First forge dragon breath

[Dan Moulton]

Blacksmithing seemed like a fun new hobby to try so I'm trying to put an easy forge together with as few manly skills as possible. Here are some pictures of the forge. I used a popcorn can with two layers of 1" wool and a fire brick. The refractory cement is still to come. The torch is a weed burner I have which I'm thinking might be overkill for the size of the forge. I get about 3 feet of fire coming out the end of the forge. Any tips on fixing this. I drilled a few holes in the back of the torch for more oxygen. Contemplating opening up the back or adding a pipe for the burner. Thanks for any tips.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Dan, 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.

A quick run down: Lose the brick, a soft insulating fire brick won't stand up to the thermal cycling and will end up lumpy gravel discouragingly quickly. If you use hard fire brick it's a major heat sink and will burn many times as much fuel as the price of a piece of high alumina kiln shelf or shaping and plastering a good water set high alumina refractory as the floor.

Forget furnace cement, it's for sticking fire brick to other fire brick NOT being IN the fire. forget what you've seen on Youtube, it's a poor flame face in a propane forge. You can buy small quantities for reasonable $ of KastOLite 30 from Wayne Coe who's a regular here. His site is well worth checking out there are plans, supplier lists, books, etc. posted.

The weed burner will stink for a forge burner, drilling more holes so it gets more air will make it worse. Weed burners aren't about heating things, they are to light fires so they already run really lean. A forge burner needs to make a hot neutral to SLIGHTLY rich flame and you're not going to be able to do anything to a weed burner to make it do that. They're great for doing Raku pottery glazes though.

If you want to build a burner or two spend some time reading in the gas burner section here though there are two current threads, Burners 101 and Forges 101 that do a good job of covering the material.

Your forge is on the right track it just needs a little tweaking to make it a solid work horse. It looks good for someone who just dove in and started winging it. Honest.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Dan Moulton]

Thanks for the reply, I've been looking at the proper way to do it for the last few days so I'll just have to call in a few favors since my tool selection is more like a video gamers than a craftpersons.  I will look for the kiln shelf, plastering my own sounds a bit advanced despite how cool it looks in videos.

[Frosty]

My pleasure, you're welcome. Let's see, next REALLY important tip. Do yourself a favor and stop watching Youtube videos hoping to learn how to build forges, burners, etc. The junk to good info rate is something like 70 to 1 worthless to good.

Mix up Kastolite in a plastic container and spread it with a putty knife. Don't tell me that's too advanced or I'll say something harsh. I'm not called a curmudgeon for nothing you know. 

The only qualification people posting how to videos online actually need is a camera and connection. Most of them are worthless to outright dangerous. It won't take to long to gather enough good information and you'll start recognizing the good from the bad. I am NOT dissing you but right now you just don't know if you're looking at the right way to do these things but we'll try to keep you on target.

Iforge has pretty extensive gas forge and burner sections. The two threads I referenced above are the most recent and seeing as Mike Porter has been sort of hosting them it's GOOD info if you take Mike's opinion as very well informed. I have my areas but Mike's done the research and math.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Moonstone]

Hey Im just building my second Forge. Looking for and tips that would make it better before I get finished. It's a tiger torch with Plaster or Paris and sand 50/50 mix for insulation. Im using a fan for bellows. And advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance and happy forging. 

[Latticino]

OK this is a great illustration of why using YouTube as a source of info can send you down a bad path.  Unfortunately there is more wrong with this forge design than right.  At best it will heat metal slightly better than the torch in open air, at worst... well I'm not going to go there.

I don't mean to be overly blunt, but if you can't be bothered to do any searching through the many posts on gas forge design in this forum I would expect you could have at least read the rest of this particular post.  The OP had a reasonable shell design, with the exception of not properly sealing his refractory blanket insulation (a safety issue more than a functionality issue).  He got good feedback from Frosty on why a weed burner is a bad choice for a forge burner.  What Frosty omitted is that he has personally come up with a very easy to construct from common plumbing parts NA burner (the Frosty Tee burner) that would be a viable alternative for the OP, and you (though if this forge is an illustration of your level of fabrication skills I recommend that you bite the bullet and just buy a commercially made one).

