Forge

[whitebear]

Hey Guys
This is Jonah Mr. Daughtry's apprentice.
i have another question. i am looking to make my own charcoal forge. i don't want coal because it's not easy to get around here. Mr. Daughtry uses charcoal so that what i want to use. i want to make one but i have about a $40-$50 budget. because that about all i have. i need to be able to forge weld in it. and i need to be able to attach a bellows to it. i am in the process of making a small canvas bellows. maybe a side drafts forge or something like that.

thanks guys

Jonah

P.S.
Mr. Daughtry says that i in fact made a very nice collar yesterday and he's very imprest at how much i learned from you all. he gives his thanks

[son_of_bluegrass]

There are a number of plans in the blueprints section for homemade forges and some can get to welding temp, if you are a good scrounger you should be able to make the forge for less than $10. My forge used to be a weber barbeque grill. The better insulated the fire pit is the better it will work, I lined my with wood ash. As for welding I've found when using charcoal it takes at least 7-8 inches of fire and will use a lot of charcoal but for general forging you can get by with 4-5 inches of fire. The amount of air also affects how hot the fire can get but charcoal doesn't take much air. For a side blown forge you will either need to consider the air pipe expendable, make it from something that can resist the heat and flux or make it water cooled.

ron

[Glenn]

Ask Mr. Daughtry how deep the charcoal in a charcoal forge should be.

Look at the Blueprint BP0238 Simple Side Blast 55 Forge and change the design to the depth needed. You can scrounge a steel drum and a piece of pipe for little or nothing.

Blueprint BP0133 The 55 Forge could also be adapted for use as a charcoal forge.

[whitebear]

thank you guys very much. i forgot to mention that it also needs to be portable. if that makes a differnce in your replys. i think i'm gongi to go with a Tim Lively/ Tai Goo style forge with the adobe. but i think i'll use a wooden bucket nistead of a steel one.

thanks again everyone
Jonah

[whitebear]

for the adobe in the forge could i use a comercially availiable modleing clay that has been harded and crushed into a fine powder then mixed with sand and ash. i'm having a hard time finding earthen clay. and it seem liek it would do the same thing.

Jonah

[Frosty]

for the adobe in the forge could i use a comercially availiable modleing clay that has been harded and crushed into a fine powder then mixed with sand and ash. i'm having a hard time finding earthen clay. and it seem liek it would do the same thing.

Jonah

A cheaper and more durable alternative is fire clay from your local masonry supplier, etc.

There are a lot of ways to make refractory liners with it up to cupola melters. Mixing it as you describe will be okay though adding about 1/2 part in 4 of portland cement will make it hold together better for you.

Don't use much water either, just enough to make a firm clump when squeezed in your hand. If it's sticky it's too wet if it's crumbly it's too dry. Getting it just right isn't as important for a forge liner as other uses but the closer the better. The idea behind using as little water as possible is to minimize shrink checking as it dries.

When you have it "right" ram it in place with a wooden mallet or equivalent and burnish it smooth with a piece of burlap, handfull of wood shavings, etc. The smoothre it is the less hot things will stick to it. It'll also be harder to gouge.

Lastly score it with a rounded point like a butter knife. When the refractory dries it will shrink, scoring it will make it check (crack) along the score marks in a controlled manner.

Let it dry thoroughly, from a couple days to a couple weeks depending on where you live, temp, humidity, etc. You may need to hang a light bulb in it to get it thoroughly dried in a reasonable time.

Once dry, fire it gradually, start with a small short duration fire and let it cool. Then make a little larger fire and keep it going a while longer. Then build a good fire and after letting it burn a while, half hour at least stoke it up and put the blast to it. You want to fire the refractory so getting it to a high red heat is good. Comercially I believe they fire red brick at 1,800f.

Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

The cheapest form of kitty litter is just clay, you need to soak it a couple of days to let it break down into glop again. You can get bentonite clay at a feed store---it's a feed additive evidently, may be cheaper than modling clay.

[Frosty]

The cheapest form of kitty litter is just clay, you need to soak it a couple of days to let it break down into glop again. You can get bentonite clay at a feed store---it's a feed additive evidently, may be cheaper than modling clay.

True but bentonite isn't a vitrifying clay. It also has a virtually unlimited ability to absorb water "hydro - somethingRother." (hydrophilic maybe?) It's been more than 10 years since I messed with bentonite professionally as a driller. And closer to 15 since they sent me to a drilling mud class.

Anyway, bentonite will work but there are better alternatives available. The last bag of fire clay I bought was $12 for 25lbs.

Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

My Mud class was in 1980; bentonite is good wrassling mud though!

[whitebear]

where can i get bentonite clay. i looked for kitty litter but it didn't say what it was . and duidn't want to spend money on something i wasin't sure of.

Jonah

[jayco]

My neighbor is using bag after bag of bentonite clay .......trying to seal seeps and leaks in his new farm pond. I have no idea whether that works or not, but he's getting it from a local "Southern States" dealer. (a farm supply store).
James

[Frosty]

As said, cheap kitty litter is bentonite clay. Look in the yellow pages for a drilling company, even if they do water wells they'll be able to put you in touch with a supplier or drilling company that can.

How's the neighbor applying the bentonite to his pond James? It makes a difference.

Frosty

[jayco]

Frosty......he's pouring the clay on the inside of his pond.....trying to seal seeps from the inside. If it ever rains here,(we're in a drought), I guess we'll see if it works!
James

[Frosty]

I figured he was pouring it in the pond but there're different ways to do it.

