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I Forge Iron

huntmaster99

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  • Location
    Missouri -St, Louis Area
  • Interests
    General Blacksmithing, Bladesmithing, Armorsmithing.

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  1. Ok so good to know, I did notice that looking on the underside of the firepot the hot part was about at the top edge. Alright so then what is the "right way" I see plenty of people using propane burners for this but ive also seen someone do this with coal and diesel. I can easily choke the air to a much softer blast. Another option is a diesel fuel burner which wouldnt be too difficult. I say expensive for the refractory from a position of "If I dont have to have it then its not a requiremen to buy it; I could get the materials easily enough. Now as for design of something specific for this ive seen many propane tanks in the 20-30# range used. I could line the tank with refractory/fireclay and then build a grate in the bottom of rebar or steal to support the coals. From the channel FZ Making Knives, unless theyre not being genuine, he uses a grate to expand the area for the air blast to come up through the coals with the crucible being set up on a brick chunk above the grate and it seems to work just fine. Either way with anthricite or diesel burner would work but I already have the blower for the anthracite. I appreciate a good ole trial and error, but if im spending some money on it Id like to go in knowing it will work. Once again I could just choke the air blast from the forge, thats a really easy thing to do if you think it would work
  2. Good Afternoon! Its been a bit since ive worked on the crucible steel/wootz project but im now starting to work towards it. However ive run into a bit of a roadblock. Ive tried a couple times now to actually get a crucible of steel to actually melt in my built up coal forge to no success. Each time I opened up the crucible (breaking one...) I get molten glass but no molten steel. Im fairly certain the forge can/does get to that temperature. My question is more or less how much time does it need to actually melt? Thats obviously relative to the size of the crucible and how much youre attempting to melt. Out of all the sources nobody really talks about how long theyre letting the crucible sit in the fire and full heat (that ive seen so far) except for one where he supposedly runs his gas forge/furnace for 3 hours straight. Im working with a #2 clay graphite crucible with about 560 grams of mild steel (1018 etc). Is there a way to check how long it takes or if its molten inside? Maybe leave a tiny hole in the top of the crucible so I can stick a rod inside? Im running anthracite coal in a built up forge with bricks along with a blower pushing aprox 360 CFM. At full power the coals are too bright to look at unprotected so im pretty certain im reaching forge temps thats needed. Just wanted to get input from anyone whos worked with this stuff before or knows anyone who does. Ive attached the img of the forge running at full power and it seems that about 7 inches of the coals are full white hot, if anything I might want to turn the air down. I ran it like this for about 15 - 20 min but im guessing since I did not time it. The glass melted and flowed around the steel charge but this was just glass bottle glass so melting temp is lower that quartz glass. Yes im doing it in my forge, I could construct a standalone furnace for it but this should be able to do what I need it to. Also firebricks and refractory is just expennsive and hard to get for me
  3. Hello everyone, Ive finally decided to pull the trigger and get a 2x72 after many bad words at my 6 inch cheap wheel grinder. But im spinning my wheels trying to find one that I like. I dont particularly ascribe to the stock removalist theory of bladesmithing and do many other things other than knives. As such I live at my anvil and not at the grinder so this is for an all around purpose. Ive been looking at origin blade maker and their basic frame as well as their dominator frame (it has tilt and a motor mount) Also the Diktator Toobinator, plus the Revolution DIY kit since I have some welding experience and a MIG welder. Does anyone have recommendations between these? Experience etc? Im planning on getting a VFD to conv 110V to 220V and have a 220V three phase 2HP motor. I just am stuck on the frame itself. Edit: Also VFDs that are also American/Euro made like the KB Electronics one... but doesnt carry the 400-500$ sticker
  4. I was trying to ask around the local places on my side of the river (Near O'Fallon IL) and its all about the same price. I even asked one of the local places that fill the big residential propane tanks and they still have the same 40$ price. Id have to check with Amerigas but their call number wasnt helpful. And for me to drive over to St Louis is almost to where the coal supply is. I was wrong and for members of BAM its actually 16$ per 50lbs bag. Even if I where to get propane for 2$ a gallon which is residential price it is exactly the same price per BTU. Im going to keep looking and ask around my neighbors. Maybe there is something im missing. Unfortunately I do have to drive to the other side of the river and the biggest tank my car can handle upright is 40#. Otherwise id have 2 100# tanks and drive into St Louis for the cheaper price. Also I have to think about the fact that when I inevitably move, the movers will not take propane tanks due to the flammable gas hazmat Gonna keep looking but I havent found a big gas distributor that actually offers a better price than 4.50$ a gallon
  5. So im running a twin burner gas forge at the moment, took the burners off the Mr Volcano hero 2 and repurposed them for this. So I am currently getting propane from a refill station since im using 40lb tanks but ive seen prices listed online for half the price of what im paying. So maybe I need to find one of those places that distributes to large household tanks and see if I can go to them. Not sure if BAM has coke but that was something I considered. Sounds like I need to call around and see what I can find out... its so far lead me to a closer and cheaper source of steel so heres hoping.
