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I Forge Iron

Heavy scale


Joel OF

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I thought one guy's idea of drilling the holes in hard firebrick had considerable merit, since there are a lot of high tech brick available these days, and a lot more choices for special drill bits around, too. Or, a person could mix and mach ideas casting the refractory, and then drilling it after it has set, but before it is fired

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Nothing wrong with drilling a firebrick or cast block. The hassle I see is attaching the plenum. Not hard to do really but still an additional hassle.

That said,  a guy could explore tapering the outlets too. 

I'm still considering the SS tubing outlets and putting a dead air space between the tube plate and burner block to eliminate direct conduction of heat to the plenum chamber. The tube plate would act as a cooling fin and help cool the SS tubing. That part's easy.

What I've really been musing on is casting another dead air space between the hot face and burner block.

Lots of room for a tinkerer to have fun with the things eh?

Frosty The Lucky.

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Sorry for the delay in replying. I knew they wouldn't last but seeing as I had some I could test the theory with, the other day I made front sliding doors with some thin insulating bricks I had..

I didn't take pictures when the forge was lit, but here's the setup and results.

The 1/2" bars did NOT get any hotter, but the forge and the bars got up to temperature quicker. The forge also went through the wars and where I've marked with X's on the bottoms of the burners got orange hot. Between the burners has cracked, the door at the back warped and where the bars where resting on the forge floor has melted/become deformed.

An experiment with mixed results!

Gas-forge-5.thumb.jpg.3614ee39b1caabc359150ca6f5367b43.jpgGas-forge-6.thumb.jpg.53fb33c54b5fd31b3f6b8904d27ab827.jpgGas-forge-7.thumb.jpg.712e88074b0190e80b4c11c9a2b1f89a.jpgGas-forge-8.thumb.jpg.74bf25e433f463a8b91b8eae24e50939.jpg

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The baffles were closed a little too much, back pressure reduced burner performance and heat output. The space between the burners cracked because flame was blowing out around the burner ports and it's hottest directly between them.

Frosty The Lucky. 

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Also, I don't think those are insulating bricks; I think they are ceramic fiberboard, which can be hard coated, and will work okay. To add to what Frosty said, you may or may not find this forge worth fixing up...

Either way, save the fiberboard; that at least is worthwhile.

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Good eye Mike if it didn't hit yellow heat it sure wouldn't have done that to soft fire brick. I was focused on the gap and not other clues.

I'd rebuild it, those are GOOD burners even if they needed a little moving for optimum performance. Wellllll maybe I'd build a different forge and use those burners as configured. Better insulation, doors, etc. and it'd be a much better forge. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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3 hours ago, Frosty said:

maybe I'd build a different forge and use those burners as configured. Better insulation, doors, etc. and it'd be a much better forge. 

I think you have it in one.

Perhaps use the construction strategy of a Diamondback forge, with these burners?

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Yeah, that'd be better. Mark stopped by today and I took a look at his forge. It REALLY needs relining and we spent some time talking about it. Upon further close up examination and thought I'd build another one. These are intended for farrier work and well designed for the purpose with the refractories available at the time.

We can do a lot better now.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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7 hours ago, Frosty said:

Wellllll maybe I'd build a different forge and use those burners as configured. Better insulation, doors, etc. and it'd be a much better forge.

 

3 hours ago, Mikey98118 said:

Perhaps use the construction strategy of a Diamondback forge, with these burners?

Thanks for the thoughts gents. I had been thinking of making a new forge to my spec with a different type of burner I recently saw, but if salvaging these burners will still produce good results then I'll definitely pursue that road instead. Only achieving an orange heat is pretty weak, I really want yellow, and yellow on inch diameter bar.

In comparrison to the dimensions of this forge, to suit my work I would ideally like a forge that's shallower in depth, taller in height, and possibly a little wider.

I don't like the automatic long heats this produces, I'd far prefer to push/pull my work backwards and forwards to stretch the heat if I need a longer heat, or have a 2nd set of doors at the sides, like the Diamondback forges.

I find the height of this forge pretty impractical as alot of my work is 3D, not just just straight bars with twists in and straight forged ends.

Having a wider forge would be helpful for being able to have more bars heating up side by side, and with wider shaped objects.

I don't think I'd want to change the internal volume of space all that much, just the proportions. Does what I'm saying sound like it could work and produce the results I want? I'm intrigued to hear that just a better lining and better doors could help produce a better heat. In my naivity I thought it was mainly down to the burners.

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Sounds like a good plan, changing proportions and not changing the volume should keep things pretty much the same. These forges were designed for farrier work the depth is just a little wider than a large shoe and you can put quite a few shoes in at once. Stack some to preheat while one is under it's own burner for final heat.

Changing the shape will let you position the burners to make an even temp or otherwise. 

I wish you'd stop calling yourself naive, you realize you don't know what you need to and are working the problem. That's hardly naive. Ignorance is curable. You're getting a good handle on this. If once you get the new forge built you discover these burners aren't enough build a new pair. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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The one caution I'll raise is, you need to keep a minimum height to complete combustion before a straight down aimed burner's flame impinges on the work; a burner with a softer flame, like a "T" makes a better match in a box shaped forge than a harder flame, as those burners put out; they would do better aimed on a tangent. take a little more time, to ensure your burners and forge go well together.

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Goodo afternoon  friends. 

My forge is a homemade job I put together out of some junk I had piled up around the shop. It started out as a single  burner naturaly aspirated forge using a piece of 1" s/s pipe with a 1/8 copper  tubing  stuck in the top( no jet ). It got plenty hot to just heat and beat but not forge weld. I redesigned it after a few months and put 2 of the same burners as listed above but also added another 1/8 tube to each burner and plumbed it into my shop air comp via pressure regulator and a 1/4" needle valve at the forge. Still no jets in the gas side just open ended. Now I have infinite adjustability and can have more heat than I need or can cut it down to a lazy flame. It will get so hot inside the forge the flame will be clear and can't be seen, the inside will be solid white. Foge time is cut down because it only takes a second or two for the steel to reheat after hammering. I do have scale issues if I work a piece for a long period of time. I solved this by a trip to harbor freight and bought a glass bead blaster for about 100 bucks. Takes about 3-4 min and all the scale is gone and the blade is nice and clean. It's much more efficient than waiting for it to soak in vineger overnight. Also works beautiful if you plan to put a blue finish on, I sand my blades to a 6-800 grit finish then bead blast it then blue it. Leaves a nice smooth texture.        

Just my2 cents.     

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Johnnyreb338 from what you say it sounds like you have a neutral flame which could be slightly oxidizing (lean) this could cause a little scale in the forge.  I have to assume that the vast majority of your scale comes when your hot iron is outside the forge which is unavoidable.    Denis Frechette, DF In the Shop recently did an 11 minute video on dealing with scale on the anvil.  The link is below, I enjoyed Mr. Frechette's thoughts on this matter.   I believe he heats with coal, but in this case the source of the heat was not a factor as red hot metal in contact with air is going to scale. Thanks for sharing your way of making a propane forge.

 

Link removed dur to advertising.

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Thanks for all the replies folks.

I understand gas how to make gas forges work better now & will probably build my own to suit my needs best.

I've found a few tuition videos which seem pretty pool froof & will give me the results I want.

Cheers again 

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