Forges 101

[Frosty]

The street address wasn't helpful? The offer to help you learn to do web searches wasn't helpful? 

I apologize I won't do it again, I promise. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

2 hours ago, Hawkbox said:

   I'm sorry I don't know the specific search terms and hope to get something approaching help in a non condescending manner.  Clearly I was delusional.

What I find condescending is when someone wants me to do their homework, without putting any effort into doing their own research.

[Trevor84]

Wow that went sideways!

It took me awhile to figure out how to source material over in BC. What search terms to use what to look for in products that have a different name etc. Now I know that if you can get ahold if a guy in one of the shipping warehouses they can usually hook you up with something. Just like that unicast. 

If all I could get was the unicast I'd just go with it. It will armour your wool you just got to make a bit hotter of a burner etc.

Tge last random stuff I grabbed was called kalakast adtech at or something..... 60 percent alumina dense castable but has a bit of agragate. Anyway so far so good, it just doesn't heat up like the kast-o-lite. FWIW 

 

[Mikey98118]

Flame noise: That jet engine roar that high-speed burners produce is flame noise; lessening that isn’t easy, but it can be done. Choking the flame slightly can help, if your burner has a very hard flame. How hard the flame gets is also dependent on burner construction, and nozzle tuning. Slide-over flame retention nozzles allow you the tune flame hardness; but mixing tube length does too. Your mixing tube can be up to an inch longer than recommended, and you will see the flame soften in proportion to that increase. But a mixing tube that is as little as a quarter-inch short can increase flame noise in a high-speed burner significantly.

Noise abatement: damping the roar created by your forge burner is also a practical goal. The same insulation that preserves heat, also decreases the noise being transferred through forge walls. This leaves the exhaust openings as the main pathway for transmission. The same external baffles that bounce radiant energy back into those exits will dampen noise a lot.

[Mikey98118]

Doors

Maximum clearance can be provided by hinged and latched forge doors that have built-in high-alumina kiln shelves. Doors are a big step up from a brick baffle wall; they should include a parts entrance that can be varied in size; for instance, with interchangeable kiln shelves with different openings to fit stock through that can be exchanged, and held in a pocket on the door. Why choose kiln shelves? High alumina shelves are mechanically tough at incandescent temperatures; an important attribute for openings that parts will be passed in and out of.

    Whether you choose a simple brick baffle wall in front of the forge, or a hinged door, keep the baffle at a small distance from the exhaust opening, to allow hot gases to move up and out, between forge shell and baffle, while bouncing radiation off of a re-emissive (heat reflective) coating, and back into your forge, while keeping the stock entrance only a little larger than needed to move parts through.

    This arrangement helps to slow the flow of expended gas from the forge interior, as it heads toward the exhaust opening; and then speed the gas up through the opening; another highly desirable trade off. So, you are gaining hang time for the heated gas in the forge, and recuperative savings from bounce back of radiant energy; another win-win situation. A baffle wall, or door, also minimizes infrared and visible light from impacting your eyes and skin, improving your health and comfort.

    High alumina kiln shelves are seven times more insulating than hard fire brick; they are also tougher at forge temperatures, which is an important consideration for something you will end up shoving parts back and forth through. Using alternate kiln shelves, with different part openings is fine, but building an elaborate system of moving kiln shelf parts to ape the ability of bricks to change their openings comes under the heading of "gilding the Lilly." The additional energy savings it provides probably isn't worth the effort. Make up new openings in shelve baffle walls sparingly. Diamond coated and carbide coated rotary burrs (and coated hole saws) are the preferred way to drill holes in kiln shelves. Friction cutoff blades and diamond coated blades are the best way to cut lines between those holes.

    You want to coat the hot-face side of a door, or bricks, with one of the re-emissive coatings. Use a formula of 95% zirconia silicate (zircon) and 5% Veegum (or bentonite as an alternate); this mixture makes a tough re-emissive coating for wear surfaces. Zirconium silicate can also be mixed with fumed silica to make a tuff and effective coating on refractories (but not on ceramic fiber products). There are other choices, but none of them are as economical or as easily purchased.

[Mikey98118]

K-26 Soft Insulating Fire Brick

K-26 Soft Insulating Fire Bricks are a special type of brick, slightly more dense than the K-23 brick that can handle high temperatures and act as insulation. They are used as a lining in the interior of foundry furnaces, forges and ceramic kilns to keep in the intense heat.

