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Multi-port Forge


MCalvert

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Thank yall for the sagely advise. I will just go with a square/ruler, and make a rack for tongs and hammers on the bottom. Virgin firing was tonight, and for the life of me I couldn't understand why the flame would not stay lit when the burner was in the forge. It turned out that opening the gate some kept her going. I was displeased initially with how big the flamelets were, as I was expecting some cutesy little ones. I got over the robustness for long enough to get some heat in the forge. I had the max line pressure down at 2psi, and the needle valve about half way open (maybe, I was being very cautious). All the pictures will be at this setting. Cameras at night make flames brighter than they are to my eye, which saw the inside as a high orange. I put a 1inch round stock bar in for exactly 4 minutes, and the picture of it seems more accurate as far as color is concerned. The picture of the round stock inside the forge is after shutdown. Any further correction or advise is greatly appreciated and impatiently anticipated. I have short videos if there is any interest. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, this is going to be my last update for the forge build thread. The table has a 28x28 inch square/ruler scored into it, and I will brush some bright orange paint in the lines once it's warm enough for paint. There is a handle/rack for hammers and tongs with wheels on the other side so that when you tilt it, it can be easily moved. I used some nice foam between the forge feet and the table to soak up some vibration. The bottom shelf will be done once I find some scrap expanded metal. 

I used the forge today for the first time at length. The plenum stays cool for quite a while, but once the forge is at a low yellow, it heats up. It isn't hot enough to burn from a touch, not even close in fact, so I dont think I am having any back-burning issues. The forge heats up fairly quickly, and will get plenty hot at 2-3 psi. I haven't had more propane in it than that so far, and it achieves low yellow. I stretched out the belly/tip of a large kukri today, and hammered in the bevels a good bit (rest will be on the grinder). The stock was .250 and heats between hammering were very fast. All in all, I am EXTREMELY happy with the end result, and I am thankful for all the help and encouragement. If anyone contemplating building a forge reads this, I would strongly advise the following: 

If a curmudgeon tells you something, just shut up and do it. They've already tried what you're thinking and it didn't work, so they're telling you what did work.

Follow one of the plans that are proven and supported by career blacksmiths, evidenced by multiple successful build threads and happy owners. Follow the plan exactly. (This means you have to read.)

Don't buy a commercially produced forge. Forges are a load of fun to make, and you will learn a great deal. You may develop new skills. Use scrap, and save money for cast-o-lite and matrikote/plistics. Try to be safe. You will love the process.

Don't shy away from it. Start scrounging and get busy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Les L I am using leftover propane from my bbq grill(20lb). I would guess 1/3 of a bottle was worth 4 hours before my pressure started to drop. I won't get a real bottle for a month or so and I will be able to give a better estimate for a 40lb bottle. This is all at orange heat, 1ish psi.. maybe 2psi max. Knife stock heats up lightning fast.

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Hi another newbie here and I have a question hoping someone can give me a answer . I'm building my first forge and like many I'm using what I have. I have a 20 in 1/8 aluminum box that will be lining with 2 in fire bricks . I'm making it a 2 burner frosty style with 3/4 in pipe w/ a flare . I'm planning on citting the box down and rewelding it to size needed " I'm a retired welder/ sheetmetal worker" . My question is what is the best distance between burners for even heat and best length for the set up ? Right now my burnrs ar about 10 in center to center loosely put together ! I'm thinking it might be to far apart but I don't know for sure . I can weld anything with my welding machines but haven't done any forage work since high school which is what got me interested in metal working.  Again I can make the box any size just a matter of cutting and welding. Please excuse me if I don't use the right words , but I would appreciate any help . 

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On 1/29/2021 at 12:38 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Hard or soft firebrick? Why the long length? (Will you be twisting balusters?) 

Good question I honestly don't know they are the white wood stove bricks same as the ones in my stove except the stove has one inch and these are two inches thick. I went with the two inch to help hold the heat and to take up room in my box to save cutting and welding. As for why so long it's just the length it is but I can cut it down if need be. I probably will be twisting some balusters at some point to rebuild railings and a gate . But I want to start with blades ,it's always interested me . It's going to take time to learn I know, I have no visions of grandeur lol. It's my first forge build and if it doesn't work I will tear it down and do it again I have plentry of time like I said I'm retired which means every day is Saturday lol . But what I need to know is a good distance between burners so I can move along with the build. Unfortunately there are no forging stores around me to go measure a built forge or I would. I also read in a post on here about putting SS on the bottom to protect the brick so I will most likely do that ! Or if feasible I can make a SS insert with metal I have . I don't do anything half way or shody I'm kind of anal that way lol. I will gladly listen to any advice given . So thanks for your reply Thomas . Oh and my name is Dennis " it was already being used in the profiles ". Thanks again sir .

