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I Forge Iron

My uncommon forge, and how I built it (Video)


ecforge

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Welp here goes - 

 This is a video my son helped me create describing  my forge. I designed and built this about 4-5 years ago and it has been everything I imagined and more. If I could do it over, the only thing I would change would be smaller blower fans.... these ones are a bit overkill. Hope this helps someone trying to design and build a forge of their own! I'm proud of this forge, 

 

 

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Great Video, I was hoping to see this one day after seeing it in the background of the Chambersburg Video.

What did you use to make the mold for the castable? All of your curves look so spot on. Also, did you cast around the ribbon burners in place and then cast, or cast around a stand in.

Thanks,

Morgan

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Nice Forge !!! I have been considering building a brick forge for the last few years with a ribbon burner set up 

I like you,re design better !! You got me thinking about it again LOL --:o Oops just move in the champion #65

power hammer  last night to rebuild it LOL or I would be building brick forge I already have built the bass piece last year :D

I am time POOR & Project Happy :wacko:

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Thank you. The

3 hours ago, CMS3900 said:

Great Video, I was hoping to see this one day after seeing it in the background of the Chambersburg Video.

What did you use to make the mold for the castable? All of your curves look so spot on. Also, did you cast around the ribbon burners in place and then cast, or cast around a stand in.

Thanks,

Morgan

Thanks all. I used styrofoam wrapped in duct tape to make blockouts for the ribbon burners. The mold included plywood on the ends of the forge, on inside and out. Once the refractory set up I stripped forms. The rest was hand packed and screed.... very interesting material to work with. 

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Nice forge, a bit stylish for most of us but well done. I wish I'd see this a week ago before I drove into Anchorage to pick up some Kaowool at EJ Bartells. Great guys doesn't half cover my thoughts for those guys. They treat us like kings, way above and beyond. I walked out with more Kaowool than I needed out of their rem box.

I'll have to see if they carry the Castolite 30 LI here. I'd like to use an insulating castable but it's got to take both really high temps AND flux.

The term I've bee using for "mailbox, half tube, etc. shaped forges is "Vaulted." It's an ancient architectural term known as such all over the world. That's just something I've been trying to get accepted into the lexicon.

I used Sonotubes to cast hard inner liners when I made cylindrical forges. I'm probably going to take a lash at ribbon burners before long and am looking at different shapes. Nothing reflects IR like a vault or cylinder and that's what a regenerative forge does, heat with IR.

I hope you're going to be a regular poster so I can sponge everything I can from you.

Frosty The Lucky.

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I like that term 'vaulted' to describe a forge like this....Lots of people who see mine call it a 'pizza oven' :)

The wall thickness of the forge tapers from 2 inches at the peak of the barrel to 3 inches thick where the forge rests on the base. Building the forms was simple, casting the refractory was not.

 Visualize the frame of the forge upside down on sawhorses.The plywood clamped to the ends of the forge frame located the top of the door opening and the location of the wall thickness from the door down to the base. The interior plywood forms established the thickness of the headwall and located the arc of the interior ceiling of the barrel. I used styrofoam block outs wrapped in duct tape to create the opening for the ribbon burners. 
 
The refractory when mixed according to instructions is very strange stuff. Containing only 5% lime, it is not cohesive at all. It does not want to stick to itself and when mixed with the right amount of water will only barely create a ball when squeezed in the palm of your hand. So ... placing the mix was entirely dry packing and then screeding/scraping to final shape. The result though is a well consolidated casting.
 
As if I was casting a curb face, or a set of stairs, after the refractory took an initial set, I stripped the interior and exterior head wall forms... faced them up... covered the whole thing with visqueen...put in a light bulb to keep the temperature at optimum and let it cure.
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Okay so mixed as directed it's more of a rammable or plastic refractory than castable. Ilike rammables for a lot of purposes.

When I cast a liner similar to yours I made the inner form with a sonotube with an OD the same as the ID of the liner. the outer form was a sonotube with an ID the same as the OD of the liner. I affixed them to by one end to a piece of plywood using parchment paper as a release agent. The one I still have is a liner 3/4" thick and I rammed it in with a dowel. Once it set I used a sacrificial hole saw to drill the burner port. Then stripped the end board off and the outer sonotube and hung a lightbulb in it. A day later I dropped a couple pieces of burning charcoal in it and burned the inner sonotube out. I couldn't get the inner tube to strip for some reason.To do a flat floored vault like yours I cut the tubes lengthwise and tacked them to plywood to maintain annulus and another for the end. Rammed it on end. Finished as the other.

I've never used nor given a lot of thought about mounting a ribbon burner but I'm starting to give it ore thought.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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Annulus!! Another great term! This pizza oven is getting more respectable all the time!

Sonotubes are terrific, and that sounds like a slick application. In applications like this (using them as interior block outs) caution is advised when hydraulic form pressures get large. I have a great friend, Dustin Ferch ...(phenomenal concrete man, who helped me place and finish my forge) who learned this the hard way. Casting a chimney for a        "Russian?" stove...24 inch OD, 12 inch ID, good rebar section etc... pumping the mud into the form, when the lift got to about 8 feet high the inner tube collapsed. Shipwreck!

The moral of the story is that hydraulic form pressures mount at approximately 150 pounds per square foot for every vertical foot of formed height and sonotube does NOT resist crushing as well as it resists tension. Probably at least partially because the outside of the tube is not water resistant.

The other moral of the story is that Blacksmithing is way more fun that concrete.

   

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7 hours ago, ecforge said:

Annulus!! Another great term! This pizza oven is getting more respectable all the time!

The other moral of the story is that Blacksmithing is way more fun that concrete.

   

  

Yes Sir, one of my goals in life is to lend respectability to pizza ovens. B)  How long do you need to let it warm up before baking a pizza. Don't try telling me you haven't, I won't believe you.

Anything is more fun that concrete, my skin is really sensitive to cement and I burn if I get it on me.

The first time I rammed up a hard inner liner between sonotubes I was afraid I'd collapse the inside one so I filled it with dry sand. I used to work in the State Materials lab and talked to a lot of contractors. I heard about that trick from a concrete guy who was pouring hollow bridge piers. His gripe was getting the sand back out seeing as the bottom was socketed into bedrock he couldn't just let it flow out. He had to use an Earth auger with baling bit.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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14 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Hmmm maybe one the the new Vacuum digging systems would work for him nowadays.  (The the vision of a very large sandblaster siphon does come to mind)...

Had it been available State Highways Maintenance in virtually every camp had an "Aquatech."  I called them "snorkel snouted sewer suckers" Big vacuum tanks on wheels with an extending boom and 12" dia. +/- hose on a reel. It would've vacuumed dry sand as far as it'd reach. Years later after I transferred to highways maint. we used it to dig holes for signs when two guys with shovels, picks, sledge hammers and pry bars couldn't.

I went out with the drainage guys more than once as a helper but listening to stories of vacuuming week old corpses out of storm drains was enough to decline invites to be a regular drainage guy.

Unfortunately contractors don't have access to State equipment in other than emergencies where public safety, etc. is concerned. There are a number of much better solutions but the contractor didn't have access or maybe know about them. I think it might have been his first bridge.

Frosty The Lucky.

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