Hey guys I'm just a guy who's looking to pick this up as a hobby in the NW Houston area. My experience with metal is limited to melting metal in a coal foundry and a little bit of welding, but I'm fairly committed to starting this up. I've started a little work before I posted here, and I've lined a coffee can forge and a small trash can (for a foundry) with ceramic fiberwool and rigidized it with a colloidal silica/water mix. For the coffee can forge I only used 1" of fiberwool, will this work still? I used 2 inches for the foundry though. Perhaps I should have posted first, but I ordered some (55lb) PliCast LWI 26, an insulating refractory which was easily available and within my budget. It's rated up to 2600F, does anyone else know or have used this material to see if it works well? Ah well, since I've ordered it I'm gonna use it. Anyways, I plan to do a 1/2" lining with that on both the coffee can forge and the trash can foundry.
Since I have enough surplus fiberwool and presumably refractory, I'm planning to build a smallish, but larger than the coffee can, forge. Here is my plan so far. I'll make a flat bottom forge with a slightly arched roof. The width of the forge looking from the opening will be 11", and the height of the walls will be 8" before the arch begins, which will have a rise of about 1 1/2" above what the walls give it. The length of it I plan to be 12 inches. With the 2 inches of fiberwool and half inch of refractory lining on every side, the inside dimensions would be a length of 12" (~10" if the back is shut), a width of 6", and a height varying from 3 inches on the sides to 4 1/2 inches at the middle of the arch. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!
For an anvil I have both an ASO from Harbor Freight and a rr track both on their own stands. When I got the rr track from a friend a horn was already ground into it and mounted horizontally so I don't have too much of an option to make it vertical. I also have a cross pein 3# from harbor freight as a hammer. I plan to start making chisels/punches/tongs and eventually make a knife. Still working on a source of steel, I'm gonna visit machine shops and see if they'll give me cheap scraps and visit junk yards to see if they'll let me poke around and buy scrap as well.
Anyways, hi!