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Welcome aboard Dennis glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a chance of hooking up with members living within visiting distance. 

Space your burners evenly is the general rule of thumb but there's leeway. 

Fireplace bricks aren't going to last as a forge liner, once tuned your burners will be putting out in the neighborhood of 2,600f+ flames. If you wish to use firebrick I highly recommend Morgan Ceramics K-26 Insulating Fire Brick (IFB). They are rated to 2,600f and are good insulation so your burners won't be burning nearly as much fuel heating and keeping them hot. 

Kiln washing is a protective, flame face coating that armors the liner. It's non porous so the highly chemically active propane combustion products and caustic borax based welding fluxes don't erode the IFBs. They fire hard like ceramics for abrasion and impact resistance. It also conducts heat slowly so has to re-radiate IR back to the interior of the forge. Plistex 900 is the current favorite. 

The SS tray trick is an old one you don't see very often anymore. Currently a kiln shelf is much better, it's proof against flux and is very tough at welding temperature. Welding temperature borax based flux will dissolve your firebrick liner almost like hot water on a sugar cube. You'll be able to watch it, honest. Get it on unprotected ceramic refractory blanket and the blanket dissolves like cotton candy under hot water. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Thank you Frosty for the good information . I just assumed firebrick would work beings I've had pretty much the same ones in my wood stove for 30 years . I will probably go ahead and just use them since I alreay have them and just replace them with what you recommended . Wont be to hard since I am making the top of the forge removable figuring I would need to replace broken ones. Thats amazing I have never seen anything dissolve stainless and I've worked with it all my life but I do believe you and might try it just to see it happen lol . Obviously I have a lot to learn but that's ok I expected that it's like when I tought my apprentices to weld no body is perfict out of the blocks and I am no different. I haven't had a chance to get back to building the forge for a few days and now with this nor'easter blowing through I'll be busy trying to clear my driveway " it's 900 ' long" so my deliveries can get up it. But I plan on reading many of the posts on the forum to pick up some hints and learn more . I'm sure I will have more questions and I really appreciate your input and support my friend . Thank you along with the rest of the good people here. B)

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You're welcome Dennis, it's my pleasure. It's not until you encounter something it occurs to a person there are special conditions involved. I don't know of anybody's wood stove or fireplace that hits 2,600f+ except in a limited space. Our Icelandic Shepherd Falki bumped the handle on the ash pan door once so our Jotul was getting an excessive draft up through the grate. It now sags in the middle, the stove guy who sweeps the stack and services the stove said it "melted." I didn't explain the difference in softening and melting. 

Uh, NO forge welding fluxes won't dissolve SS, it dissolves silica based masonry like common fire bricks. Most metals are HAPPY in a caustic environment while the dangerously strong base dissolves: sand, dust, etc. and floats scale so impact from the hammer squirts it all out of the joint. The other main job of borax based fluxes is as a prophylactic barrier to oxygen contact, preventing oxidization (scale formation) in the weld joint. 

Anyway, the inside of a well built propane forge with the right number of well tuned burners will easily reach in excess of 2,600f. and weld easily. IF the smith follows the steps. The environment in a propane forge is a whole different planet from a fireplace or wood stove. 

We have 700' of driveway to the road but a lot more space to plow. A plow truck is a good thing. I hope you aren't SHOVELING :o 900' of drive! Up here, folks with extreme driveways build the garage by the road and ride a snowmachine to the house. That's "snow mobile" for you folk living outside the Greatland. :) They got dubbed snowmachine by Alaska natives when they first showed up. Iron Dog is another name that stuck. Only Cheechakos and dealers call them snowmobiles up here but we cut folk slack and don't giggle at them in public. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Most overly long forges come from beginners wanting to make swords; but not understanding that you DON'T want to heat more than you can work before it cools down as heating what you are not working results in grain growth, decarburization and scale losses.  Swords have been forged for over 1000 years in forges that have a hot spot of about 6".  (Now if you have trained strikers or power hammers the length you can work does increase.)  Where it's handy is for heat treat; but it's cheaper to build a heat treat forge than pay for the fuel to heat an overly long forge for everyday work---my analogy is: would you buy a dump truck for your every day driving car because you want to get a load of gravel a couple of times a year?

