Charlotte

With the right sized tip and clean decent metal it is possible for the skilled to turn off the fuel gas and continue a cut with just oxygen. That is really the secret of oxy propane cutting. The oxygen is the cutting agent not the fuel. However, that is kind of a stunt that old timers pull just to remind noobs that there is still a lot to learn, Can I do it? Only when the phase of the moon and the set of wind is in my favor. Still I like a clean cut that I get with propane as fuel,

If you go to their website and dig down they list both acetylene and Propane propylene (alternate fuel gases) for the pipeliner. I just checked that this afternoon before I posted. I was going off an old piece of advertisement when I started to post and then checked the current number just to be sure.

To follow up on Frosty's comments. I totally agree with his opinion. I neglected to mention that Harris products is now owned by Lincoln Electric. So if you find a Lincoln dealer you will find Harris. Btw 4403240 is the Harris number of their Pipeliner Outfit. Good for Propane and Propylene. As I said Victor will work but Harris is better designed from the start,

Most of pieces are the same as acetylene torches. Look for someone that is dealing HARRIS brand. They are a company that has specialized in Propane/Oxygen torches and equipment. I use Victor only because that is what my company sold when I was working there. The differences in Victor were at that time : Duel fuel hoses with end connections the same. The orifice and mixing equipment for cutting/ and brazing, and heating. The handle bodies were the same. Essentially all I had to do to switch between propane / blazer/ MAPP/ and acetylene, once the hose was changed, was to swap the flame end connections. ,

Hello everyone, Thanks to all of you have taken the time and energy to make poppies for the Ypres 2016 Event. We are in the process of setting up an online crowd funding campaign and one of the perks which we would like to offer someone who donates at the 250 British pound level is the chance to spend half a day (4 hours) with a blacksmith. The British smiths have signed on for this and I am asking if there are individual smiths or blacksmith groups here in the US who would be interested in offering their time and expertise. My thought is that this perk would be open for use from the end of this summer until the end of 2017, about a year and a half. If you think you as an individual or your group might be interested please send me your name, contact info, where you are in the US. We are trying to get the site up and running by the beginning of April. Please let me know by March 28 if you are up for this! Please, feel free to send me any questions you may have and I will try to get answers for you. thank you, Kate Dinneen 785-979-0619 kld310@earthlink.net

Oxy/propane for cutting/heating/brazing. Welding supply companies really are the place to go for a proper setup. Pressures, gauges, drill sizes are quite different. Personally, I find is a little slower to start with propane but I think I get cleaner cuts. My company used to fill liquid oxygen dewars for people engaged in scrap cutting. They used propane tanks and oxygen to do their cutting.

Mickey sorry , hard fire brick is essentially transparent when you run the equations. I was not talking about insulating castable. The point being that the use of Kast-o-Lite is not the subject of the discussion. Hard fire brick as a floor is a heat storage thermal mass. Oh and btw It as the refractory Manufacturer's Engineer that run the calculations and we looked at a several different compositions of Hard Brick and insulation configurations. When you look at heat capacity of brick the differences between insulating brick and hard brick vary with the weight not the area. My personal build is hard brick floor with satanite coating over layers of inswool. Interior is insulating brick covered with Satanite surrounded by layers of inswool. Why Insulating brick? It is easier to shape and easier to replace than cast in place refractory. It lasts a while if protected from direct contact with hot gas by mortar. I have followed Frosty's suggestion of using kiln shelf over the floor and found it works well saving wear and tear on the whole operation, And no I don't do pattern welding so my gas forge rarely gets to that temperature.

Now that is the only deer head that I would mount on my wall!

Read the stickies marked with green at the top of this forum section. Then we can talk. From what I can see and from what I read You are not on the same page as the other people who want to help you.

