I picked up this champion forge last weekend. After reading several post on here about lining the forge pan, I gave it a try. I didn't find to many pics to use as examples so I winged it. I first lined the pan with some fire bricks to conserve on refractory cement. Its not cheap and I only had a small bucket. So is this ok or did I fail?

where did you find your cement? just add water? or did you go with portland ,sand and lime?thanks, I think you did a smooth job

Looks good, how many fire bricks did you use?

I bought the cement from a place that sells wood and pellet stoves. It is a gallon size container pre-mixed. It has no asbestos. I can take a pic of the container if anyone wants to try it out.

I used 3 1/2 bricks broken in half or thirds to give me my hight. I was able to surround the pan wuite well with them I had half bricks not the full size 1 inch I think. I'm glad I used the bricks because I used all of the furnace cement. I was planning on using just TW bricks but there were still a lot of gaps and I don't want to risk cracking my pan. My brake drum forge worked well but I don't want to go back to it.

If anyone in the Leominster mass area wants to pound metal some time hit me up. I'm still a complete novice but it's still fun.

This is the stuff I used. It's really thick. The consistancy of potting clay.

Your work looks good and should work just fine after the cement cures.

In addition, I wrote the following reply about 4 years ago in response to a similar query on this site. Couldn't locate it anymore so figured I'd put the pertinent portion of the text here:

"I recently lined a Buffalo forge that has the lips an inch or so above the iron hearth and it turned out well. The process is based on something I learned years ago when I used to help my grandpa build houses. In addition to carpentry, he did some rock work and one thing we would do occasionally is reline fireplaces. On horizontal areas, he would make up a mix, apply it dry and level, then spray water on top. This would rock up in a day or so without cracking. The mix I used (based on his recipe) was 3 parts mortar, 3 parts clean sand, 1 part fireclay and 1 part dry lime. I mixed it, poured in the hearth to a depth that was flush to the top of the firepot and raked it smooth, then sprayed only enough water on it until the surface was wet. I let sit two days before making a fire and it had hardened nicely with no visible cracks anywhere. I think the minimal amount of water helps eliminate the cracking."

Over four years later and in regular use, the lining on that forge still hasn't cracked - and I've done 3 more in the same fashion with good results. The materials are cheap, easy to locate and seem to last pretty well.

I fired up my forge today and it seems my Idea of using fire brick under the clay back fired. The areas were the clay was thin bubbled up with the heat and diverted the air under the clay and ending my forgeing session. I was able to make my first bottle opener before I had to quit.

Find where the gaps are, enterance and exit, then use some sub-soil from the yard to plug and pack the gaps. Save yourself getting an expensive bucket of clay when you need a handful. You probably need to go down 1 shovel depth away from the planting beds, replace the divot and no one will ever know!

Phil

Thanks for the tip Phil. I think I put the fire brick to close to the grate not enabling me to have a thick enough layer of clay. I'll try patching it. I can get as much natural clay as I can have. My friend works for a gravel company and they have hills of clay they don't use. If it doen't work I'll just bust out the current clay and bricks and just use natural clay for the whole thing which is what I should have done the first time. Live and learn.