On firebrick:  firebrick like is used in fireplaces and wood stoves is NOT designed to be insulating, I'm sitting in front of a firebrick lined wood stove right now---If I replaced its lining with stuff like is used in a forge I'd be wearing longjohns and a coat; as all the heat would go up the chimney instead of radiating into the house!  Forges are a heat balance: heat in minus heat out. Non-insulating firebricks will be a huge heat sink warming up and then radiating heat into the surroundings rather than keeping it in the forge to heat metal.  Yes they can be used; but expect them to take a long time to heat up/cool down and you will be using a lot more fuel to get the same amount of work done as with an insulating liner.  Of course since you are retired you may have lots of cash to waste; but I sure don't expect to when I retire later this year.

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Hahaha You really had me for a minute with SS melting I was dumbfounded I seen a lot of stuff but never that lol . I guess I just read it wrong obviously . Yea you people in Alaska laugh at us the same way we laugh at peole in Atlanta when they get snow . Down there 1/2 shuts down the state , here it takes about 6 inches for the schools to shut down " of course not many in school at this time" lol. No I don't shovel any more to many back surgeries along with a shoulder replacement " thats what you get from swinging a hammer & picking up heavy things for 45 years ". I have a bucket on my tractor and a Polaris 4 wheeler w/a plow that I use now . If it wasn't for deliveries and Dr appointment's I wouldn't bother at all my wife calls me the hermit & she's not wrong after running from job sight to job sight & answering to bosses for all those years I just want to stay home in my own shop , what can I say it's good to be king and do as I please for a change :D ! Again thanks my friend !

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4 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

  Of course since you are retired you may have lots of cash to waste; but I sure don't expect to when I retire later this year.

No I never said I had a lot of cash to waste which is why I was trying to use what I had , but point taken on the length and gas. I don't plan on a power hammer anytime soon but I might build a power press in time. I didn't even think about the brick not holding the heat but again I'm trying to use what I have. I know there is a learning curve , this is different than the welding I have done all my life and still do " except for stick just sold that machine , I'm just Mig and Tig now ". I will use it till I get the forge up and running then switch over to the ceramic like I told Frosty . While I do have a decent pension I'm not into wasting money either . So thank you for the info Thomas I do really appreciate it . 

Dennis

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As I approach retirement, I'm looking into how much I spend on my "hobby". I started recording  the time I spend forging with my 100# tank so I can figure out $ per hour.  I may have to start asking folks using my forge to chip in on the propane fund instead of just covering it myself.  I find that many people seem to ignore fuel costs. I sometimes ask them "which is the better deal: getting a free engine for your car that gets 8mpg or paying $200 for one that gets 40 mpg?"   Gas savings generally pay many times over using  insulating refractory for a forge.

Now if you have firebrick, you can make a wonderful table to set the forge and hot tools and workpieces on, I have a soapstone slab I use over a wooden work bench of 1/4" steel sheet I use over air.

Of course the cheapest way to go is to make a JABOD forge and make your own charcoal!

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Nah, only the kids and Cheechakos laugh at other folks cold weather. If you're cold you're cold, a thermometer only puts a number on it. Right now it's 9f with about a 20mph wind. Nobody's laughing here and that's nothing compared to much of the lower 48. 

Ooooh a tractor and attachments! I'm jealous, plowing with a 4 wheeler not so much. I don't need any back problems to not want to shovel much farther than from the porch or shop door to where the truck plow reaches and I spent 30 years lifting heavy things and hand screwing joint of drill steel together, often in sub zero temps. Arthritis in my thumbs is a surprisingly light price for what I've put them through.

I'm a shoot the breeze at the coffee shop counter culture, kind of guy. I'm easy to talk to. . . usually, there are folks I walk away from. A few are relatives. <shudder>

Thomas isn't gigging you, linear extrapolation is one of his methods of making points. He's also big on the Socratic method. A lot of us old curmudgeons take to heart that we're aren't really talking to ONE person, last I saw Iforge has in excess of 50,000 subscribed members in some 150 countries around the planet. and many more who can read without posting.

Most of us try to couch answers and examples for those who are just getting started and may have the same or similar questions. Make sense?

If you think of Iforge like a Yankee Stadium sized cocktail party and you can't see body language or understand most of the spoken languages you'll have a (sort of) handle on it. 

