I am going with a box style forge because I have a lot of 1/8" plate on hand already. Mikey and frosty have both mentioned that welded box forges do not do well because of expansion and contraction so this is my solution. The box isn't welded, but held in place as shown by the angle welded to table top and the angle tabs on the top plate. My initial plan is to use Morgan k26 bricks with a kiln wash for the doors. I have several ideas on how I would construct actual doors but I think I'm just going to use the bricks initially and go from there. Currently waiting on my package from IFI, I ordered everything I could from Glenn.

 

If this is not a good way to go about a box forge I'm not married to the setup I have now. I am curious if the 1/4" kastolite layer in the forge will crack badly along the corners. Final inside dimensions will be 10*5.5*5.5, 302 cu in total. When I first started this I had a very long forge but after some thought I decided to listen to frosty about a lot of people building a monster first for their 1st gasser and regretting it. 

I'm wondering if I'm going to end up breaking this up and recasting it. The aggregate balls made it difficult to even really tell the consistency of the kastolite. Have I gotta go through the powder and break it all up?

NO!! The little balls are the bubbles, THE INSULATION! They are evacuated silica spheres and a large part of what makes Kastolite 30 attractive. 

I've mentioned it before but you really  need to try mixing the stuff for how miserably HARD it is to mix Kastolite well. You really need to aggressively kneed it to get it mixed and spreading it is like combing a rake. 

Open the mold and cure it before you worry about the results. It'll be okay, the KOL on top of your mold looks about like mine do.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks frosty, busted it loose and it looks good to me! I've seen you say it's weird stuff, and that is a fact. I was just nervous I'd mess it up- it's in a bag with a wet rag now, I'll melt the crayons out and start on the forge liner tomorrow

Looks great! If you greased the crayons enough they might just pull out, give them a gentle twist and steady pull. You might be lucky. 

I'll be watching PATIENTLY, for pics of a HOT forge. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you for all your guidance on this frosty! Got the crayons melted out (darn things would turn in the block but I couldn't pull em out) and both layers of kaowool rigidized this afternoon. Waiting on the kastolite to cure overnight now. 

 

Because of the way it's constructed I had to take the sides and top of the forge and laid them flat on the ground to apply the kastolite. I have a feeling when I put it together tomorrow I'll have to touch up the corners with the rest of the KOL I have and wait another day for curing before I get to the kiln wash. The box forge seems like a lot more work as far as lining it with KOL but like I said, I got a ton of plate on hand and no empty cylinders. 

You're welcome, it's my pleasure. Looks like you have this down pat. KOL isn't so easy to work with but it's forgiving and effective. I wish I'd made my rectangular forge in separate flat pieces before assembling the liner, it would've come out much better. 

The burner's flame looks pretty neutral and hot. 

Well done!

Frosty The Lucky.

I got everything done, I think I'm going to add a small piece of steel on the top of the forge about 1-2" tall on the front and back so it sits in front of the plenum with a single layer of kaowool rigidized to it. Like you said before frosty, you can see the heat coming out and just completely washing over the top of the forge, and I think would help with that? The plenum was too hot to touch after I shut it down, ran it hard for about 30 minutes and got a piece of 1/4"*1" hot in about 4 minutes. Unless I change something I imagine it will start igniting in the plenum 

 

I also have a problem with a chunk of the KOL you can see in one of the pictures having busted basically free. Not sure if there's a way to "glue" that back up with something or not. On the top of the forge where the burner block goes in I cut the heads off of 1.5" wood screws and threaded them into the wool by hand until there was only about 1/8" of thread sticking out in an attempt to give the KOL something to hold on to. I'm guessing I'll have to order more KOL and do the same thing to the piece that broke off. There's also a very small gap between the burner block and kastolite, it's barely 1/16" probably but I can see the bottom of the forge looking down over the forge. If anyone has any suggestions I'd like to hear em

Your tool holders are designed so the HOT ends are what you grab when you want a tool? 

I built a 4th tong rack for my shop over the weekend and as it was to go near the anvil for tongs in current project use; I made it a bit taller so you grab the cool end of the reins automatically.

I don't know, it doesn't look like the KOL bonded to the Kaowool well at all. You did butter it yes? If not that's probably the problem. If you did butter it then maybe all that flat kind of heavy steel the shell is made from is flexing too much heating and cooling. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Dangit. I don't know how many times I read through the ribbon burner build and forges 101, of course I forgot an important step. Buttered everything when I rigidized....I'm gonna order more KOL and get it right this time.