My experience, and with the obliging help of an engineer from a refractory manufacturer, I learned that High mass refractories are essentially transparent when looking at heat conduction. That is if one side is at 1400 deg F the other side will be at the same temperature. There is a benefit in having hard brick or cast refractory as the floor and else where in a forge. The primary benefit is durability and stability as well as resistance to welding fluxes. The benefit of Hard brick mass happens this way: When cold metal is placed in a hot forge the temperature of the forge drops. The metal absorbs the radiated heat heating it and some of the convection heat surrounding it. The Hard refractory continues to radiate heat and the convection of the hot gas picks heat from the brick so the total temperature drop is less and the temperature recovers more quickly. My conclusion was>>>> Surround the hard refractory with layers of toughened blanket. Only use Hard brick and cast refractory in areas where direct flame or welding flux will cause problems. The Insulating blanket and the Hard Refractory should be sealed with a coating to prevent the High temperature carbon monoxide present in the forge from attacking the material. ( note: Reading technical literature in refractory publications indicates that Carbon Monoxide at high temperatures shortens life expectancy of some materials) Final word: This is my understanding and my belief. You will have to take the advice of others and follow your own thinking.

Seconded and Raised by an OH! MY!

You do as well as a friend and church member I talk with quite often. He is a PHD. teaching in an American university. English is a peculiar language with so many borrowed words that many American speakers don't use a vocabulary above that of a 12 year old.

Bronze is sold by the pound so it costs what ever the market is in metals. As a life long do it myself and cheap out the commercial profiteer practitioner I sympathize with your ambition. In this case I tend to believe that buying the material all ready prepared would be the better choice. Preparing alloys and then casting them is not for the craftsperson in a hurry I've been told. If you decide to go the casting route check http://www.atlasmetal.com/silicon-bronze.php is the place to go. Your instructor will thank you as I'd guess that he has had experience with casting silicone bronze. The friends that I have working in bronze casting rely on them for material. They sell silicone bronze and other copper base alloys as ingot or casting shot and cubes Min Order is like $ 25 which at todays prices takes no time to reach for any about of copper.

That was my thought. Silicone bronze is available in sheet form and is TIG weldable with argon although I would use low temp silver solder and use corner ornamentation to assemble from two sheets top and bottom. (Think two sheets of metal with corners cut so sides fold in to make the vertical corner.) A little chasing and you have your box.

Looks very nice

That would make sense for lapidary work. What about sharpening the blades of powered shears They need to critically flat to work properly.

Back in the day................ Actually not that long ago to me but 1964 to you I worked running annealing and heat treating furnaces for a company that made boiler tubing for nuclear plants, and steel tubing that was used to manufacture bearing races and gun barrels. We used thermocouples and manual control to do the whole thing. So Latticino's suggestion is a very good one.

I have seen demonstrations using fireplace repair cement. If you research this site you will find a number of different opinions on what is best to use.

Latticino , thanks for the link. It improves on the information that I had on the steel.

Main thing in electro plating is to get surfaces clean. Not just soap and water clean but chemically clean. This involves stripper solutions and different steps depending on what your terminal goal is. I worked for a very brief time in an electro plating unit. ( I left when I realized that the only thing between me and death or serious disability was my own and my coworkers awareness of the dangers involved #Before OSHA#) You can do a semi job of throwing some copper on Iron with out much effort. but any thing more is serious study and a little expense.

hh1341 I do apologize to you. It has been a long time since I visited Blacksmiths journal. I did not know that it ceased publishing in 2010. At one time DVD were available, or at least that is what I remember. I did have those issue in paper back in the day but I gave them to a now defunct group when I divorced.

Everything about that is masterful. No, praise I could offer would do it justice.

Settee is the word that I would use. It is what occurred to me. However, that word is not commonly in use in North America. That is very nice work Dictionary def: A seat or bench with a back. I remember seeing similar benches in the entry way of wealthier relatives old homes as a child.

They have all issues in disk.

Fireplace materials are in general not suitable for forge materials. Hang around and READ all of the stickies and the various threads on gas forges and their burners before you start planning your forge. The very first question you will want to answer for your self is "Exactly what do I want to do with this forge" The second question you what to answer is: "Who lives within easy driving distance that is blacksmithing" You need to post your location. There are possibly people that chat here near you. There are state and national organizations with members around the world. One of those may be able to give you access to smiths that are using gas forges. Oh ! Welcome to IFI