My Forge Build

[Norcal]

Hello all,

Here are a few pictures of my forge that I have built.  It took my about 2 years to get all of the parts together.  It is a large forge.  The burners are T-Rex 3/4".

I have 4" of 3000 degree thermo blanket on the inside.  The inside is also coated with ITC 100 (about 2 coats).  The bricks in the doors are 2800 degree fire brick.

The tank is 1/4" plate, including the doors.  I hope the pics post ok. :)

Please let me know what you think.

 

Thanks!

 

[MLMartin]

Good insulation should only help to save fuel. What type of large work do you have for the forge?

[Norcal]

Just starting my blacksmithing, so, all of the above i hope :)

[Dodge]

Hey Nor,

I was way off in chat  I squared the diameter rather than the radius but you still have a huge 1700 cubic inches. I believe you are going to need either more burners or bigger ones. Rule of thumb is one 3/4" burner to each 300 ci. 1700 / 300 = 5.67 and you cant cut a burner in half ;) Given that you already have forge built, the easiest way might be go to 1" burners but I'm not sure how much area they cover. I bet Frosty does tho :) Might be enough. Another alternative is to reduce the size of chamber. Good looking forge otherwise.

 

Scott

[VaughnT]

That will be a great forge for when you're doing big stuff.  For just beginning, it's huge.  Most of your stock is going to be .5" or less.  Even knives are very small, and you don't need to heat the whole thing at once unless you're doing the heat-treatment at home.

 

You've got great insulation and that will pay dividends when it comes to fuel costs, but you offset that by creating so much chamber space that needs to be heated.  If you're doing a lot of scroll-work, however, a big chamber is a necessity.

 

Excellent build quality from the looks of it.  You certainly know your way around tools and did some solid research.  I think she'll do fine.