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"T" Burner Build Forge - WIP


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Hello everyone! This is the first topic I have posted on IFI, so I should probably introduce myself...

I'm Zachary Bruno, 16, and I love the creativity in knifemaking. I have made a couple knives so far (One stock removal, one forged). I'm relatively new to the knifemaking world and a kind knifemaker in our area recently gave me a RR track anvil, a few pieces of HC steel to work with, and some Kaowool. I had been forging with a homemade charcoal forge and a hairdyer, but that was getting way too expensive way too quickly.

So, I changed my perspective and decided--after some advice from other experience members on another forum (Paleoplanet)--to go ahead and build a gas forge. I want to build something that will be durable, last me a long time, and be able to accommodate my increasing skill in knifemaking.

I decided the T-burner (Phil's tutorial and Frosty's concept) would be a great option.

So far I have a 5-gallon metal paint bucket for the body of the forge, enough Kaowool for one layer of the forge, and the burner parts and taps. (I'm planning on using firebrick for the interior)
6588006747_1d83415075_z.jpg


What's left?


Regulator and Hose (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VXEW4G/ and http://www.amazon.co...uct/B002LH46IC/ <-- Is this hose OK?)
Plistix
Zoeller flare
A piece of pipe and washer rings for the burner holder assembly
1/4" ball shut-off valve


So my main question right now (And feel free to give me other advice) is... could I use a 1/2" shut off valve--which I already have--and bring it back down to 1/4" on either side or do I have to go buy a 1/4" shut off valve?

A reference: http://zoellerforge....legasforge.html



Thanks guys!
Zachary

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Zachary,

(1) What size are the firebricks, and how are you planning to use them? Floor only, or something more?
(2) Think seriously about another layer of Kaowool. A 5 gallon bucket is about 12" in diameter. One layer of 1" wool will cut it down to about 10" inside diameter. That still leaves you comparatively large, poorly insulated space to heat. You will save yourself a lot of dollars on propane in the long run by making the interior smaller and better insulated. By my math, adding another layer of insulation will cut the interior volume of your forge by about 396 cubic inches -- that's more than 1-1/2 gallons! And it'll be much better insulated, too. An 8" ID forge is still quite a bit larger than you need for forging most blades.
(3) You can save money on the flare by casting it right into the interior of your forge. You really don't need to buy a machined stainless flare unless you want to run the burner outside the forge. You might put that money toward insulation.

Just my $0.02.

Matt

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Those are some good points. I'm not sure the dimensions of the firebricks because I'm going to ask someone I know if he has any extras, but I did a google sketch-up of 2.5"x4.5"x9" firebrick and here's what I came up with. The 2 side bricks are cut to probably about 3" high.

6588495029_777cb6f3d9.jpg

I was thinking I could cut a hole in the top or the side and put some extra kaowool insulation where the burner hole is to make a small tunnel leading to a hole in the firebrick so the flame can go through. The kaowool would be lining the inside of the bucket. I have the lid for the bucket, so I would then put the lid on and cut a square hole leading to the firebrick compartment.

How insulated and efficient would this design be?


Zachary

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On the fittings, use compression fittings and bendable copper line. Put the valve behind the compression fittings and use a 1/4" valve.

On the design I have two comments.

1) If those are hard firebrick, you have to realize those are not designed to insulate, They will heat in excess of 2k degrees and turn your can into a glowing orange cylinder but long before that the fire department will be on the way to your house. If they are insulating bricks then without support they won't hold the load of whatever is in the forge, they will snap in the middle, especially when hot.

2) You are making things much much harder than you need to. All you need is a metal table to stack the insulating bricks on. Put a couple of insulating bricks on the table long side facing you, position a single hard brick crossing them in the middle, then put insulating bricks on the side and top. The very top insulating brick you can VERY CAREFULLY and slowly cut out a hole for your burner using a cheap hole saw and a drill. Use a couple more bricks for the door. Now that you have it put together, take it apart and paint all hot surfaces with ITC-100. That will be enough to get you beating on metal and learning.