  6. So this has probably been debated many times before but I want to just get a general opinion from the community here. Not trying to say which is better. So at current prices: Propane: 4.50$ per gallon Coal: 22$ per 50lb bag plus 2 hours of driving. After my last propane fill I am seriously considering building a solid fuel forge to take a good portion of the work that the gas forge is doing. But im not sure how economical it is to run coal, in otherwords I have no idea how long 100lbs of coal will last since thats how much I could buy instead of filling a 40 lbs propane tank (holds 9.6 gallons) How long is sold fuel lasting, assuming good fire management and not leaving the blower on the whole time. Also how much does coal smell? My neighbors live about 60 feet from my house and im in the middle of a small town of about 3k. I could use charcoal and that shouldnt be offensive. Wanted to get some opinions on this as well.
  7. Good... whatever time it is (Midnight shift sucks) Anyways, ive taken a keen interest into wootz steel and am trying to lay the groundwork for that future project. Ive seen people get a crucible up to temperature to melt steel in usually one of two ways: 1 using a diesel fuel burner and the other being solid fuel. I can accomplish both but its a lot easier to blow air into charcoal than to build a diesel burner then the refractory encasement to go with it. What ive seen people do (and by people I mean FZ making knives on youtube) I basically stack up some refractory bricks just to hold the coals, fill it full of charcoal and blow tons of air up the bottom. This seems like an easy enough way to do it although I plan to do it with a side-blast design for ease. Without buying a forge blower I have an older blow dryer that could be used, people have been using those forever now. But my question is will that reasonably get up to temperature or am I going to need to do something crazy like hook my air compressor up and regulate the pressure so I dont blow the coals out. Thoughts and recommendations?
  8. Sorry to maybe revive an older thread, but I wanted to bring a source of info that may help. I recently have been doing some research and found a video series by Peter Burt on youtube where he goes almost step by step into the process of making crucible steel and then forging it out successfully. Even without having to do build a decarb layer. The specific video he says this in is: Wootz: ForgingTemps, 1st edition Its from a couple years ago and he has other videos on the topic including pattern development, and proper forging so that you dont wind up with voids in your material. Not sure if this may be useful since I havent worked (yet) with this material so I thought Id toss it up and see what you thought.
  9. So I went back to a youtube chanel I had been watching on wootz recently by Peter Burt and Ive managed to answer my own question. Seems like you seem to be barking up the correct tree Frazer and that there is a point where the steel partially liquefies before it melts kinda like a slush (I assume its the other non-iron elements doing this) and if you strike it during that time you get crumbling quickly which is exactly what I experienced with H13. If you let it cool after you realize you got it above the line then you can let it cool and you "should" be ok. Once again im referencing Peter Burt on youtube and the video is titled as follows: Wootz: ForgingTemps, 1st edition He has a series on Wootz from a couple years back that seems to me, a relatively new smith and never having made wootz, to be useful or at least a good stride in the right direction. Ill pitch it up to Daniel C on that thread and see if he can get some use out of it.
