Frosty

The flame is nicely shaped, looks good to me. how are you controlling the pressure now? That's obviously not running straight tank pressure. Don't use the tank valve to control the flame they're not designed for it. Propane will damage the seats being forced through the narrow space. Tank valves are designed to close and not leak, NOT regulate pressure or flow volume. You can get away with it for a little while but it WILL make the valve leak instead of close. If you can't find a regulator use a needle valve till you can. On your next burner build don't use galvanized for the tube. When it gets hot enough the zinc will burn and zinc oxide smoke isn't good to breath The stuff is downright BAD for you. Frosty The Lucky.

A two handed, compound lever gripper squeezer? Sorry, I couldn't resist. I can see how it works and mechanically what it does but have no idea what it's for other than to apply some serious gripping power through the claws. Frosty The Lucky.

Studying journalism are we? Frosty The Lucky.

I prefer 1/4" flare to 1/8" male pipe thread. (MPT). I can't say for sure from the pictures but I THINK the bottom one is what I use, it needs the compression nut. I"m not sure what the top one is but the one side doesn't look to be MPT. Do you have the labels or even the receipt to describe what you got? I could make a more educated guess if I knew what I was looking at. Frosty The Lucky.

It's been quite a while since I read Larry's FB page, just a couple weeks after the fire. I remember him saying his partner was going to take up making tongs but I got the impression it was till he got back up to speed. That was quite a while ago though so my memories are not only bad they're really out of date. Whatever he decides to do I'll be pulling for him. Frosty The Lucky.

You better be careful Das you'll get your wrists pinned! Frosty The Lucky.

Did you do a web search using those terms? Just reading the headers in the hits I see it's a phosphate bonded high alumina refractory. Without reading in depth it sounds like a great forge liner. Both phosphate and alumina are very much caustic resistant at high temperatures meaning it's very resistant to forge welding fluxes. I'd be thinking about using it for an inner hard refractory liner and insulating around it. Keeping the blanket OUT of flame contact altogether is a good thing. Do some reading about the product and see what you think. Consider it's working range and failure range. Consider application or how much hassle it is to use or work with. And of course price and availability. Frosty The Lucky.

Man I LOVE these things. We all owe you a serious vote of thanks for opening our eyes Charles. Frosty The Lucky.

Don't sweat it's to shrink the volume, enlarging it not so. Rex make's burners, better than mine but mine are easy to make and cost in the $10.00 ea. range. Okay, that's not a plug, the one you bought will work fine. Ron tends to be enthusiastic reviewing burner designs other than his. He's a good guy. Nice anvil stand, the only suggestion I'd make is to raise the top band an inch or two to form a lip so you don't have to do anything fancy to keep your anvil put. The space between the feet is a handy place to set hand tools you're using. Putting hammer rack on the stand is good too. The anvil is where you're going to use your hammers so being able to hand a couple few you're using on that job right on the side of the stand is handy. I hang my tongs from the forge for the same reason though my anvil stand has a tong rack on the far side I almost always reach for the forge tong rack. Once you become proficient you'll start speeding up and believe me efficient blacksmithing means going fast. NOT rushing, going fast. Do your planning while the piece is heating, it's too late to think about what to do once you've pulled it from the fire. One aspect of going fast is picking up tongs, hammers, etc. you dropped rather than take time to hang them up. Learn to drop them in a safe convenient place so you don't trip over them and don't have to hunt. You can pick them up and hang them while the piece heats and you think about your next step. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, that's just sharing the roads, those little 4 wheelers sure can get in the way. Sounds like your driver may have needed a swift kick or perhaps the tour company. I much prefer reading about adventures to walking them a few miles in the dangerous critter filled outback myself. Frosty The Lucky.

Sounds cool to me, "NASCAR Axle Tongs" aught to be pretty darned marketable especially if you can tag the driver's name on a pair. Maybe instead of an upset ball on the ends of the reins racing wheels and tires? You might be able to find some videos of Grant Sarver making tongs, he had an efficient set up and shared his techniques. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the reminder Arkie I just checked. I didn't see anything recent from Larry except a bladesmith in his area was heat treating something he describes as large and the quench oil flashed over. The new knife shop is a total loss and his two dogs were sleeping inside when it went up. He and his wife got out but it was a close thing. There are too many people burning themselves out. How about we resolve in this New Year to BE CAREFUL WITH FIRE!? Winter is house fire season in Alaska, too many furnaces, stoves, etc. don't get used all summer than come fall folk light them up without cleaning or checking. someone burns themselves out about once a week on average and that's just in Anchorage. With fatalities usually averages less than once a month. That's crazy too many house fires. Come on guys we play with fire as part of our craft. Of all the things to take for granted fire safety isn't even on the list. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you've been lurking a few months you should know what I'm going to say next. Right? If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many IFI members live within visiting distance. If you make your anvil stand with the 4x4s on end it'll be much more efficient than laying flat. Keep enough ceramic blanket, kiln shelf or whatever you're using for floor to make a movable partition in your forge. A 40lb. tank is pretty large for a single 3/4" burner you might need to adjust the volume. Start by making your punches, chisels, etc. use longer lengths of stock and you can do it without tongs. Tongs are a little advanced for a beginning project and you'll need some basic tools anyway so save them for a bit later. Frosty The Lucky.

