Different refractory options

[Paul Kin]

This could be a fun ride! I know how much you guys LOVE innovation!!  BUT, I have been told by the doc that I am in much worse shape then I had thought, and I am not allowed to work for at least the next 6 months. If Im lucky! So.... Im starting to get bored.... Im allowed a little time in the blacksmith shop each day but have to shut it down as soon as I feel the slightest bit sore, typically 1-2 hrs at most. Its keeping me sane at least. Sort of. Well.. maybe not. Anyway, that leaves 16-18 waking hours to do research! Woohoo! Ok, sorry, this is getting long winded already. I should start a blog... oops! Back to it!

Ok so I have been researching refractories. There are soooo many out there! Lets just stick to one brand for now. URC. They have something called uni-cast LC94. This stuff would put mizzou to shame. In theory. It can handle 3300° and has 93% alumina! (How much is to much btw??) would this stuff not be great for ribbon burners and forge liners? I know its a dense castable, but so is mizzou. Then theres the unicast LC65SR. High alumina, thermal shock resistant. Uni-cast 28 LW-HS, 2800° insulating castable. Close to a substitute for KOL 30 LI Plus as far as I can tell... And theres many, many more!

My big question is, why are we so married to KOL 30? Dont get me wrong! I love the stuff! Built several forges with it this year already (before I found out how bad my back really is). But with so many other seemingly great options, why are we so stuck on it? Is someone being paid to push it?? Kidding of course! Anyways... maybe this is me just going stir crazy. Its amazing how little a person sleeps when they arent doing any physical work.

Frosty, read it all over if you feel the need to be ummm somewhat less then easy going! NO OFFENCE!! Your reading and my explanations dont always work hand in hand .And thats ok! But I promise you theres nothing really crazy in here if you just read it over! I very much hold your opinions in the highest regard. That is a fact. 

Thanks for looking!

[pnut]

2 hours ago, Paul Kin said:

big question is, why are we so married to KOL 30?

Familiarity maybe. If you know something works it's easy to just stay on that road. 

Pnut

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

That along with availability at least here in the U.S. although we went with bubble alumina.

[Paul Kin]

Urc should be readily available down there though no?? I was told its all made over there... theres another refractory I have readily available called versagun abr. Its a mizzou replacement. Made by the same company as Kastolite.

I havent had luck finding bubble alumina yet though...

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Bubble Alumina is made by Zircar Ceramics and others.  Commercial link removed.

[Paul Kin]

I guess what I mean is I havent had luck finding it in Canada yet.

[Frosty]

Okay, I've taken a few days to beat my curmudgeon into quiescence and there's a Space X launch underway so I'll let your meanness go for now. 

I believe KOL became an item when I was talking to  Distribution International in Anchorage. I'd stopped by to pick up Kaowool and a hard refractory flame face. I was hoping for something equivalent to Pyramid Super but it was out of production for years at that time. We talked and they said, "Try this, it's a water setting, 3,000f high alumina. It should stand up to your flux and other various contaminants in the forge and being a bubble refractory it'll insulate as well." 

"Hmmm," I said, "I don't know anything about it." The counter guy said, "You can have it at cost for a written evaluation, TRY to mess it up. How's that?" "Hmmmm," I said, "Okey Dokey!" I tried it, shared some out with the club and wrote it up after really working the snot out of it. I wrote it up for DI and talked about it and what I thought here. 

For some goofy reason folks here think I'm an authority, gave it a try themselves and liked it for the most part. 

It's commonly available in the States and not unreasonably priced, splitting a sack 3 ways leaves everybody plenty to go overboard on their forge.

Another reason could be the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." KOL30 works just fine so folks are less likely to experiment with an unknown.  What'll probably happen down the line, tomorrow or a few years from now, someone will buying a sack will have the counter guy say something like. Sorry, we're out of KOL, try this and let us know what you think, you can have at cost for a write up.

Can't find it in Canada eh? Let us know what you think of the stuff you use. 