If he knows where the leaks are putting it where pond water can carry it in will work well. Another method is to mix it by the drum about the consistency of thick gravy and using an outboard motor to get the pond circulating in a vortex slowly add the mix. Add it right after mixing as bentonite will continue to absorb water for . . .ever actually. Anyway, you want it to enter any leaks while it's still in it's major absorbtion phase.

It sounds though like he's applying it to a dry pond. This can be both good and bad.

Bad because the only way to be sure is to apply it to the whole pond and maybe use more than you need to.

Good because you can apply it dry and take advantage of it's maximum absorbtion and expansion to seal EVERYTHING.

If the pond sides are reasonably shallow spread it and rototill it in for at least 6", 1' is better, then hit it with a plate compactor. Do this dry first, then put a sprinkler on it and recompact it when dampened. The pond may still leak the first time or two it fills but the bentonite WILL expand into any void and plug it solid.

I'm not an expert but as I recall sandy soils will seal with as little as 3-5% bentonite and if it takes much more than 10-12% he needs to consider finer material in the sides.

Frosty

[jayco]

Frosty....he has about a foot of water in the pond. A bull dozer and a track hoe were both used to dig the pond.One side,(the leaky side),was raised and filled.....and packed as best they could. My neighbor spreads the bentonite on the inside of the wall........some in the water itself......the rest on the dry bank. He waters the clay in with a garden hose. I never knew about the unique properties of bentonite before now!
Thanks Frosty!!

[Frosty]

Just spreading it on the surface isn't going to work, it needs to get into the voids and expand. Using an excavator would make mixing it with the fill easier and then he can compact it with the bucket. The downside is using more bentonite than he probably needs to but that's okay as long as it isn't too excessive. More is NOT better.

He doesn't want a lense of solid bentonite, it makes a REALLY good lubricant when saturated and if there's water present it WILL saturate to and beyond it's liquid limit. Once it's hit it's liquid limit it will flow downhill, even a really shallow slope. this is bad for any structure. So, it's important to use the bentonite as an expanding filler to plug the voids. Expanding is also a key factor to think about because it WILL expand as it absorbs water, so like ice it will lift and shift things sitting on it.

Normally, well graded soils have plenty of fines to fill all the voids and when compacted will be water tight. So, a lot depends on what his soil gradation is, if it's all 1"+ gravel all the bentonite in the world isn't going to do it. If that were the case, adding sand and 3/4"- to the bentonite before mixing it with his fill would be a good idea.

If his soil is all sand cement stabalization may be a better way to go but NOT after dumping a bunch of bentonite on it.

Anyway, there're all kinds of ways to make his pond hold water. With a little more info I can maybe make some better suggestions.

Frosty

[jayco]

Frosty...I haven't been able to talk to my neighbor these past few days to find out exactly how he applied the bentonite, but I know he only used a small tiller and hand tools to mix with. I observed that much. We have predominately clay soils around here anyway. I think his pond would have started holding water in a few months even without the bentonite. Most of the farmers here have ponds that hold water. They never used any bentonite. Probably why I had not heard of it being used for stopping leaks.
With autumn coming on soon here, my new neighbor wanted to hurry up the process, I'm sure.
James

[Frosty]

If it's clayey (that's such an awkward word) soil it'll stop leaking shortly. That's all bentonite is though it has some unique properties. Plain old clay is going to swell and seal itself off after a while.

Frosty

[jayco]

Well, it took me long enough I reckon, but I finally got around to posting a pic of the now finished pond my neighbor had built........or is that 'dug'?
Anyway, he has a nice 75 ft. x 200 ft. pond with many bags of bentonite on the inside of the banks.

A combination of time and the bentonite cured his leakage problems.

At one point, last fall, during the dry season here, he had devised a plan to put himself and some bags of bentonite in a small row boat and have two volunteers pull him and the boat, (erie canal style) back and forth across the leaking areas of the pond with ropes so that he could pour the bentonite in 'just the right places'.

It's truly a pity he could not find those volunteers.........I would have liked to have been there and watched.........and maybe snapped a few pictures.

[KevinD]

Cool pond. Now he needs to add lots of lime to get a neutral pH and all that brown will go away.

[FieryFurnace]

I know I sound like a broken record because everytime someone asks about a forge I say the same thing. I'd go with the brake drum forge. You can get a brake drum for very little and get legs from a steel yard's scrap pile for very cheep. I burned charcoal in mine before I got coal, and it works just as well as coal. Good luck!

The kidsmith,
Dave Custer

[Frosty]

Feeling like a broken record is a hazard of helping newcomers. Part of being a good demonstrator is being able to answer the same half dozen extremely basic and several outright dumb questions over and Over and OVER. :confused:

And yes, there ARE dumb questions, usually asked to show how smart the questioner is. It backfires almost every time though.

Anyway, don't be discouraged by having to answer the same old questions the same old way year after year. It's new information to the person asking. I know some of your questions have come up hundreds of times since I've been online and I know some of my questions are really old hat to other smiths.

Keep up the good work. :cool:

Frosty

[Franklin Forge]

As I understand it, clumping cat litter is a good source for bentonite. Probably not the brand with the little blue crystals but.....

[Frosty]

Fire clay is cheaper and more effective. Bentonite is not a vitrifying clay so it will continue to absorb moisture regardless.

Frosty