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Kraythe, I do not know what kind of bricks the person I know may have, but I will see. Do you realize I will have a 1 inch layer of Kaowool lining the inside of the bucket along with the firebrick? Would that still make the bucket a glowing object?


Zachary

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Kraythe, I do not know what kind of bricks the person I know may have, but I will see. Do you realize I will have a 1 inch layer of Kaowool lining the inside of the bucket along with the firebrick?


Zachary


Yes I realize that. And either way you are hosed trying to do it in a barrel, and for that matter its completely unnecessary. First of all if they are all hard firebricks then the thermal mass will be so high it will take your little t burner about an hour to bring it up to temperature. Nothing wrong with those T burners, I have used them before, but they are small and you are talking a huge amount of thermal mass.

If the bricks are soft then they will weigh almost nothing and they are consequently as fragile and even more so when hot.

You are making things a lot harder on yourself than you need to. If you have soft insulating bricks, just make a brick pile forge on a metal table. I used one of those for the better part of a year. They work well, they are cheap to build and can even weld if built right.

Oh and another thing, exposed KAO Wool blanket when its hot is ASKING for silicosis or, even worse, mesothelioma. Ceramic fiber must ALWAYS be covered for your safety.

Take a look at my ribbon burner thread just below in this forum and look at the last post. The brick pile i used to cure the burner and smoke out the dowels got hot enough to turn the whole burner orange and that was just a thrown together pile with a sub optimal t burner without a flare (just had one lying around).

Also the brick pile forge will let you get a good idea of the forge size you need when building a better forge. What you need will depend on what you smith. Use the pile for now and play it by ear.
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I agree that lining it with full-sized hard firebricks would not be a good solution. Too much mass and too little insulation that way. You could probably get away with hard firebrick "splits" (which are about 1" thick), although even those would be more massive than you really need. Lining the forge with soft (insulating) firbricks wrapped in Kaowool would probably work really well in terms of insulation, but just adding another layer of Kaowool with a skim coat of a castable refractory, and ditching the bricks altogether, would be a simpler solution and probably end up costing about the same. Since you already have Plistix on your to-buy list, I assume you're already planning a thin hotface made of hard refractory.

kraythe's suggestion of a brick pile forge made of insulating bricks really isn't a bad one to get you started. That way you wouldn't be locked into one particular forge size or geometry before you've had a chance to learn what you really need.

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Would it be a good idea to use the limited Kaowool to make a well insulated coffee-can or popcorn tin forge until I can afford to acquire the amount of insulation (Firebrick or kaowool) for a bigger forge? I'm starting to think this would be the ideal thing to start with.

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Would it be a good idea to use the limited Kaowool to make a well insulated coffee-can or popcorn tin forge until I can afford to acquire the amount of insulation (Firebrick or kaowool) for a bigger forge? I'm starting to think this would be the ideal thing to start with.


Well that would be ok, but the burner you are working with is too big for a coffee can forge and to be honest I cant imagine what you could do in there. Its very small.

As for the soft bricks they are cheap. You can get a 10 pack of them from the Hitemp Refractory store for under 50 bucks plus shipping (and since they are light, shipping will be cheap.)

If you have a local ceramics supply shop, which you should in dallas, they probably stock them on the shelf. 10 to 15 should do it for your first forge and will be generally useful afterwards for doors and so on.
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The best price I have seen on soft firebricks, anywhere, is Wayne Coe's. http://waynecoeartistblacksmith.com/ Just today I have been exchanging emails with him about buying some bricks. He can beat the price of my local ceramics supplier, and that's after shipping and insurance. (Come to think of it, that doesn't even take into account state sales tax!)