See? My curmudgeon is well in hand today, I didn't even make one, condolences about the Canada thing, crack. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Paul Kin]

Ahh I knew you'd drop in Frosty! By the way, I was in no way, shape, or form being mean. If you took it as meanness, I apologize! Sorta... (I have been in so much pain that T3’s only give 30-40 mins of slight relief, and its been 24/7 for over a year now) I never ever intend to be mean, I do anger far to easily as of late, but Ive decided recently that if anyone takes offence to things I say then “meh”. That is all. Anyways! What I meant by that little “jab” if you will, is that every time I have posted in the past, you come in real hot until I explain what I meant. Then, we tend to understand each other and be civil. I still respect you and your opinion very much! And I mean you no offence whatsoever. I am simply getting very bored with my forced time off and its starting to show... I have 6+ months of this to go. Likely more then a year by the sounds of it.

Ok, back to it! I completely understand the tried and true methods and materials. It makes sense, I mean why spend money and time on the unknown?? Thats how we got to the moon right? Never try whats unknown! Altho, maybe thats not so... Again, not trying to offend. All Im saying is, there are other, very similar products out there that should work just as well and be a bit cheaper. KOL may be fairly inexpensive to you guys but its near $200 a bag by the time it gets to my town.

Another thing, in reality, how much difference does insulating vs dense castable REALLY make? I have been using both for over a year now in several forges and have really seen a drastic difference... maybe its just me being a skeptic though. I do tend to question anything and everything that doesnt have hard scientific evidence. 
 

What I’m trying to do is find other affordable options for Canadians of all budget levels. And Americans of course. But if a rich man can barely afford it in Canada, its just pennies to a poor man in America . 
 

Sorry for the long responses. As I mentioned, I have excessive amounts of time right now!

Haha! Watch who you poke fun of! I could send my condolences for recent events in the USA as well!  

[ThomasPowers]

One other aspect: if blacksmiths keep being a low but regular user of it; it might help keep it in production and stocking for suppliers.

[Paul Kin]

Thats actually a really good point Thomas. I completely overlooked that possibility. 

[Paul Kin]

Ok here is the specs on the URC insulating stuff.

 

It seems like a good product. Not quiet what KOL 30 is but at more then $25 a bag less then the KOL, its a fairly similar product is it not?

[Good Times]

I am just wondering if you ended up trying the uni-cast 2800? It seems to be the most readily available product in my area.

[Juicemiser]

My uni-cast 2800 should be here tomorrow after a 2 week wait.
 

Brand new to the craft, so first off, thanks to all the old hats on here for fostering such a great community.

I recently turned my crummy old shed into something of a workspace and just built my first burner and tested it out. This will be my first experience lining a forge and I will be back on this thread to share the results!

 

 Stay tuned

J

[ThomasPowers]

Is this an insulating refractory or will you be using it on top of something like kaowool?

[Frosty]

How much did you buy, a sack or did you find someone willing to break a sack and sell reasonable amounts?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Juicemiser]

Thanks for the quick replies lads,

Frosty, 

I bought a whole sack haha. Not a whole lot of folk in my area (that I know of yet) to split that cost with.

Thomas,

I’ll be casting some bricks and also coating the kaowool inside my ammo can forge (inner dimensions approx 4.5x4.5x10 after coating [just over 200ci])

I know I know, maybe I should make something a bit bigger with that big ole sack of refractory I just bought but I’m a beginner and the shell is already built lol!

J

[Frosty]

I don't know if there's anybody on your side of the country selling small amounts of forge making supplies. 

That's a fine size forge, especially to learn with. What do you have planned for door baffles? Running it with the opening wide open will preventing it getting as hot as it should and it'll burn a LOT more propane. 

I don't recall, what size burner did you make? 3/4" would be a charming amount of overkill, you'll have to be careful not to melt things which is a good way to make keeping an eye on the fire a habit.

Do NOT stare into a hot forge, the IR can cause cataracts. If someone starts warning you about UV try to be polite but you may laugh. A forge can NOT get hot enough to emit UV. Unless you're using an arc furnace but you wouldn't miss that. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Juicemiser]

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

What do you have planned for door baffles?

