with a 16" by 36" tank lined with kaolin-wool and castable and D shaped with an elevated floor still with 2 burners. It would have a vertical sliding baffle made from 1" kiln shelve at the 2/3 point. This sliding baffle could pinned a certain heights if needed. This would have given me 1 chamber of 690 cubic inches , 1 chamber of 1380 inches and with the baffle raised 2070 cubic inches or 1.2 cubic feet. Still big but not Texas Big. After continued reading on this forum I found myself asking why so big? So after much painful down sizing I decided to draw another trough sketch and try to get some feed back. This is my round 3 basic shell sketch . I have a 12" by 24" tank as the starting point with the kaowool ,kastolite , K26 brick and kiln shelve I am left with about 30 cubic inches per linear foot of forge

Frosty I have been a welder for a long time and have a steel fab shop. That being said I am much more comfortable working with steel than wood. I believe the anvil I just got is relatively old and assumed it would look better/more authentic on a stump. After setting it on the stump the proportions don’t look right, too large diameter to work effectively. Even though it would look good on a stump I didn’t get it to display I got it to use! So steel tripod it is. I will be building a forge next and before finding this site had already decided to use 2 ribbon burners . I was looking at pine ridge burners. Last night I read some of the forge info and ribbon burner sections .It was info overload for a beginner ! You and others on this site have definitely done extensive research and have documented it for others benefit Thank you

Both sides and the back

I am near Austin tx I have inspected it closely from all sides and haven't found any markings. it is clearly forged from several pieces and it has good rebound. I have other close up pictures that I can post

I just got my first anvil and am hoping that someone here can tell me more about it. I have been a welder for many years but have never forged anything so I will be collecting and hopefully learning new [old] ways to work metal. here are a couple other pictures of my new anvil. I was told that it is a Bavarian armor makers anvil . When i first got it I put it on my welding table but it was much to high so I have started to make the stump base in the other pictures.