Tiny Buffalo

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Okay thank you both! I have both wood ash and old fire bricks. I’ve got everything laid out and I’m getting ready to start welding the forge up. After I’m done I’m gonna mix the ash and fire brick in with the clay and start lining the forge. 
 

another question, do I need to let my clay mix dry out or can I fire up right away? 

[JHCC]

The faster it dries, the greater the likelihood that it will crack. 

On the other hand, you only need the barest minimum of water to make your mix hold together, so it shouldn’t take too long to dry. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Best bet is to let it dry a week or so. You could build a low slow fire over several days but the water in the clay will crack or blow out with too hot of a fire. Even letting it dry a week or so I would still fire it slowly.

I see JHCC and I were posting at the same time.

If I remember correctly you are only using the clay for the ducks nest fire pot and using dirt for the rest of the table, is that right? If so make a cardboard form for the fire pot and pack the clay around it then fill in the rest.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

my plan is to line the the entire pan with clay mix,I wasn’t planning on using any dirt.  
 

I’ve got plenty of red clay and I just got done crushing up quite a few fire bricks and I’ve got a bucket of wood ash. So I figured I’d have enough mix to completely line the pan and still have enough leftovers to line one or two more pans. Or I can use the leftovers to line an antique cast iron rivet forge I’ve got. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Here it is with all three mixed, It was moist but I had to add more water to it to get it to stick to the pan, then I built off of the wet part and I used a rubber mallet to pound it all in. I finshed by sprinkling a little dry over the top and pressing it into the wet. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Well I got everything done except the legs, I decided on this one I wanted to do four legs but I can’t decide on either using the sucker rod legs I’ve already made or making pipe legs, I have enough material to make several variants of the pancake compressor forge so I will definitely try one out with three legs later but I’m just hung up on what the legs should be made of. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

On the side draft I've been making for a long time now, I used rebar welded on. Some day I might finish it, all that's left is to clay it and make the fire pot. Made from the base of a water pressure tank.

[Frosty]

How thick did you clay it? An inch or so is plenty on a steel pan. 

I think you'll have better luck keeping your air grate clean if you turn it over. With it making a bit of a dome the clinker will brush down off it fairly easily. If it forms a little cup you'll have to dig clinker out. 

I think you could've crushed the fire brick almost to sand or used less. The chunkies look pretty large to me.

However, it's not a science at our level, what works works, it isn't broke. However we'll honored to help you fix it till it is broke.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Iron dragon, that’s a cool setup I can’t wait to see the finished forge! 
 

Frosty, I agree with you I don’t think I got the fire bricks hammered down quite enough… there were some chunks, 

I may have overdid the liner it’s much more than an inch it’s probably closer to two or two and a half thick. 
 
I’ll go ahead and turn the grate over while it’s still wet.

I just turned over the grate and used a rubber mallet to hammer it down. I like that much better now all the air holes are usable instead of just the center three, thank you for the suggestion Frosty, I hadn’t thought of that. 

[Donal Harris]

Can you repair a seized up gas wood chipper?

[ThomasPowers]

I got a barrell of clay by going down to the arroyo after a big storm and a large puddle in it had dried out leaving thick slabs of clay "crackle" that I could pick up and throw in buckets, just a fine layer of sand on the bottom.

After several months of zero precipitation our "monsoon" season has hit with a vengence!  We get most our water from randon thunderstorms; but they have been fairly consistant the last several weeks.  The weeds are having a great time and fire danger will be high when the next big dry hits!

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

DHarris, I can normally repair just about anything if parts are available for it. 
 
Frosty, after this forge is done I’m gonna hammer down the leftover mix some more to get the chunks down finer and the next pan I think I will definitely line a little thinner. Because this one is turning out a little heavier than I wanted but maybe it’s all the water? Im gonna let this set all week in the heat with a fan blowing over it so hopefully by this coming weekend it will be dry enough to put a fire in. 
   
I’m gonna build three of these pancake forges to start with so hopefully by the last one I get it fine tuned lol. Then after I play with these awhile im gonna build some bigger forges. 
  