Your forge is orders of magnitude worse.  Lets run down a couple of things:

1. A plaster of paris and sand mix  is not either a good insulator or a good refractory material.  It will not efficiently hold heat and will break down in short order at the more ideal steel forging temperatures. 
2. Your weed burner is not a well designed heater for either that size of forge, or to be honest any forge at all.  It is made to operate in open air and likely too large to develop a stable flame inside such a small forge volume.
3. You have the front end of the burner too far into your "forge".  If it ever got hot it would destroy that tip
4. The fan will not act as a bellows in the configuration you have it setup.  It might do a little as a kind of supercharger to induce a little more air into the burner, but it could just as easily screw up the limited induction that such a burner naturally has.  Have you tested this configuration?
5. I strongly recommend putting both a 0-30 PSI regulator and a 1/4 turn shutoff ball valve in your gas train.
6. Your forge chamber does not have a "back door" used for a pass through.  There don't seem to be any easy provisions for a front door or shelf either.
7. Your tape/cloth wrapped piece of cardboard tube will not work as a safe forge stand.  Hopefully that is just temporary

I'm sorry if I appear overly harsh.  You asked for feedback on making it better.  Your setup may be worth trying out (might as well try to prove me wrong, I guess), but be sure to have lots of safety equipment around when you do.  Personally I would push on to forge #3... (what ever happened to forge #1?)

[Moonstone]

Ok thank you for the advice. Forge number 1 was essentially the same thing although a bit smaller. I'm going to do more research and make number 3. 

Here is a picture (for your amusement of my lack of skill) of Forge number 1. 

He never failed at making the lightbulb. He just demonstrated 3000 different ways to not make one. 

[Buzzkill]

21 minutes ago, Moonstone said:

 

He never failed at making the lightbulb. He just demonstrated 3000 different ways to not make one. 

True, but if you take the advice of some of the good folks here, you can avoid demonstrating about 2995 of those different ways not to make one.  We've already demonstrated those ad nauseam.

[ThomasPowers]

Been said already but I have to dogpile on this as usual:

Weed burners don't work well in a forge as they are too oxidizing, they cause too much scale and decarburize high carbon steels and so are particularly BAD for knifemaking. So adding more air to a system that has too much air already just makes thing worse!

Plaster of paris starts to degrade at over 350 degF, you will want to forge at a THOUSAND degF *higher* than that and more---forge weld and it's 2000 degF higher than where plaster of paris starts to degrade. There is an idiot on youtube that uses that mixture, there are also idiots on you tube maiming themselves and others doing stupid stuff---Don't follow in their path!!!!!    

When you are starting out it's very hard to tell if someone is experienced and an expert in what they are showing---especially if their production values are good; but think of it this way: if you need an operation would you be going to someone who makes excellent videos but has only done the operation once and the patient died---or would you want to go to someone who has done thousands of that operation with excellent results!  (I recently had an operation; I chose a Dr that had done thousands over 30 years...)

Also we get a lot of "I needed to save money so I used the plaster of paris and sand mixture because it's cheap."  unfortunately as it's not an insulating refractory you spend much more money in fuel than you save by not buying a good refractory.  If you save US$20 on refractory and spend $80 MORE in fuel how much are you saving? (I think Wayne Coe sells enough fibrous refractory for about $20 to do a good starter forge; I haven't checked his prices  lately as I got mine for free---and how folks do that is documented in this site!)

You have the urge to smith---that's step one.  You are willing to get out and experiment and *do* stuff---that's step 2.  Now you need to learn to do good research *first* so you can profit from the mistakes of others and not have to make them yourself!

[Moonstone]

Any Canadian dealers that you guys would recommend? Our dollar isn't doing that great and it's more money on shipping. 

[ThomasPowers]

Have you looked up any of Frosty's posts where he mentions getting kaowool locally at places that repair heating boilers? As code where he's at requires them to use fresh material, he's been getting the "drops" for free IIRC.  Or MUST you use the internet and pay more?

[Moonstone]

Ok so through my work I found some ceramic wool. Couple of questions. 

1. What thickness should I go with? 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, or 2 inch?

2. What density should I get? 4, 6, or 8lb. The guy suggested 8lb. 

3. Is 5.65$/square ft for 2in 8lb a bad price? (Keep in mind Canadian dollars) 

4. Is 2300F a good enough temp rating enough? I was reading another thread and is suggested using Zircopax or something similar. (I'll be asking more questions about that later) 

Thanks in advance!!

