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I Forge Iron

Frosty

2021 Donor
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Everything posted by Frosty

  1. Naw, the weld seam in the pipe won't generate enough turbulence to do more than improve mixing. Stable from 1-2psi up to 30-35psi is outstanding? It sounds like your burner's working fine, I wouldn't tinker with it much. Why don't you bring it to the January meeting so we can all get a look at it? If you want to experiment with the jet put the one in it now in an envelope or little box and label it. Experiment on another mig tip, that one works a treat. If you start with the same size you can enlarge the orifice dia. a little at a time with torch tip files. It's a lot less risky than drill bits, copper can be tricky jamming and breaking bits. Frosty The Lucky.
  2. Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header Thomas will stop chiding you about knowing where you are. A lot of information depends to a degree on region. You might be able to find good blacksmithing equipment for reasonable where if you live down the highway from me you'd be tickled pink to find a decent anvil for $4-5 a lb. Check the solid fuel forge section here we've discussed forge building for a dozen years now and about any question you can think of has probably been answered many times. You can make a perfectly serviceable forge by piling damp dirt on a table and scooping a trench in it. Lay a piece of black iron pipe for the tuyere iron and you're off. (That'd be a side blast by the way) Just don't get in a hurry this stuff isn't rocket science. Well. . . If you DO get something to behave like a rocket you're doing it wrong. Frosty The Lucky.
  3. Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. Setting up and running a bloomery is more than a beginner project. Check in the regional association pages here and hook up with one close to you. Mining ore and making bloom iron isn't uncommon among blacksmiths, we all get a rush out of making things out of dirt. Collecting iron ore from a creek with a magnet is as easy as dragging it along the bottom and cleaning it off the magnet. I recommend putting a plastic bag over the magnet so you can just turn it inside out and pull it off. The iron filings will be in the bag. Frosty The Lucky.
  4. Okay, then I'll believe it in a bit. Frosty The Lucky.
  5. "Painting" the inside of a furnace is another word for "washing". The Metrikote and Plistix are kiln washes even if you trowel it on. I ran across the term on ceramic kiln sites and have seen it on other furnace sites. I probably saw kiln wash on other sites but not knowing what it was it didn't register. Anyway I use the term now because it's the most common I've run across. Nice site Wayne, well done. Frosty The Lucky.
  6. I've only messed with SS a few times without success but I don't want to mess with things like Sal ammoniac. What are you using for flux with 304? Frosty The Lucky.
  7. It looks pretty good a LITTLE rich but that's not so bad. The primary (pale opaque) flame is centered and well shaped if a BIT bushy. The secondary (darker more transparent) flame is pretty clean and the tertiary (bushy flame with tinges of orange) isn't excessive. All in all just a BIT rich which will prevent oxidization in the forge but makes more CO (Carbon Monoxide) so either use it outdoors or with serious ventilation and a CO detector. Is Ron suggesting using a bell reducer for a flare now? I just use a thread protector and that as much to provide something to mount it with. I don't use mine outside a forge either so my opinion is limited by my experiences. How does it run in the forge? Frosty The Lucky.
  8. Ian will spot your location and pipe up shortly. He's mentioned his whereabouts numerous times but I don't recall more than which end of the continent he's on. Frosty The Lucky.
  9. I think we're running head on into a real problem for a community that usually trades information anecdotally. We run into it all the time here and spend a lot of time and effort debunking craft myths some truly ancient. Often the effect is there but the term is so far off base as to be meaningless. "Edge packing" for example. I can accept edge packing as named as it applies to old wrought iron where forging the edge would drive more slag out and yield a stronger and in fact denser "edge." It's a meaningless term applied to modern steel though but it's still here with us and being used. Back on topic. Over the years I've been reading and hearing about automotive springs (which for a while were 5160 & 9260) being harder to weld to themselves than most steels. One of the most common "reasons" probably speculations, I've heard since the internet went public is the chrome content. Being as it's so generally accepted as the probable problem I never looked into it even to do comparisons with other, known, steels I just went with the supposition. Heck, I think I've probably told Tristan it's the chrome content lots of times I might be the cause of this little, . . . Thing. (That would be a pun in Danish, I'm sure I didn't have to explain for our Viking members.) If the observed difficulty forge welding automotive spring steel is NOT chrome content does anyone know what the problem is? I'm leaving my method and experience off this table, it works. Frosty The Lucky.
  10. Welcome aboard Ratman, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. I wouldn't bother. Sure you COULD put enough insulation and temp diverters and such in & on a forge to use that as a shell but it'd be a huge waste of time. Galvy isn't healthy to get very hot, zinc smoke is the B-A-D way to get your daily allotment of zinc, eat a potato or take a pill it won't mess up your lungs. There is a huge section here about building gas forges and shells are covered many times. Heck there's a couple threads where we're beating daylights out of gas forge construction now. Frosty The Lucky.
  11. Happy Delurking D.C. glad to hear from you. That's a nice looking Trenton. Tried her out yet? Have pics of the G.E.? WE love pics you know. Frosty The Lucky.