These are soft bricks that can be cut with a hacksaw to form smaller bricks or to add channels for heating elements. They can be drilled with a hole saw to create an opening for a gas burner as well. The bricks have a working temp rating up to 2600 Degrees F. which makes them the most recommended brick for high fire ceramic use. Each straight brick is 9" x 4-1/2" x 2-1/2"

 

Sold individually, but do come also in a case of 12.

Clay Planet sells them for $6.55 per brick

[mtodriscoll]

I've read several references on this site to 'Peer Reviewed Forge Plans' or 'Forge Plans' that can be found somewhere on this site. I've read the majority of this Forge 101 and have learned a lot, but typically it seems someone will post a picture of their forge (or forge idea), then there will be several replies/comments on what is right/wrong about the pictured forge. I have yet to see any "plans" (i.e. material list, dimensions, diagrams, etc.). Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place? Is there a Downloads section where those plans/files are stored, or are the "plans" interspersed among 64 pages of comments in this Forge 101 forum?

I see there is a 'Downloads' menu up top, but there appears to only have a few entries in the three categories of Books, Newsletters and Trade Journals. Would be nice to have a 'Plans' category with peer-reviewed Forge and Burner plans available for download... Just an idea.

Matt

[Frosty]

Yeah, we lost a lot of photos, drawings, posts, etc. in a software up(?)grade a few years ago. Glenn or Steve can sometimes access Blueprints from back then in their files. I'd love to help, I'm one of the guys recommending the proven plans and I don't have any on tap to link. <Sigh>

If a mod doesn't notice your question here in a day or so try the "Contact Us" button at the bottom of the page, they'll get back. Might not have good news but they'll get back.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

There is also plans and instructions for a propane forge made from a propane tank on Wayne's website.

As forges can vary immensely in size and shape; I'm more interested in the burner plans and the Frosty T burner ones are on this site.

[mtodriscoll]

Frosty, Ahhh that explains why I'm not finding any.

Thomas, Yes, I've been to his site and looked at his plans. Currently they are worded for use of a Venturi style burner blowing down from TDC. I'm planning to build/to use a ribbon burner that is offset more tangentially. Maybe once I've made mine I'll post some plans with materials list, dimensions, drawings, etc.

[Mikey98118]

The Pass-through

Even in sword making, only about 6” at a time can be worked. For wrought iron twisting, only short sections are twisted in a given direction. For long twists, cold forming at low RPM produces much more uniform parts. So, even long parts can be heated in relatively short forges, if they have a pass-through; that is a small opening in the rear wall of a box forge, or the far end of a tunnel, “D”, or oval forge. Anything from an insulated hinged flap, to a mere brick can block this opening, when not in use.

[Horseman1]

Hello everyone, 

I built a forge, but used firebrick that goes into the fireplace rather than in a forge. I know now that these will be more of a problem as they absorb allot more heat and make for a colder forge.

I'm located in Ukiah, California and am wondering if anyone knows of a supplier in my area that carries the correct bricks?

[Mikey98118]

Morgan K26 Insulating Firebrick is distributed by Thermal Ceramics (a subsidiary company). Look up their site and ask where the nearest dealer is to you.

[Horseman1]

Thanks Mikey. I hope there is somewhere close by.

[Frosty]

I see a Cal. location at:

2049 Scenic Ridge Dr, Chino Hills, CA 91709

Frosty The Lucky.

[Horseman1]

Well, not exactly local. That's about 600miles away

[ForgeLoser]

Wow, Just read through all 64 pages of this thread.  I was a youtube loser, got excited to build a forge and bought Satanite before finding this website.  I didn't see many mentions of Satanite in this thread.  Sounds like you guys prefer different products.  But since I have it I might as well use it.  My questions is do I need to coat it with Plistex or can Satanite be the final coat? 

[Frosty]

21 hours ago, Horseman1 said:

Well, not exactly local. That's about 600miles away

Morgan Ceramics website has a distributor location page, maybe the next state? Most distributors ship, some will flat rate even.

It's worth quite a bit to me not to have to replace IFBs every few times I fire up a forge and the time I tried hard fire brick was a complete down check. 

Try calling HVAC service and supply companies, if they don't sell or carry K-26 IFBs, they'll know who does. This works MUCH better on the phone than online. I find using online contact links to be filing yourself in the ignore folder. Remember to specify Morgan ceramics k-26. other makers have started calling theirs k-26 and you could end up with poor IFBs.

Sorry if I'm repeating myself but it works for me. Really REALLY well.