Try not to let all the random advice confuse you, they mean well but . . . <sigh> We'll get you up soonest.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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Yea your right cold is cold my friend and with arthritis it's worse every year " I do know about the hands "  but I still joke with a friend who lives down that used to live up here. But he gets his shots in with how good the bass fishing is down there :D. As for the other I'm good I have no problems with anything I can be kind of direct myself sometimes. I do appreciate all information , I may not choose to do it but I don't mind the education . My wife says Im hard headed & I won't deny it ! I've always been a " it great to do everything right but if you don't screw up once in awhile you can't learn from it ":unsure:. Oh and here we don't usually get that much snow now "not like when I was a kid" and to be honest the atv plow is actually easier on me but it's only good to a certain point . Then I bring in the bucket lol. Gotta go so Take care .

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Heh, heh, heh. Deb says I'm hard headed too, how much luck do you have changing the Mrs. mind" I just go along if possible. :rolleyes: 

You need to ease up on the quotes, if there's something in particular you're addressing you feel might get lost, highlighting that portion and selecting the "quote" button attached will drop it where your cursor is in your text window. Quoting too much or often tends to draw the mod's ire. 

Our conversation would make more sense if I remembered where you live. If you told us I forgot as soon as I opened another post. This is one reason why it's a good idea to put your general location in the header,  not to mention making it more likely to hook up with members in your vicinity. There's more, lots of information like: tool prices and availability, etc. is location specific

WHAT you're NOT :o going to follow my every suggestion religiously!?!!  I'm shocked, appalled, I tell you!

Most of my old friends and relatives think of Alaska in a sort of "Call Of The Wild," mythos. At least they've stopped asking if polar bears and wolves eat my sled dogs very often. No kidding. I still have to explain the sun doesn't go down in fall and rise in spring and STAY. Seriously, our igloos would melt and get out stereos wet every spring. <sigh> I've had to work to get some of my old school chums to stop hanging on my every word when I talk about life here. You have no idea how tempting it is for a natural bull shooter to take them for a ride.

There are lots of places in the lower 48 who enjoy much harder winters than I do here but you only have to go 60 or so miles inland if you want colder winters and hotter summers. I live maybe 7 crow fly miles from Cook Inlet which runs 30'+ tides and does a major good job of moderating our weather. 

Alaska has enough different climatic zones we kid each other about local weather. Folks in South East have webbed feet and have their moss styled. Folks in the interior tend to be frozen fried types. Those in the west are often pressure washed but the fishing is good. Folk on the north slope . . . Uh . . . What can you say.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Yea as I heard about the quote's I'm already in the dog house but surprised it took so long, I guess the next time it's out to the wood shed with me  lol. Actually I am taking your advice about the bricks " I did my own experiment with a burning torch to one of my older bricks and yep it ain't going to work . It started melting it , I gotta learn for myself sometimes :rolleyes: . I'm trying to find the K26 bricks  locally " not havong much luck  because first they are expensive and then throw shipping on that YIKES $$$ !! But I am reading up on what you wrote in the first time forge builders post I believe it's in "Mels notes" post I think I could be wrong on his name ? I'm going to cut my box down to use less brick I think . I was using the 9x4 x 2 1/4 brick to take up space but it will be much cheaper if I cut and reweld for sure. I'm also reading about the ceramic wool , I have a lot to learn about it all most of it's like hieroglyphics to me lol. But I went through it with welding on what rod and Purge gases to use on different typs of metals so I will figure it out I'm sure if I can get it to stike in my hard head lol . Yes like you I just go with it and take ownership no sense arguing with the wife over that " I've got better things to argue about ":D ! As for Alaska we were supposed to come up there this year for our 40 th anniversary but the covid stomped on that one but we are rebooked for this August if it all clear . I do know you have weather thats all over the place depending where you are and when and the climate change is playing hell on you. I saw they have had to change the iditarod a few times for lack of snow but it's the same here when I was young we got lot's of snow and used to play hockey and skate on the ponds but it hasn't been cold enough to do that for about 25 years now , we took my son one time when he was around 5 and that was it " he's 30 now" !   I'm hoping to get my vax shot soon here in MD their in phase 1C and I'm in phase 2 so we can make the trip , I want to see it once ! Again Frosty thanks for all the input and guidance my friend . I didn't hit quote this time so things are looking up lol . Take care , Dennis

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