builing my first gas forge

[derek77]

Hello to everyone and thank you in advance, my name is seth and I'm in the Denver co. Area, I'm  building a gas forge out of an old propane tank. I have my refractory and my ceramic blankets are in the mail. My questions lie in how to build my burner ( I really have no base knowledge to go off of so I need to do more reading for shure) and if I plan on lining the ceramic blankets with the refractory cement do I really need to use a rigidiser on the blankets before I coat them with the refractory?

I still need to build my table to put everything safely on and make a hole for my burner I was thinking at about 10 o'clock position on the tank so I can at least attempt to spiral the heat aroud my forge if I can get the burner pitched correctly.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Derek glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. Telling us in one post isn't going to stick in anybody's mind once we open another post.

There is a great deal of good solid how to info in the gas forge and burners section including the T burner plans.

How good are your shop skills and ability to follow directions? If you're at a middle school, metal shop 1 level and have decent reading comprehension all but the most precise burners aren't hard to build and done right will work a treat.

In general yes use a rigidizer on ceramic blanket refractories. It will encapsulate the fibers and reduce the breathing hazard, it will stiffen the blanket making it less flexible so a hard refractory flame face won't get knocked off.

There are a number of excellent discussions about gas forge builds some ongoing. You can check out Wayne Coe's web site for good plans and small quantities of materials.

Please do some reading in the sections you have questions about and or want to experiment with most any question has already been asked and answered many times. It will also give you a handle on the jargon so you can ask good questions and understand the answers.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

As for a forge table; I scrounged a gas grill being junked and removed the grill and mounted a piece of sheet steel across the gap the grill took up---just drilled and bolted and ended up with a forge table with wheels and a place for a propane tank.  Over the years of abuse I've changed out the grill wheels for better ones and finally put in some cross bracing where I needed it; it's around a dozen years old now with however many years it served as a grill...

[Mikey98118]

If you plan to include a high alumina kiln shelf to protect the forge floor, the burner should be at 10:45 o'clock, and aimed for the flame to impact one-third of the way in from the nearest edge of the shelf. This is done be using a small pipe trapped in the burner port's tube, so that it can rest on the shelf while it is welded, brazed, or mechanically connected to the forge shell with screwed on brackets.

Most people go by what look best by eye when making the decision about burner position and aim. You need to pay more attention to how much of  how much ofthe kiln shelf remains to help protect the forge walls, instead. It takes less angle to promote swirl of the flame path than people think.

[Blackegg]

Hey derek77, I'm not all that far from you really and I'm doing the same thing. I have the forge body built and the burner and have an anvil but have yet to buy the interior. I just posted a bunch of images a few posts up from this one.

The burner is pretty easy really. I read a ton and watched a ton of videos. Literally for weeks before starting. I based mine off one of one of the ones on zoeller forge. I built the flare end using a friends forge. 

Wear protection when you prep the Kaowool and make sure you have food ventilation if you use it this winter in the garage!

Good luck....keep us posted, I'd like to see how it turns out!

blackegg