New Home, New Forge - Newbie~ish Questions

[Psi]

Hello forums, Im somewhat new here, but have been following blacksmithing for a while. Finally after a while without it, me and my fiance will be owning our own home shortly, and I am planning of remaking a forge there, but I was curious about a few things that I can't seem to find info on. I think I have everything figured out with the burner, and will be using a dual venturi burner system almost exactly like the video at this link. The forge he built looks really great, and if I didnt have easy access to Steel and a few different refractory materials I would have just duplicated it.

Link to Original Video - Will Mathews : Propane Bottle Forge w/ Burner Build

1. Are the following good dimensions for my first forge at my home? I will be using it as a main forge for a while, and once I start selling again and make a larger forge it will be mainly used to forge weld Damascus and the like.

           - Height : 6 - 7 Inches (Current Plan : 6.5)

           - Width : 7 - 8.5 Inches (Current Plan : 7.5)

           - Depth : 9 - 10 Inches (Current Plan : 9.5)

           - Sacrificial Floor Idea 1 : Hard Firebrick @ 9" x 4.5" x 1.25" ( Rated at 3000f )

           - Sacrificial Floor Idea 2 : Hard Firebrick @ 9" x 4.5" x 2.5" (Rated at 3000f)

           - Sacrificial Floor Idea 3 : High Alumina Kiln Shelf @ 9" x 4" x 1" (Rated at Cone 11 / ~2430f)

           - Inner Area at Current Dimensions : 463.125 Cubic Inches

           - Inner Area with Sacrificial Floors as a Void :  412.5 : 361.875 : 422.625 cu/Inches

2. Is it safe to use multiple layers of Kaowool on top of each other? I was wanting a 1.5 Inch thick Kaowool layer, and since there isn't a 1.5 inch thick kaowool, I would need to stack 3 .5 inch layers and  was trying to make sure about the validity of this idea before I go with it.

3. Is the normal 2300 and 2600 degree wool fine to use, or should I try and get a higher temp one?

4a. Do I need a rigidizer if I use the Satanite, or can I get by without it?

4b. Do I need to use said rigidizer / Satanite between layers of Kaowool, if I use multiple ones.

5. I was trying to get some feed back on my wall and floor compositions. As I said, I will be using it for things such as forge welding, so my floor composition will reflect this.

           - Side Walls : .125" Steel Plate > 1.5" Kaowool > .5" Satanite* > .125" / 3 Coats ITC-100*

           - Top Wall : .125" Steel Plate > 1.5" Kaowool > .25" Satanite* > .042" / 1 Coats ITC-100*

           - Forge Floor : .125" Steel Plate > 1.5 or 2" Kaowool > .5" Inch Satanite* > .125" Bubble Alumina or Other High Anti-Corrosive Coating.

6. The materials I have listed for refractory / IR coats are both loose choices right now and can be changed. Is there a better material that I can use, such as Kast-o-Lite, or even a homemade castable / coating? I have access to a fair number of different materials, like Kaolin Clay, Alum-based Cements, Zirconia powder, etc.

Well that about covers the questions I had. I am sorry for overlooking anything that may turn up, but I did take a few hours to try and find most of the information and couldn't find concrete answers to most of the questions.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Psi, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the gang live within visiting distance.

I don't know what to say about your "plans" other than they're a jumble of sort of maybe guess work. Please don't take this wrong but you don't know enough about the subject to sort good advice or info from the bad. Start reading Forges 101 and Burners 101 here.

Important tip #1, I STRONGLY advise you to STOP watching how to videos online. I can't believe I actually watched that entire thing! I'm not going to list even the majr mistakes he made, his shop skills are okay at best his understanding of gas forges is not so.

Pick a set of DRAWN and WRITTEN plans and follow them exactly. There are a number of proven sets of plans available on here, IFI. Wayne Coe has a set proven propane tank forge plans on his site, he's a member here he also sells smaller quantities of materials for building forges for a reasonable price and offers advice.

Do NOT try to build the forge in the video it's wasteful of materials fuel. A typical, well built 20 b. propane tank forge only needs ONE well tuned 3/4" burner to reach welding temperature. The forge in the video required two because they were poorly designed and built.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I agree with Frosty. Stop watching YouTube and start reading the threads he mentioned. I suggest you read this thread first to get the best out of IFI.

