duckrunner Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 So this is my first time building a forge, did a ton of research and lurked on here quite a bit and here's what I came up with. I call him Gene. The body is an old air tank (9"wX16"l) I had buried in my camping gear. All the rest is from various other projects and random crap I've had laying around, minus the ceramic wool, a couple of the burner fittings and refractory I just got in tonight. 2" of whatever brand ceramic wool the pottery supply store had in Minneapolis coated with a 3000° refractory cement that's currently curing. Also picked up a 2,800° fire brick from the pottery store I'm going to cut in half for flooring in the forge. Burner is a 3/4" reil design with a flap on top to control air flow, regulator came off a deep frier my roommate has... So I'm gonna need to get my own regulator before he goes to fry a turkey next Thanksgiving... I built this so I can forge small stuff, mostly knives and whatnot but also be able to stand it vertical so I can melt down brass to use for guards on said knives. I know the burner burns, just hope it all works for actual forging! Any input, criticism and ideas are very welcome and appreciated! Few random pics through the build process... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 The bad news is that your forge will never even reach red heat. The good news is that your main problem is easily fixed. Use the burner you cobbled together for parts, and build one according the directions of someone who has a clue. I know that sounds harsh, but it isn't meant to be. Unfortunately...that pig won't fly. Read the Burners 101 thread, or Frost's instruction on building a "T" burner; you can find very good instructions for making a Reil burner on the web, or for building a "Z" burner on Larry Zoeller Forge; you can even by a mediocre burner for mediocre money through eBay. One thing you can't do, and expect to get by with it, is build absolutely everything WRONG on one single burner, and still get by; I'm sorry, but you need to know how it really is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckrunner Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 I dunno, seems to work pretty good to me! If you don't mind me asking, what do you see wrong? I took the instructions from another site, wish I could remember which one, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 The flame is weak and highly reducing in the burner photo. The reducer fitting being used to introduce air into the burner is too small; we know this because it is no larger than the reducer being used as a flame nozzle on the burner's other end, which BTW is too large. You are using a cross pipe right through the middle of that too small reducer to introduce your gas to the mixing tube; probably through a drilled hole instead on a MIG tip, right? How do I know its a hole and not a MIG tip? Because of how close the pipe is to the small end of the reducer fitting. If the Burner boasted a MIG tip in there it would end up poking clear into the mixing tube. Congratulations on heating up some stock. I hope you have a powered exhaust to carry away all the build up of carbon monoxide your heavily reducing exhaust gas is spewing out into your shop. And now that we've both got a little snarky with each other, I will confess that your forge did much better than I would have believed possible. But you still need to upgrade that burner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Well, we already know from another thread that he was using a good ventilation system, albeit for other reasons. Congratulations on dodging death once again, duckrunner. Third time's the charm! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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