I would expect that you could do a lot of bladesmithing in a coffee can forge, although kraythe is right that your current burner may be a bit overpowered. I do nearly all of my forging these days in a coal forge, and the hot spot is probably no bigger than what a coffee can would give you. The main down side I see to a coffe can is that you wouldn't be able to heat treat longer blades. But it'd get you started on everyday users. And your t-burner might just be tunable enough to operate in a forge that size. Phil or Frosty, or someone else who has actually built one of those burners, could give you better input on that.

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These T-burners work fine with about 150 cubic inches forge volume. I will go on a limb and call it a practical minimum (I am sure smaller *could* work). That is designed around a 4x9 inch common firebrick floor, so as to prevent cutting. 2 inches of wool on the sides and top, 1 inch under the brick, and you are about 1 running foot of 1 inch wool, 2 square feet. I went with a mailbox shape with a top down burner which has limitations.

Another concern is doing wide work or bending in a forge this small, having a slot up the side can resolve that problem. Make your slot to close up when you don't need it.

You really need to use a coating on the wool in this type of forge, and you need to be careful pulling and inserting work as the insulation is cotton candy soft and slightly sticky at heat. I am using a mix of 70% zircopax (zircon flour) 30% kaolin by weight as my coating. It really does improve performance over uncoated, but I have nothing else to compare to. A ceramics material supplier will provide you with a pound of each for no much money.

You also need to think about the back wall and doors.

A "sideways" thought I have been kicking around is making a vertical forge with a removable top in a similar manner. Having about 4 inches of "lower" cavity would allow for even heating, and having the top fully removable and segmented allows for a few configurations for different purposes. Again, you want the minimum to be about 150 cubic inches, and the maximum about 350 cubic inches for one of these burners, 2 inches of wool on all sides if possible, inside diameter of about 4 or 5 inch. Problems are the top edge of the lower section will get beat up, and something more durable than my coating would be needed.

Phil

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Well if he is going to be doing blades, the question is whether he is going to be doing damascus which means forge welding. If so then it will become essential to consider the effect of borax. KAO wool gets eaten by borax in seconds. At the very least you should have a borax drip pan and any exposed wool should be coated with castable, refractory mortar and probably ITC-100 to get the temp he needs.

Brick pile makes this easier. :)

Now I am going to have to consider a post on building a brick pile forge.

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A "sideways" thought I have been kicking around is making a vertical forge with a removable top in a similar manner. Having about 4 inches of "lower" cavity would allow for even heating, and having the top fully removable and segmented allows for a few configurations for different purposes. Again, you want the minimum to be about 150 cubic inches, and the maximum about 350 cubic inches for one of these burners, 2 inches of wool on all sides if possible, inside diameter of about 4 or 5 inch. Problems are the top edge of the lower section will get beat up, and something more durable than my coating would be needed. Phil


I considered that phil but couldn't find a really workable solution for the top. Blanket won't be stiff enough, cartable could thermal crack and fall. Its a quandary. If you figure it out, id be interested to see it. Perhaps pleated blanket with a covering of some sort. The problem is I use blown and now going to ribbon burners and so I need the extra rating of the castable as I put a ton of heat into the forge twisting cable damascus and playing with breaker hammer bits.
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5" diameter = 2.5" radius, r. depth, d = 9". Volume of a cylinder is pi*(r^2)*d. pi*(2.5^2)*9 = 176 cubic inches. If 150 is a practical minimum for a t-burner, then your popcorn tin will just make it. Don't make your Plistix too thick.

This won't be a welding forge. Not to say you couldn't weld in it (maybe you could, smaller stuff), but you'd probably want to build a bit heavier for welding.

By the way, open-ended on both ends with movable doors of soft firebrick -- I'm just talking about setting a firebrick or two in front of the opening, nothing fancy -- would be a good idea. That way you can pass work all the way through the forge, and the door openings will be ajustable. You'll have to experiment to figure out how much you can block the openings without choking the burner.