 

[Psi]

frosty : Thanks for the welcome. While I do understand that you think my "plans" are guess work, I don't feel as though they are. I have done a ton of reading, the pros and cons of different insulation materials, IR reflectivity and its effects, and even the 101 articles on this site.  I will start of by rectifying one thing very clearly -

- I am not just watching Youtube videos, and replicating things. Plain and simple. Had I known the polarizing effect of that one segment of my post I would have left it out, and only provided it for the means of showing the burner style and design more accurately than words alone could. -

Yes, I linked that video to give a basic idea of the burner that I am looking at building. I have done research on the different types, and have chosen this one over a ribbon. The response that you gave about the burner design being a bad one is very odd though, as this is one that I have seen used and pushed by a few different smiths. The only real problem that I can think of is the idea of it being a T construction instead of single isolated lines. The burner itself is designed by John Carman and his products look and seem to act top notch.

I am aware that forges designed in a cylinder style are more efficent, which is not what I am debating, but I have chosen to build the "Box" style forge as that is what I want. I understand the reasoning and engineering in the propane tank builds, but it is not something that I am wanting to replicate, at least not for this project, as I do have an idea I want to try for a tank-based design. My design was originally an octagonal design with an angled entry for the burners, but I thought that it would be too hard to make work correctly.

The forge design doesn't stump me as much as the insides of it do, thus why most of my questions have to do, mainly, with the insulating materials, which was not really touched on in any way. While yes, I will definitely concede that I do not know near as much as many on this site, and am a novice in the practical sense, I don't find it helpful to be told I don't know enough to know good from bad within the first 50 words of a reply, especially when there was no real discussion about any of the questions that I put out there. I do definitely want to discuss things, as I know that there are people here with great amounts of knowledge, such as one post that I found by yourself, Frosty, detailing your ideas for coatings to sacrificial floors and other things involving non-premade high-temp ceramics/coatings, which led to me looking into the possibility of making a homebrewed one, as I said in my 6th question. That being said, I'm also not going to just be cool with getting reamed on things that I know are opinion-based. These thing such as the merits of box vs cylinder, which I found stated here on IFI, and the validity of the burner,  outside of the point I stated in concern to the junction of them on a single line.

I do look forward to discussing things more, and do hope any one can weigh in and help with some of the questions that I put forward.

iron : Please see the first three paragraphs above for the response in regards to your comment about watching videos. As to the link that you published, it is one of the post that I read before posting this. I did not read the full thread, just the top post of rules, so if there was something posted later in the thread, just shoot me the page or post and I can look over it. It wasn't my intention to break a rule or skip over info, and am sorry if I did so.

Wayne : Thanks Wayne! I had already found your site before posting here, and depending on what info I can gleam from this topic I was already planning on ordering a couple of things from you, most notably an IR coating, and possibly the Kast-o-Lite. I will definitely let you know once I figure those things out though.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

18 minutes ago, Psi said:

just shoot me the page or post and I can look over it.

OK...

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/54645-using-the-name-on-the-forum/

[Psi]

15 minutes ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

quote removed,  there is no need to quote the post we all just read

Thank you for letting me know about the names. Since the option popped up without me looking for it I assumed it was the correct way to respond, but I have fixed the post above to be inline with the rules. I was talking about the first post that you made though, and was curious about anything that may have been wrong with my question that caused you to link the main rules post.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The link I gave you wasn't the "main rules post" but a suggestion on how to get the best out of the forum. Like adding your location to your profile. So many answers are location dependent and there are smiths from over 150 countries on this forum. You had to accept the rules when you joined, did you read them?

[ThomasPowers]

well for me the big one is not having a general location in your profile so it shows up with your posts.  We have wasted a lot of time before going into details on where to get stuff here in the USA only to find that the asker is in Australia or Finland or South Africa and was willing for us to waste our time...WWW==World Wide Web you know and we have over 150 countries taking part in these forums.

