Jump to content
I Forge Iron

forge works great


downsfish

Recommended Posts

I built this at work to fill a specific need in the rolling mill, which is to heat bits roughly 2 foot long anywhere from 2" to 1/2" dia for sizeing the mill. Right now we do it with a couple of torches on the ground. Anyways when the supervisors saw it they couldn't see it as anything but a liability / bomb and I had to get rid of it without even trying it. I've got 2" of kaowool with about 1" of refractory and a brick floor, it's got three burners and brick doors. After the forge was sitting in my garage for a couple of months I decided to try blacksmithing, kinda backwards huh, so I built an anvil and tried them out yesterday. It worked great, that coming from someone who only knows that it gets really hot. I really had a good time. I made a scroll out of 3/4" square and a couple of candle holders, I'll post those pics when I finish them. Thanks for looking.

17570.attach

17571.attach

17572.attach

Link to comment
Share on other sites

looks like you made something good there to me! if it heats the metal right i would say the only things to think about is safety and efficiency - i cant say about that but plenty on here would have some ideas - good luck - hope the forge works for what you want to do and gets you more into blacksmithing:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only potential issue I see is your feed hose is rather close to the burner in that photo. The outside of the burners get surprisingly hot.

If you did this on their dime, awesome! If you foot the bill, I know what these can cost. Very nice forge either way.

I notice that one burner is in from the side and the other two are straight down. Was there a specific reason for this arrangement?

Have fun
Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pretty nice forge Scott, I see all the most important (to me) things.

Insulated, and hard lined, individually controlled injector type burners, sliding back wall so you don't have to heat 2' of forge when you only need 8".

I've considered mounting burners with different entrance angles though different than you did. I'll be very interested in how it performs in this configuration. How about a pic of it in action? Preferably (for me that is) before it gets to temp so we can see the flame pattern in the chamber. Of course a couple shots of it at screaming yellow would be nice too. ;)

The changes I'd make are:

1) change out the hoses close to the forge itself for copper tubing. The hoses are probably okay but this is a home made gas appliance capable of probably 3/4 million BTUs per hour output. Do you want to bank on probably?

2) Remove the idle circuits, I have little if any use for them. If you have enough fire to keep it at or close to working temp than you can forge with them set at that level. If you have for the forge to come back to temp you're wasting time. The best method I've found for minimizing fuel consumption for work done is work more irons in the fire so there's no or little standng around waiting.

These are just the things I'd do for myself please file them in the FWIW catagory. ;)

All in all, It's a job well done. Happy forging.

Oh yeah, please post a couple pics of your home made anvil too. You have a good grasp of well done home made, many of us can benefit from seeing it.

Frosty

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...