 

A mistake is and opportunity to learn. 

[Latticino]

Personally I would use a minimum of either (2) layers of 1" blanket or (1) layer of 2" blanket of at least 6# density (8 will also work).  Blanket rated to 2300 deg F will work, but will be better with an inner coating of a true refractory insulation material (i.e. the Kastolite that Frosty mentions above).  That inner layer should be at least 1/2" thick, but can be much thicker.

No idea on pricing, check Wayne Coe's or High Temp Tools sites for alternatives to compare to.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Moonstone, glad to have you. If you're going to quote Edison maybe you should know he spied on his competitors constantly so he didn't have to try things they'd proven wouldn't work. 

I'm thinking of putting something to the effect of. Do yourself a favor, do NOT watch Youtube videos to learn a new craft! I don't recall exactly what it was but someone posted the BAD info to good ratio of Youtube how to videos is something like 75% BAD info to 1 (ONE) good info. 

Anyway, scrap the POP liner and weed burner has been said, thank you guys. 

Check with HVAC Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning service companies for your ceramic blanket. Most sell products as well as service equipment. Even if they don't sell they'll tell you who they buy from. My supplier was recently bought out  by "Distribution International" and they may have a branch in your neighborhood. Anyway, US building code says a service company can NOT use scraps to service so they toss trimmings and drops as a matter of law. If you're nice, maybe bring a box of donuts or forge the receptionist a nice bauble for her desk. they might be VERY nice to you. Letting you dig scrap Kaowool out of the dumpster is almost a given. My guys can't let me dig so they just give me a couple few large garbage bags stuffed with Kaowool.

I haven't purchased ANY in 25 years. Heck the company gives the club the commercial discount on things we have to buy. They keep a pallet of Kas-t-OLite 30 on the shelf. We have to time it pretty badly to catch them without any. Wayne coe sells small quantities for reasonable. Our club buys and divides a 50lb. sack pretty regularly. 

When you're looking for things, forget the internet it's become junk mail central, search for one thing and get hit by loads of ads for things you MIGHT find interesting. The paper phone book and telephone is far better. My search technique starts with: "Hello, my name is. do you have time for a couple off the wall questions?" Office workers, especially receptionists tend to have pretty boring jobs if a random caller is polite and concerned about wasting THEIR time they're almost always happy for an interesting break in routine. This is just good PR.

Remember, YOU are asking them a favor, Please and Thank you  are just basic common courtesy. If they say no, you say, "thank you for your time, have a nice day." It's cheap and pays off more often than not. I've had the "receptionist say, just a second hold on" and make time for me or give me a time to call back.

Anyway, before I get completely side tracked. There are hundreds of pages of gas forge building posts on Iforge in the . . . "Gas Forge" section! Same for burners and there are two currently active threads with more information than you need and you don't have to ask questions. I recommend you do some reading before you start asking, that way you'll know enough of the basics to be able to ask good questions and understand the answers.

Truth is, had you spent a couple few days with snacks and something to drink, reading the Iforge sections mentioned BEFORE watching Youtube videos, you'd need to cover your computer in plastic to protect it from the beverages you'd be snorting out your nose watching the idiocy. 

There are excellent Youtube how to, videos but they're rare and most are listed here. I think they have their own sub section in fact.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

11 hours ago, Moonstone said:

Ok thank you for the advice. Forge number 1 was essentially the same thing although a bit smaller. I'm going to do more research and make number 3. 

Okay, you are stopped; that's a good beginning point. Read forges 101, because you need to get a fast view of the big picture, before you start playing with burners. The popcorn can would never have worked out; they became popular for casting furnaces, which were being lined with hard refractory; you need a little thicker wall than that to support the forge's burner port and legs. Pay close attention to the suggestions about building a forge from a two gallon non-refillable helium cylinder, or a non-refillable Freon cylinder. That his the forge that will make you happy. Just slow down a little bit, and we will walk you right through the whole process. And, no; you don't need much tooling or money to build a very fine forge; You just need to do a little reading, and listen when we answer your questions.

[VainEnd84]

Do Canadian suppliers of materials for building forges check out front step forge (located in Edmonton Alberta) they have a website and the owner sells some of the materials needed to make forges, he also sells forges, pottery supply house is a solid choise for the ceramic wool blanket.