[Psi]

Ahh that was my bad. I thought it had updated. It should be now. If not it is in Louisiana, in the US.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Now back to your forge questions. Regarding the thickness of the Kaowool, 2 inches is best, can be 2 layers of 1 inch each rigidized, then a the layer of Satanite or any other hard refractory. I like Satanite but others differ in their choice. All of that has been covered in Forges 101.

BTW: What type of forge were you using in your old location?

[Psi]

My previous forge I tried to make in the style of older forges, with basic materials and used a homemade refractory out of local clay, Kaolin, sand, and a couple of other simple things that could have been gotten back then, though nothing really was "As it was" since most was bought. I used it with wood Charcoal and me and a close friend learned on it, since we had a large amount of extra metal, as he enjoyed using foundrys and old-style melting systems like the viking thing, that they used to make what I think is called crucible steel if I remember right.

As for the insulation things you sent, thank you. I had saw the post frosty made in that topic, regarding the use of 2" Kaowool but was somewhat confused about if layering would be a problem as there are 2" thick sheets. Also I did not find any thing within there about the specifics of the rigidizer and even found some evidence of people elsewhere skipping that and going straight to Satanite, which I didn't fully understand until I spent some time looking at all the products on HighTempTools. It lists satanite there as being used to seal Ceramic Wool, thus why I was so confused when I assumed you needed to rigidize before doing that.

My reasoning for only using the 1.5 inches instead of the two is the fairly decent amount of volume that I can save by doing so, and if I understand some of Mikeys post correctly, it should still work fine with the plans I have, along with the anchoring bolts. There was something that I did forget to ask and that was if anyone had any luck with using Zirconium Dioxide on the inside steel shell of the forge, to act as a temperature reflecting surface, as well as a way to minimize heat transfer out of the forge, and into the metal.

The one thing that does confuse me about your response was what you said about Satanite. Is it a normal, basic Refactory just like Kast-o-Lite? I had assumed it was but the literature on HighTemp and some of the spec sheets I've found on it make it seem like something that should be used over a castable or a sealer for a ceramic board/brick/wool.

[Frosty]

Do you really feel I reamed you? I apologize. I got the wrong impression reading your long list of possible plans and questions, many of which show little or no knowledge. You gave me the impression you'd done a bunch of random reading and came up with a . . . "plan."

So, for specifics. From what source do you draw the conclusion a cylindrical forge is more efficient than a cube or rectangular forge and in what way?

Kaowool or other ceramic blanket is a wear item and will degrade with time. Using a single thick layer in a cylinder is the poorer choice over two layers of thinner. First it is easier to replace two layers of 1" 8 lb. blanket than ripping out a  single 2" layer. You can usually get away with only replacing the inner 1" layer.  Then there IS efficiency. Bending a 2" thick layer around the inside of a propane tank causes wrinkles as can be seen in the video. Wrinkles are bad things, they cause hot spots and flame shadows which are cooler. 

Two 1" layers of 8  lb. ceramic refractory blanket. Each rigidized with a fumed silica water spray. Buttered first with plain water spray. If you understood me to say a single 2" layer of refractory is a good thing in a forge you misunderstood the post or I was discussing why not with someone at the time. If this seems out of order with the rest of my post it's because we appear to be typing at the same time so I'm responding to your latest post. 

Rigidizing any ceramic blanket is an important step: First it increases it's strength by making it more rigid this helps prevent a hard inner liner refractory flame face from being broken out by mechanical impacts. Secondly it mitigates a long term health hazard by encapsulating the ceramic fibers that make up refractory blankets. There are some refractory blankets that are water soluble and can be excreted more safely from the body. Still it's better to be safe than sorry.

NO, using a water set refractory like Satanite between layers of ceramic blanket serves no useful purpose. It's an excellent flame face refractory and is better used shielding the ceramic blanket from direct flame contact and mechanical damage. My preference for the hard refractory inner liner, Flame Face, is Kastolite 30 a 3,000 f. water setting, castable, high alumina bubble refractory. It's insulating properties do well for shielding the ceramic blanket from forge temperatures that exceed it's upper limit. This makes the blanket last MUCH longer. Putting it between layers of blanket is somebody's bright idea who didn't understand how forges or liners work, like MOST of what you see and read on the internet. The only qualification you need to post a how to video online is a camera and a connection, no actual knowledge.