  12. If you open the tank valve slowly the OPV valve won't think it's a leak and close up. This doesn't always work but does often enough we didn't have to have all the valves replaced at work. Commercial operations can spec the old style tank valves and they use a LOT of weed burners at DOT highways and nobody was going to pack more than a 40lb. bottle on a BAD day. Heck we make the new guys carry the 40s. A bernzomatic soldering torch is only sufficient to bring around 100-125 cu/in. to welding temp, a little more to general forging and bending say mid orange heat. Buy the reg at the local propane supplier. 0-30psi is plenty if you can find one. I believe 0-50psi is what's in common stock and will work fine you don't have to turn it up all the way. The reason we use regs that run even to 30psi is supplying enough volume to the burner, lower pressure regs supply dribs and drabs compared to what a forge needs. Frosty The Lucky.
  13. Is Kasto-lite an alumina refractory? I experimented with a few insulating castables but they were pretty susceptible to flux damage being mostly silica oxide clays. Heck this is one reason I started messing with kiln washes I was hoping a good insulating castable would be more durable than Kaowool but it was only just a little bit Tougher. I'd try "bubble alumina" refractory but it's pretty spendy stuff. The product I used for the new forge is Green Cast 94. It's hydraulically bonded so is full strength without curing or firing. Well it likes 24 hrs. after pouring, gunning or troweling and setting so maybe it's just a quick cure product. I only brought up the Green Cast in this thread as a potential matrix to hold zirconium as a kiln wash. I have to admit it's been a while since I browsed your site Wayne so I'm not familiar with what you list, and or recommend. Do you have thoughts on kiln washes and products you like? Frosty The Lucky.
  14. Shall I keep my experience to myself where you're concerned? Frosty The Lucky.
  15. Sculpt a BIG tooth and hand doing a root canal. Frosty The Lucky.
  16. Don't use a semi wheel or brake drum use a piece of flat steel plate. If you torch it in a circle say 36" dia. it'll be very stable and if you need to pull on the work hard standing on the plate anchors it. When you wish to move it just tip it on edge and roll it. Semi brake drums and wheels make dandy buried anchors and in some cases fire pits but not a lot else. Frosty The Lucky.
  17. That's another thing about the mice. Oh NO, gnawed again! Frosty The Lucky.
  18. Oh great if it gets out at the coffee shop I have guys running in gleeful circles . . . the expressions might be entertaining. Hmmmmm. I've moved on from ITC-100, it's too expensive and not durable enough. The kaolin clay is too high a fire ceramic to vitrify and fix the zirconium to the forge walls so it abrades off faster than I can afford to freshen up. My latest experiment is sifting the coarser material from the high alumina refractory I used for the inner liner in the new forge and mixing the sifted cement element 1pt-2pts Zircopax flour. The cement element from the castable refractory doesn't require initial firing to form a concrete hard 3,500f surface so I think it has a good probability of being a MUCH better matrix for the zirconium flour than kaolin clay. Why I'm going to the trouble to experiment with and mix my own high zirconium kiln wash is simple. Last I checked ITC-100 was in the $136.00 / pint (1lb can water included) plus shipping. A little checking and Seattle Ceramic Supply (I think that's the name) flat rate mailed us Zircopax and the dry powder cost us $3.26 lb. shipping included. I think I should have gone with fine sand rather than flour but I'll see. Frosty The Lucky.
  19. The literature I had available and web searches before marketing made finding simple documents a PITA said commercial propane burners used the 8 diameters ratio pretty consistently. Commercial burners are tapered from the throat to the output though some have a short section of straight pipe for connections. Commercial burners typically operate under 1psi and develop serious output with little sensitivity to breezes and back pressure. I find straight tubes work fine at 8-9 diameters. Longer lengths need to enlarge or drag begins to be detrimental, 10 diameters and it's getting pretty unstable due to back pressure from friction requiring a smaller jet dia. and higher psi. I shared everything I had about burners with Ron but it was before scanners and attachments so I transcribed what I read. I didn't think of faxing him the data either. There's really nothing to figure out about the basic devices, they're been in use I believe since the 18th. century, probably earlier. Just not as burners but as air and water pumps in mines, later air supplies for smelters and furnaces driven by falling water. Early on I was searching patent servers looking for a forge burner and ran across drawings and descriptions very like Ron's EZ but it was old before 1890 the patent date and that patent was for a recuperative wall in the forge. The burner was just included to lend legitimacy to the design. Again, I never bothered to try making an air propane torch I only build forge burners that's where I need them to work well. Frosty The Lucky.
  20. What kind of oxy propane torch are you referring to Mike, things like the old Victor conversion tip junk? The oxy propane rig out in my shop outperforms oxy acet in every operation but gas welding of steel. Absolute temp is lower but BTU/sec is orders higher. The #5 heater tip will melt a cubic inch of steel in under 13 seconds while the equivalent oxy acet #5 rose bud hasn't run the temper color in the test coupon blue. Check out Harris alternative fuel torch and have a dealer give you a demo of the oxy prop rigs. Frosty The Lucky.
  21. Joe: Petrolane in Wasilla Ak. sells a 0-50psig. high volume regulator for around $26.00 and also carry gauges, hose, fittings, etc. Most any propane supplier will carry the stuff in their office/show room. Sorry, I got the original question out of order. What kind of torch are you using? Are you using a soldering torch W/ the correct conversion hose for a large tank? If the new tank has the OPV valve open it slowly and it shouldn't "think" your torch is a leak. Frosty The Lucky.
  22. Frosty