  10. So I have a question brewing that I cant seem to google-foo my way into an answer and youtube isnt helping here. How is it possible to overheat steel such that it crumbles as soon as you give it a decent blow with a hammer? I had a piece of H13 crumble in a similar manner, and after some asked questions I came to the probable conclusion that I overheated it and let it soak in the heat too long. Why can some steels get heated such that they sparkle and not have problems under the hammer, while some, if you THINK about getting it too hot will crumble. Another thing Im curious about is why people deliberately will heat soak a puck of Wootz steel (future project , need to crawl before flying spaceship though) for hours on end at forge-welding heats and then its perfectly fine to go straight to forging and consolidating the ingot? I originally thought it might be the carbon and carbide structures within that get too big in an over-heat soaked ingot... but yet this seems to be the EXACT process for forging Wootz/crucible steel.
  11. I was looking around and realized that Kast-O-lite is not an easy flowing type of cement and needs to be packed in order to have good stability and integrity. I need to line the interior of my forge 7"W 6"H and 14in long with a half inch layer of something to make my measurements line up. I had planned on pouring the material in between the Inswool and a inner form. Does anyone have any ideas to accomplish this or should I coat the wool with Satinite then make forms for the Kast-o-lite, fit them in and then pack the gaps? The roof would be too hard to do or at least poses a serious challenge, but the sides and floor would be simple to do. Thoughts? Andrew
  12. Perfect then thats what I think im going to do. As much as I like the safer K-wool from Mr Volcano it would cost me 38 bucks to line the design with the old stuff and 150$ with the safer stuff. Ill just wear a respirator. Did the math and it looks like the total internal volume is about 368 in^3. and ive gone for 6 in floor by 5 in high and 12 in long so standard length K-wool is a perfect fit.
  13. Good afternoon everyone, Been getting some of that good ole experience lately, things I should do and not do. But the short of the story is that i've been using a Mr Volcano Hero 2 for a few weeks now and its been good so far, got it too hot to look at without polarized glasses and even then it was borderline. Only complaint is the rubber hose at the joints to the burners melts too easily if you apply any sort of pressure (the hose drooping). The second part is the holder for one burner broke off so i'm running one burner. Fixed the first problem but the second one makes me want to build my own forge and after reading some posts here I think I can. Im aware of the volume vs burners and im going to keep the same volume the Mr Volcano has, burners have been great and saved me a ton of time and effort. Going to shorten it from 16 inches to about 12-13 and make the internal shape square. The shell will be 1/8th inch mild steel plate and ill attempt to make a swinging door of sorts, or maybe keep the tried and true 'slide a firebrick around' door. Its got 1 inch K-wool and a thin coating to seal that in. I want to get at least 2-3 inches of insulation and that be sealed in with a 0.5 to 1 inch of castable refractory. And then get some sort of reflective ceramic coating for the interior. I originally thought about using the high temp fire bricks for the floor so they can be attritable and replaced but saw that wasn't the best idea. Ive looked at the kiln shelves and those are a bit much for me. Could I cast my own shelf of sorts with a high alumina refractory? Also for the reflective coating, i've only seen ITC-100 mentioned. Are there any others to look at or consider. The shell will be 1/8th inch mild steel plate and ill attempt to make a swinging door of sorts, or maybe keep the tried and true 'slide a firebrick around' door. Can anyone see anything that is overkill or not enough? And if anyone has any tips and advice I'd love to hear it! Thanks, Andrew
  14. Thanks for the advice Frosty. Ive been spending a few hours calling around places in St Louis to see if there is a scrapyard that will sell pieces but I have yet to find one thats willing to sell to the public. Apparently there is a specific business license thats required. I will call around some auto shops and see what I can dig up, there is bound to be something around here with enough patience and persistence. Ill keep those pieces I have lying around for future use. There is a Pick your Part yard not too far away that has you bring your own tools and you can select from the various cars there, pull your part and check out. Im just not sure how hard it would be to cut off suspension springs, axles, tie rods etc off... or how safe for that matter. Trying to see what I can get like 1050 or 4140. Something with good carbon, will make a decent tool and I can learn heat treating. I do have a piece of O-1 I could use... If anyone in the area knows anything Id love to hear it!
  15. Never thought about that, but yes I did soak it for quite some time at a yellow heat or higher. Im still learning my forge and how much gas is actually needed to get the heat I want. I wish I had a press or a hammer but currently its attached to my shoulder and thats the best I have the money for. Sadly I cant get it that cheap, i end up paying about 3.40$ per Lbs for it and any other tool steel alloy I buy from them. If you have any other recommendations for places to source specific alloys then id be appreciative.
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