Double Y Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Last weekend I spent rebuilding my forge. I have a railing job that had some strange curves that were too big for my existing forge design. I saw something like this in a photo from another smith. By using the trailer tongue jack I can raise the "lid" of the forge and use firebrick to fill in around the sides. Need to fully fire it up this weekend and finish the railing. I used hard firebricks for the floor and then have a box full of soft bricks for filling in around the edges. I only have one forge. The pipe one in the pictures is what I had originally and I cut it in half to make the current one using the trailer tongue jack. I bought the trailer jack on sale at Harbor Freight. I welded shooter screws to the inside of the pipe and then forced the koawool onto the screws. It seems to hold pretty well. The burners came as a kit from Zoeler Forge several years ago. They run good at about 5 to 7 psi, but to weld I normally crank it to 10. In it's former incarnation, I would just throw a couple pieces of flat plate on the bottom of the forge when I was welding to try to catch some of the excess flux. But I read a tip the other day about welding up a tray that can be removed and replaced for the time when you are welding. It will catch the flux and keep it off your bricks. I welded on up, but haven't used it yet. I got the hard and soft bricks from E.J. Bartell Co. here in Billings. http://www.ejbartells.com They have offices in the Northwest, but I lucked out that they are right here in town. The hard bricks were $4.43 each and the soft $4.05. All the bricks are 9x4.5x2.5. The soft ones are REALLY soft. I cut them with a hack saw and then shaped with a rasp. The hard bricks are ridiculously hard. I cut them with a masonery blade in my chop saw and a dust mask on. They eat blades like no other. The Koawool I also got from Bartell's. It was $82.17 for the 12 foot roll. My forge is now 18 inches long and 9 inches wide. Cranked all the way down I have about 4 inches of clearance. The base around the forge with the hard brick floor is 18 x 20. When I had the forge running and took the pictures, I didn't have time to let it fully get to temp. However, I held my hand under the bottom and couldn't feel ANY heat coming from the forge. The same goes for the back. The 2 inch Koawool is way better then the 1 inch I had in before. Thoughts? Comments? Did I totally screw up? Thanks, John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toreus Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Looking good! I've been thinking of building something similar myself. It looks like your insulation rests on a ledge that goes almost all the way to the edge of the insulation. Are those steel, and if so, is there a good enough seal between the insulation and fire firebricks to stop it from oxidizing to nothing? I'm not sure if you're already planning on it, but I recommend coating the insulation with high-temp cement/satanite/itc100 or whatever you want to use, especially the ends. Speaking of ends, I'd keep the soft firebricks intact and just build a "wall" in front of the opening, but that's probably personal preference more than anything... Cheers, T. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Y Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 T - I think there is a good enough seal between the bottom of the Koawool and the fire brick to keep the bottom steel shelf insulated and protected. However it never hurts to coat with more refractory. Have you ever tired to coat the steel directly? I wonder if I could put a coating on the shelf area? I agree on using the idea of full fire brick doors, however I needed to get this one up and running, so I went with this for now. In the future I plan to put some channel or angle iron on the bottom and top to hold the firebrick doors in place. Thanks, JL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fe-Wood Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thats a great design! Only things I would do differently is use Stainless where the fire will hit the shell and I would have flattened the 1/2 round a bit more so I could get wider pieces under it. Your original forge could the brother to mine.... Sorry for the sideways view :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toreus Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I put some high-temp cement (local manufacture, all I know is it's good to 3500F) on the inside of the tuyere where it enters my forge. It's holding up so far, but I think that may be in part due to kaowool right up to the pipe- I put some on a flat bar and it chipped off easily. So... imho, if you roughed up the edges of the shelf and then coated the place where it meets the kaowool (incl the joint) it should work (with the stuff I use, anyways... :S ) Cheers, T. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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