    burnner

    No need to point that out I was a certified welder decades ago when using argon for tig or mig was new fangled tom foolery to the old dogs. So yeah, I never refer to a 0.023" mig contact tip as a 0.023" orifice. I couldn't tell you what the diameter was though and I'm not getting out the gauges to find out, they vary anyway. They work so I'm good. If you want to insert a dispensing needle in a mig tip sweat it, swedging is more trouble than it's worth and less reliable. I know what you mean about modern education, I'm getting kids ready to graduate high school who've never swung a hammer of any kind and on a couple occasions who couldn't figure the area of a square let alone a circle. I find myself teaching some of them basic hand skills and after a couple sessions without mastering drawing a point on 5/16" rd stock they tend to give up. It's sad but some stick with it so I show them everything I can. Why would you insert a torch far enough into the liner to burn it up? You only want to prevent excess outside air induction and close is good enough they're designed to run a little rich anyway. If I use my oxy propane torch I'd have to extend the tip into the chamber itself a ways to damage it. Most of this is a matter of paying attention to your tools while you tinker. They speak plainly enough if you pay attention. Frosty The Lucky.
  23. I only just got back to this thread Cliff. But yes, I get a chuckle now and then thinking about warning people to NOT do things I used to do as a matter of course. I worked a couple years in a rubber plant in Burbank Ca. and used toluene, toluol, acetone, MEK and xylene daily. I had multiple pump cans w/rags on my bench and the wire machine. I made hot and cold air ducting for aircraft similar to vacuum cleaner hose. The warnings on the drums, yeah 55gl. drums, said don't breath the fumes. Not a word about toxicity, skin absorption, nerve damage, etc. not a word. I got a talking to by the plant foreman because I was talking about what toluol was developed for; Nerve gas during WW1. I've always been one of those guys who looked things up, my bad i know but toluol is the BAD thing in model glue the glue sniffers were after. One thing I didn't do was tell the glue heads they could buy toluol or toluene by the can in almost any hardware or paint store. Frosty The Lucky.
  24. Nice piece. Well done. One word of caution though, at that weight it will require a pretty serious wall anchor if going on an interior wall. Frosty The Lucky.
  25. Right, drawing liquid wouldn't drop the pressure and freeze the tank so quickly. Scratch that observation for an example of a recuperative preheating the fuel. Squirting liquid propane through an induction device is much more exciting than the average hot air balloon ride should be. Different application different effects. Frosty The Lucky.
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