Don't sweat little things, like the name thing, the learning curve for Iforge OS is ongoing, the company that runs the OS makes random "up(?) grades" and we all get to learn about a new quirk. The option to use the at name is one of them that serves no useful purpose but but one bright morning there it was. Oh well, gives the Admin gang something to do in their ample free time. 

Another thing that life experience in general will teach you is to take ANY shining reviews made on a commercial site with a shaker of salt, much if not  most is marketing written by guys who don't use the stuff.

Again, your thoughts about zirconia in a forge are mistaken. About on a par with what "everybody knows" on the internet. Zirconia silicate is not a black body IR reflector as is fraudulently claimed by some, mistakenly by others. It's an efficient re radiator. Everything that gets hot is a re radiator what makes zirconia so efficient is it's enormous specific heat, commonly called "thermal mass" a good descriptive phrase. Heat doesn't travel through it very fast and it has a great capacity to store heat. This means it will absorb every BTU mere air propane burners can make and radiate it back and through. What makes most of the heat come back into the forge is the next layers of refractory before it gets outside.

In simple terms, zirconia MUST be part of the flame face. Putting it on the inside of the forge shell, the outside of the forge is like painting inside the walls rather than inside the room. 

I can't and won't address your list of ideas, item by item, I have dinner to finish making and some TV to watch. Ease up a little, we'll get you squared away and have you on the road soon enough. Don't get in a rush, the only thing hurrying does is make mistakes permanent more quickly. Honest, I know.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Psi]

The plan aspect I was referring to is my design and the one thing that I can promise is that I don't intend to hurry and looked at a lot of information before deciding on my design, and even more when I was working on the post. 

First off, thanks for the correction on the layering aspect. Your post within the 101 topic said 2" but I never saw within that post about having it within multiple layers. As for the idea of needing it between the layers, I was fairly sure that I wouldn't, but could not find any information until now that gave a specific and hard answer. It seemed like a poor choice due to the extra addition of space, but with the way the satanite description was worded, I assumed that it could be used in lieu of a rigidizer, and thus made me wonder that.

As for the basis for my statement about cylindrical forges being more efficient, there seems to be multiple post here on IFI, as well as multiple other sites that attest to this, that the use of a cylinder shaped inner is more fuel efficient due to the way the fire burns within the space. I am sadly not as eloquent as a lot of people on these boards in terms of the thermodynamics, but I do see that one thing being said rather unanimously. I know that it was painfully obvious when using a furnace to melt down metals, that an inner space with any corners at all hurt the fuel efficiency, thus hurting max temps when using things like waste oil, and forced air burners.

With all that information though, Questions 2, 3, and 4 are pretty much done thankfully, and the only things left are the inner dimensions and the inner lining compositions / which refractory would be best for this specific build.

There are 3 things that your reply brought up though.

Firstly, you mentioned the idea about not trusting reviews and the like. Is there something wrong with the John Carman-style burner that I am not seeing? I have seen a good deal of burners using the reducer coupling ideas, granted I have seen an equal amount that use flared piping. If there is that large of a difference, is there a place that I can find this information at, other than Mikey's book, maybe a technical paper or the like? The main reason I am asking is because the only thing that seems different is the accelerator, as both burners have a choke, one being a sleeve and the other a cap.

Secondly, I noticed that you didn't mention Satanite, and instead use the Kastolite 30. Is there a particular advantage to this over the Satanite, or is the difference small enough that its a personal preference thing? The information I can find makes it feel like they are different, and I have even found some post on different sites that use kastolite 30 like you said, but also put a coat or two of satanite after curing, onto the hot face. With the way that you worded things, I'm slightly confused as Satanite, Kastolite, and Bubble Alumina are all sold as different things on High Temp Tools.

Thirdly, I think you misunderstood about the Zirconia I was referring to. I know that a high zirconia percentage must be present within the hot face. I had done some digging and found a post that Mikey had made about Zirconia Oxide, and its ability to act as a heat barrier, thus why I asked that question. It wasn't about the Silicate, as I've already looked up the info on that, along with some of the different homemade combinations that could outperform some mass produced ones, like Plistex, or something near that spelling.