The tip of the burner tube should NOT extend through the refractory and yes the blanket is a refractory. Steam could be causing problems as well, the silica in the rigidizer will certainly cause orange or more specifically sodium yellow flames. The same color as high pressure sodium street lights. Try lighting it for longer periods of time and see if that doesn't help with the excessive yellow dragon's breath and back firig out the burner port. Is your burner aimed directly at the far wall? That can cause some interesting eddies in the flame that can sort of stall right around the burner port. Aligned in a tangent causes a vortex, the venturi effect will draw outside air in any smooth opening in the curved wall like a "pitot" tube. I only insert my burners a fraction of an inch into the liner. I kiln wash the burner ports, holes in the blanket and hard liner for the burners so they can withstand direct combustion from the burners. Materials directly in or in contact with the burner flames will suffer from erosion more that anywhere else in the forge chamber. JUST rigidizer is NOT enough. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, the new Darwin Award applicant announcement. "Watch this I saw it on Youtube." Frosty The Lucky.

That's it, "Road Trains," get icy roads? Ah I don't know why I ask, guys are hauling doubles year round here in and out of the mountains. Tail gaters, the automotive type, not guys selling tools, really get to me. It doesn't matter what they're driving they don't belong on the roads. The CDL manual says the ONLY correct way to deal with a tail gater is to slow down and let them pass. This only works if the person behind you isn't homicidal, when possible I just get out of their way. If it's a commercial operator threatening you with a truck a little video action should be enough to take THEM off the road for a while anyway. Go Pro or a passenger with a cell phone video and submit it to the authorities. They'll track the lic. number and counsel the driver. Hopefully anyway. Frosty The Lucky.

<sigh>

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! I didn't do much yesterday but help Deb celebrate her Birthday. New Year's eve is always a double holiday for us. Today we're just messing around, I haven't gotten dirty, made anything, broke anything, heck I barely got dressed till after lunch. I'll have to go pick up something for dinner but I think I can handle that. All the best everybody. Frosty The Lucky.

Don't talk about her belly! <sheesh> Frosty The Lucky.

The aspects of a gas forge that have real affects is a meaningful description. Comparing one unseen undescribed forge to another unseen undescribed forge is antithetical meaningful. Size has two aspects: Volume and Shape. EG. 6" x 6" x 15" = 540 cu/in. OR, 424 cu/in. depending if it's square or round. Seeing as you listed two lateral dimensions I'd assume sq and so 540 sq/in. You're running 2x the blanker liner. and significantly more opening. A 0-15 reg is better than a BBQ reg. You're getting 3 1/3 x the mileage. If I had to guess I'd say his burners were grossly out of tune. OR he's running a bunch of really low efficiency ones say trying to forge using the BBQ burner. I'm not trying to be dismissive but you're asking a question in an almost unanswerable manner. Perhaps take a look through the gas forge posts at ones talking about efficiency in heat time and fuel use. Then compare the burners where you can. Hopefully you'll start to see similarities in how they operate and the problems. some basic types have inherent problems, the T I've been making for a while now doesn't do well with outside breezes and back pressure. Other versions of Ejector types do quite well say the Sidearm but this is largely because they use a smaller jet dia. under higher psi. so the fuel air mix is traveling faster and so is stronger due to basic momentum. These things fall into the category of "simple in principle but complex in execution." Frosty The Lucky.

Modern idiots and original thinking can be a fine form of entertainment but please do it where it won't encourage others. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, being a professional operator sort of puts that show on my offensive TV list. Do you have a "truck train" reality show down under? I think they call one tractor pulling a bunch of trailers a "truck train" don't they? I've pulled doubles but . . . Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Red glad to have you. Most any question you're likely to have has probably been answered here more than once. So pulling up a comfy chair, packing something to drink and lunch for the reading is a good start. No, our babblings aren't going to teach you the craft but it'll give you a handle on it. Once you have a handle on say the . . . jargon you'll know what we're talking about, be able to ask good questions and fave a good chance of understanding the answers. Probably one of THE most important things to learn is how to ignore all the oh so "helpful" responses from folk who don't really know anything but just have to help anyway. Doesn't make them bad folk, pretty typical actually folk want to help but . . . <sigh> Same story for Youtube, anyone with a camera and connection can be a Youtube "expert". There's a lot of good stuff there but you have to know enough to filter the . . . stuff. Frosty The Lucky.

Happy New Year! A common tendency of folk using butcher block brushes is to use them sideways instead of lengthwise. Sideways makes the bristles cut rather than flick across the surface. The bristles in a butcher block brush are flat little leaf springs intended to flick debris but you have to apply them on the flat. Visualize a putty knife and mudding drywall. If it's moving sideways it's a blade that will cut hot steel, the bristles ARE medium carbon steel that's been hardened and spring tempered so cut they will. Pushing HARD is also NOT the answer, firm, fast and lengthwise is how the things work best. You want the tips of the bristles in contact, not laying flat from pressure. A brush is a brush and none like being ground into the work, they lay down and stop working. Frosty The Lucky.

Look in the yellow book (the paper one NOT online) for a tool repair shop and give them a call. If they don't repair power tools they will know who does. Authorized service shop can be located by calling the Company 800 # and asking. That one is a good one to look for online. Say, search "Hitachi, Authorized Service" and maybe add your local. I've found the peanut grinders aren't so robust and tend to need the doctor's more often. You need to let them feed themselves, pushing will kill them soonest. Do you have a hack saw? A 12 TPI Sanvic blade will go through 1/2" sq. in about 30-45 seconds if you know how to use one. AGAIN pushing harder does NOT make it faster. Frosty The Lucky.