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Update, it’s been almost 24hrs so I thought I’d take a look and I can already see some cracks starting, I’ll definitely make the next liner with a finer mix and not so thick, 

I’m gonna let this one finish drying because I want to see how it works this weekend. 

[Frosty]

If it's cracking you used too much water just hammer it down again. It's just dirt you know. 

I don't wait for the liner to dry before firing mine up on the occasions I use coal. I don't keep my cast iron pan forge lined, I keep the clay in a bucket in the shop. 

You only want JUST ENOUGH moisture it will form a clump in a squeezed fist. If it leaves your hand dirty it's too moist, add some more dry soil and leave it over night to temper. 

If you've ever done and green sand casting that's the moisture content you are shooting for. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I’ve never done any kind of casting but I’ll keep that in mind when I do the liner for the next forge, I plan to try this forge out using coal, hopefully the tiny Buffalo blower puts out enough air to do something with.

Otherwise  I’ve been spending a lot of time an effort making a bbq grill! Lol

[pnut]

It's been said before but that would make the perfect blower for a charcoal jabod if it's not strong enough for coal. I'd love to have that little fella for my jabod. Currently I have to lug out a forty pound buffalo no.700 every time I use it. I love my blower but portability goes a long way in my book. 

Pnut

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

pnut, if you was closer I’d be happy to bring it over so you could hook it up to your jabod and try it out, I also have a small candy Otto I’m gonna build another forge for that would probably work good for charcoal,

part of the reason I wanted to make a few of these little forges is for portability, so I could load one up and go to club meetings when they are held closer to me.
 

Irondragon told me about a club meeting later this summer that’s within a decent driving distance to me so I’m gonna try to get a portable setup built before hand that way I can hopefully go and learn hands on instead of just going and watching. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Well I welded some pipe plugs to the sucker rod legs,  I’m not sure I care for it so I think I’m gonna make some pipe legs later, but this at least gets it up in the air so I can at least test it out, also not happy with the liner I’ll have to redo that later also, the plus side is the whole thing is light enough to pick up and move without getting a hernia! I estimate it around 50 pounds but I haven’t weighed it yet. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I fired it up using coal, I was surprised it took off fairly easy and the little Buffalo blower seemed to supply plenty of air, I didn’t do any hammering but I threw a 3/4” piece of sucker rod in there to see if it could heat that, I think that little blower did a decent job over all. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

How many full revolutions does the blower handle make when you let go of it?

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

2 full turns and 3/4 of another turn

At a slow pace 3 if at a fast pace 

[ThomasPowers]

That's my goal---3 full turns after I let it go.  Some small blowers you have to crank continuously as they stop dead when you let go the handle---to much like work for me!

[Frosty]

Next time you light your fire. Instead of using a torch, try a strip of corrugated cardboard under 2" wide and more than 12" long. Roll it tight, set it over the air grate and let it spring open a little bit. Surround it with coal, coarse directly against and on top of the coil, leaving some exposed in the center. Then us more fine coal to build a mound around and over it, sealing it with wet fines.

You want it looking like a volcano sort of with the cardboard exposed. Give the blower a GENTLE turn and drop a lit match in a gap in the coil, give it just enough air to keep burning. When the cardboard catches cover it with coarse, then finer coal and give it some air.

It takes longer to describe the method than to light a fire with it. The air blowing up through the cardboard acts like a torch and blows the flame through the coal. It works a treat for me.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Thanks for the tip Frosty! I’ll give that a try in the next day or two. I’ve kept the fire alive for the last hour trying to make some coke because it seems easier to light but it sounds like your idea uses less fuel so next time I light the forge I’ll try your way.

Thomas, I hadn’t thought of that, I had to go crank it to answer your question, I’ll check out all my other blowers to see how many revolutions they have as well now I’m curious. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

What type of oil are you using in the hand crank blowers? In mine because they have some wear to the gears, I use either 80 wt gear oil or chainsaw bar oil with a little STP mixed in. Both seem to quiet them down without slowing the rotation and they leak less, than with light oil like 30 wt or trans fluid.