I plan on casting door bricks out of the uni-cast for now; I’m pretty sure the 2200f hard bricks I currently have are just going to melt under the face of that flame.

And yes, 3/4” is what I went with, I couldn’t find the “proper” reducing tee so I went ahead and reamed the air ports of a 3/4” tee out to 1” with a hole saw and filed them smooth. Seems to have worked but let me say that tuning the tip distance took a bit of doing due to the slight adaptation (tuned to my best judgement using info found here). I’m also still working on the airflow control bit so that should help once complete. 

I’ll be keeping both eyes “on” the fire as often as I can spare them ;-) Also, all of the hot work will be done outdoors once I lay down some gravel. My small shed is 1) too small 2) too much of a fire / safety hazard to run this lil beast inside it. 

Still going to be a couple days before the lining is completed, temps here aren’t cooperative yet. Looks like I’m going to have to do the casting indoors according to temperature requirements listed in URCs guidelines. 

Don’t touch that dial; Uni-cast coming up next!

J

[pnut]

Looking forward to seeing your results. I've been using hard firebrick coated in plistix as a baffle for my forge. I have a two burner box forge. I didn't build it though, it's a commercially available model with linear inducer burners. 

Pnut

[Juicemiser]

18 minutes ago, pnut said:

I've been using hard firebrick coated in plistix as a baffle for my forge.

I’ve considered coating a few of my existing hard bricks also; I plan on experimenting with a few things and this will likely be one of those things ^

~How thick of a layer of the plistix did you end up with on those hard bricks?  

J

[pnut]

One coat. Maybe a 16th of an inch. I  wanted to try to reflect as much of the IR energy back inside the forge as possible. The forge I have has pretty small openings on the front and rear. Well actually I guess it's the sides because there's a long door that's actually the front but I use the small openings usually. They're 3.75x2.0 inch

Pnut 

 

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning Juice,

There are a whole pile of knowledgeable  people near your rock pile. https://ontarioblacksmiths.ca

CanIRON XIII will be June 5, hosted by Manitoba Blacksmith Guild, on-line. Everyone gets to stay home and enjoy the show!! I am hoping that the new information will be posted on the CanIRON web-site http://www.caniron.ca/

When building a Forge, the focus often gets distorted. The prime function is "Get something Hot, Safely" in as small of a space as necessary. I have a NA Forge that I made using one 1-1/4" Tee fitting. It works well for small things. No, you will not have "One" Forge. You will have more than "One"!! LOL

Neil

 

[Juicemiser]

9 minutes ago, swedefiddle said:

There are a whole pile of knowledgeable  people near your rock pile.

Neil, 

Huge. Thank you, I’ll have to spend some time on that one. (Sadly looks like CanIRON is cnx)

10 minutes ago, swedefiddle said:

No, you will not have "One" Forge. You will have more than "One"!! LOL

I figure I’ll be in that boat soon enough, just don’t tell the wife!!

J

[Frosty]

 

4 hours ago, Juicemiser said:

I’m also still working on the airflow control

What do you mean by this? Once tuned a NA burner has a pretty flat induction curve from minimum to maximum so once it's tuned it's good across it's range. If it's too lean at high pressure you trimmed it a LITTLE too much.

Sometimes you can get away with widening the jet orifice a LITTLE with a torch tip file but you have to be careful not to make it out of round. If the flame suddenly gets real rich the orifice is probably out of round. That's not a big deal, you'd need to start trimming a new mig tip anyway so nothing's lost for trying.

I mix plistex to a thick latex paint consistency and brush it on in thin coats. Butter the liner first so it bonds properly. Lots of thin layers works better than one thick one. It's good stuff, I highly recommend a good kiln wash like Plistex. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Juicemiser]

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

What do you mean by this? Once tuned a NA burner has a pretty flat induction curve from minimum to maximum so once it's tuned it's good across it's range

Not trying to reinvent the wheel but we see all of these burners where you can control the airflow on so I came up with something for this particular build. I figured flexibility would be a good thing?

J