Frosty The Lucky. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

29 minutes ago, ForgeLoser said:

do I need to coat it with Plistex

It's a good idea to coat it with Plistix to get the best heat & economy of fuel. We built our forge using a half inch of Satanite over the K-O-Wool as a hard surface. It will take longer to come up to heat as Satanite does not radiate the heat back into the forge. We then coated the Satanite with bubble alumina to act as an IR radiater, the same thing Plistix does.

[ForgeLoser]

Thanks Irondragon,  If I'm looking at the right stuff on Amazon it is expensive.  What's a good source for the Bubble Alumina?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We got ours from High Temperature Tools. We are not allowed to post commercial links but Google will find them. Also IFI has Plistix in the store up in the blue banner.

[pnut]

8 hours ago, ForgeLoser said:

,  If I'm looking at the right stuff on Amazon it is expensive. 

You can get Plistix or matrikote right here, just pm Glenn. I bought five pounds from the IFI store and had it in hand in a few days.  Five pounds is enough to coat then re coat my forge as needed numerous times. Just don't mix more than you think you'll need. 

Pnut

[Mikey98118]

On 2/14/2021 at 10:01 AM, ForgeLoser said:

Wow, Just read through all 64 pages of this thread.  I was a youtube loser, got excited to build a forge and bought Satanite before finding this website.  I didn't see many mentions of Satanite in this thread.  Sounds like you guys prefer different products.  But since I have it I might as well use it.  My questions is do I need to coat it with Plistex or can Satanite be the final coat? 

Satanite is good stuff--so far as it goes. I used it on my first forge. I seem to remember that it is rated to 3200 F. However, it is not a re-emitter, so it would make a better under coat than a finish coat.

[Mikey98118]

Doors

Maximum clearance can be provided with a hinged and latched forge door that contains built-in changeable baffle plates. A door makes building the refractory structures of equipment much easier, and permits larger pieces to be heated then would pass through a narrowed opening. Best of all it allows movable internal baffles to be used, which would not pass a narrowed exhaust opening; this promotes the use of single burners for short pieces, saving money in a five-gallon propane cylinder furnace run by two ½” burners.

The door is a big step up from an exterior brick baffle wall; it should include a parts entrance that can be varied in size; for instance, with several round (or hexagonal) kiln shelves with different openings to for passing stock through, which can be exchanged, and held in a pocket on the door. All of these improvements don’t need to be seen to at once, so long as a hinged and latched door is included in the forge shell.

    If you choose a simple brick baffle wall in front of the forge, keep the bricks at a small distance from the exhaust opening, to allow hot gases to move up and out, between forge shell and brick wall, while bouncing radiation off of a re-emissive (heat reflective) coating, back into your forge. Keep the stock entrance only as large as is needed to move parts through.

    This arrangement helps to slow the flow of expended gas in the forge interior, as it heads toward the exhaust opening; and then speed the gas up through the opening; another highly desirable trade off. So, you are gaining hang time for the heated gas in the forge, and recuperative savings from bounce back of radiant energy; another win-win situation. A baffle wall also minimizes infrared and visible light from impacting your eyes and skin, improving your health and comfort.

    

While hinged and latched doors can do just as much on box shaped forges, all the examples I have seen slide up and down.

High alumina kiln shelves are seven times more insulating than hard fire brick; they are also tougher at forge temperatures, which is an important consideration for something you will end up shoving parts back and forth through. Using alternate kiln shelves, with different part openings is fine, but building an elaborate system of moving kiln shelf parts to ape the ability of bricks to change their openings comes under the heading of "gilding the Lilly." The additional energy savings it provides probably isn't worth the effort. Make up new openings in shelve baffle walls sparingly. Diamond coated and carbide coated rotary burrs (and coated hole saws) are the preferred way to drill holes in kiln shelves. Friction cutoff blades and diamond coated blades are the best way to cut lines between those holes.

    You want to coat the hot-face of the door with one of the re-emissive coatings, use a formula of 95% zirconia silicate (zircon) and 5% Veegum (or bentonite as an alternate); this mixture makes a tough re-emissive coating for wear surfaces. Zirconium silicate can also be mixed with fumed silica to make a tuff and effective coating on refractories (but not on ceramic fiber products). There are other choices, Like Plistex, but none of them are as economical or easily purchased in other countries.

    All these advantages can be applied in casting furnace mode, if a round kiln shelf is placed in a hoop, which can be swung into position above the furnace and swung out of the way during crucible removal. A mall center hole in the shelf allows observation and metal to be added to the melt; it also provides a rest for preheating metal to make sure it is thoroughly dry before placement in the crucible.

[Mikey98118]

Google High Temp Inc. for K-26 bricks and for bubble alumina at reasonable prices and shipping costs.