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yeah I agree mat. I figure I have the forge running about 2400 degrees when welding at 20 psi propane. If the bottle doesn't freeze (thats why Im going ribbon now). That will far exceed most wool only solutions. I have found their ratings are a bit optimistic. Thats why I like using castable hot faces.

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5" diameter = 2.5" radius ®. depth (d) = 9". Volume of a cylinder is pi*(r^2)*d. pi*(2.5^2)*9 = 176 cubic inches. If 150 is a practical minimum for a t-burner, then your popcorn tin will just make it. Don't make your Plistix too thick. This won't be a welding forge. Not to say you couldn't weld in it (maybe you could, smaller stuff), but you'd probably want to build a bit heavier for welding.


It will be capable of welding with that much burner. It will also be capable of outright MELTING! Yea, the insulation won't like, especially if you are using flux. I made a hole almost through a floor because of my hotspot. It was well over half way through my brick before I unfortunately had a minor accident that caused the brick to fall on the floor. At least everything was cold and the brick was the only casualty.

One benefit is that borax falls down onto the brick floor, so with a little care some fagot welding can be done with flux, and little risk to the insulation, but the brick will develop craters.

I considered that phil but couldn't find a really workable solution for the top. Blanket won't be stiff enough, cartable could thermal crack and fall. Its a quandary. If you figure it out, id be interested to see it. Perhaps pleated blanket with a covering of some sort. The problem is I use blown and now going to ribbon burners and so I need the extra rating of the castable as I put a ton of heat into the forge twisting cable damascus and playing with breaker hammer bits.


The only thing I have come up with is a donut of castable on the top of the bottom cavity, and 3 or 4 pieces that get arranged as needed on the donut and held by gravity or a clamping rod. I have not perused this idea very far.

Phil
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A local brick supplier quoted me $1.65ea for 'firebrick' that are 9X4.5 X 1.25 thick. Not sure if these are soft but they say they are rated at 2200. I found dry refractory mix at another company. 50# bag for right at $23.

The same guy has kawool but I'd have to buy a carton which is 50 sq ft. I'm guess that is a 25 foot roll with 2 ft width. I was driving at the time and did not write the cost of that down. I was thinking "What could I possibly do with that much stuff and I don't like the idea of storing it around the house. I did not know the names of any of the other insulating blankets.

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2200F firebrick is your typical stove and masonry fireplace firebrick. It is marginal for our purposes, and what I use for my sacrificial floor.

That is a standard carton of kaowool, I store it in its paper in its box. It might be in a plastic bag inside the box, but I don't remember. It doesn't go bad as long as it is kept clean and left alone. My extra is in the attic.

Phil

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I went over and bought kaowool and a bag of refractory mix. The kaowool was $48 for the 6# density and the cement was 23.81..tax included I paid $80. I probably have enough stuff to build a couple forges...

Gotta figure the burner now.. I took the list as written out here to Home depot and could not find much of what I wanted. I almost need to take pics along... I got a 1/4 X 1/2 compression coupler thinking it was what was described.. So I'll just hit a plumbing supply store tomorrow and then can fit the pieces as I go along..

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Yeah it can be hard to find all the parts that you need. I just stopped in to our local hardware store today and picked up most of the stuff that I needed. Only thing is, they didn't have a 1/8-27 Tapered tap. Kind of disappointing, since it looked like they just ran out and they wouldn't be restocking in a long time. I'll have to go to Lowes soon and pick up some copper pipe and see if I can't find that tap. After that, I just need the firebrick, regulator, and hose, and I should be set.


Kudos,
Zachary

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Only thing is, they didn't have a 1/8-27 Tapered tap. Kind of disappointing, since it looked like they just ran out and they wouldn't be restocking in a long time. I'll have to go to Lowes soon and pick up some copper pipe and see if I can't find that tap. After that, I just need the firebrick, regulator, and hose, and I should be set.


http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-taps/=fl184p

McMaster Rocks. :)
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