Mr Volcano video

[Mikey98118]

Well that seams like making a plug the hard way, when you can cast a plug from a small amount of castable refractory. Bit tp each his own. Back when I was still fooling around with casting furnaces, I used to make perfect plugs for their bottom emergeny drain holes, in a plastic pudding cup; then use the hardened plug, still in the plastic cup, as a matching form to cast the bottom of the furnace around. This allowed me to close the emergency drain hole, with a perfectly matched plug (minus the plastic cup), whenever I wanted to use the furnace as a forge, by turning on its side.

[Purple Bullet]

Well, I had this left over piece of fire brick, and my leftover refractory is for repairs. Besides, trimming rough with the grinder cut off blade and finding some tubing with the same ID as the burner tube, grinding a few teeth in it, inserting the end of the brick and twisting until it fit was just as easy for me and certainly a whole lot quicker.

Thanks for the info, though. I'll keep it in mind if I ever need something similar.

[Mikey98118]

No problem. It is not just you and I who are talking things over. There are of lots of others who think about what they read here. Every technique is useful for someone at sometime.

[Howard West]

YFI the Pentagon shape of the Mr. Volcano forge is done for a reason.  I have #2 crusable that is too tall for the way most people set their forge.  However, rotation the forge 90degrees the forge side now the floor is flat and level!    You now have found more height that you may have needed that you didn't know you had! 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Howard, glad to have you. If you put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many members live within visiting distance. 

As designed Mr. Volcano forges have the burner port(s) in one side of the top, the tallest chamber as designed. Your description doesn't make sense unless you set your Mr. Volcano up laying o it's side.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

Actually, any box forge can be occasionally abused or carefully used in this way; which of the two act this leads to is the results from what the user calls "careful." IFI members have already recommended simple improvements on this forge, which purchasers can do themselves, with little added investment in time and money.

I only saw the shape as a clever means to create a "vaulted" forge design, but his incite adds to its usefulness for everyone who reads his post

 

starting in childhood, we either learn to take care of our toys, or not...

[Frosty]

3 hours ago, Mikey98118 said:

starting in childhood, we either learn to take care of our toys, or not.

Play with other kid's toys. 

I'd still like some clarification from Howard regarding what he means his description of forge orientation. Maybe a sketch, I miss the obvious often enough.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

Well, a photo anyway

[Mikey98118]

I assume that he means is; whether its used as intended, or turned on its side.

[Frosty]

I'd like to know, it might be a brilliant idea I can use.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

It does. You simply have to separate the idea from its particular use in just this one forge, and apply it, when convenient, to all forges. How often I have seen guys build over tall box forges and thought the space was used poorly; turn them on their sides, and this failing disappears.

Turn a casting furnace on its side, and it becomes a tunnel forge, but only if you keep this ability in mind, and make some minor changes while building it. And visa versa for tunnel forges

[Justor JeiGallo]

Interestingly, Mr Volcano now makes a foundry using a hexagonal shape instead of pentagonal, but it's basically "tip a forge on end and add doors on the ends". Looks like it might be fun to try.

[Mikey98118]

Which makes it likely that someone could buy their casting furnace, and use it for a tunnel forge at times

[Justor JeiGallo]

Yeah, I dunno about that - I don't know if the "doors" actually come off, so if not there's just an entry port just big enough to pass the crucible through, so most likely even a knife blank put into the port would fall to the floor and be very difficult to retrieve. Check out the Mr. Volcano site to see what I mean. But basically in terms of construction its just a forge turned on its end.

[Mikey98118]

Everything has its limitations.

[Mikey98118]

So, I looked up their casting furnace kit; this is a very good name for it. Not that what they sell isn't well made and probably worth every last penny they are asking for it. But because, at it is, it isn't complete. That is to say that it will work just fine, as is--so long as nothing goes wrong. But, I can't see whether or not the bottom brick that its crucible will sit on has an emergency drain hole, or whether there is such a hole in the bottom of the furnace. Also, the customer needs to install legs on the furnace bottom, so that it can sit about five inches above the bottom of a stainless-steel container filled with two or three inches of sand, for the contents of a crucible to be held in, while cooling down, in case of crucible failure.

To be fair, none of the other small casting furnaces I viewed seemed to have these basic safety features, either.

As to our original subject; yeas, it would be quite easy to lift off its lid, and place it on its side. Then movable bricks could be placed in front of its opening, and it could be used as a tunnel forge

1 hour ago, Mikey98118 said:

while cooling down, in case of crucible failure.

That should have read "...while its contents are cooling down, in case of crucible failure."

 

[LeeJustice]

Update on the YSZ experimentation.  I fired the Satanite refractory and then I needed to order some plistix.  I added small amounts of the Zirconia powder to the plistix and applied that.  Three weeks' ago I fired it up the hottest yet.  It sustained damage to the lining.

 

It even caused the floor to sag.  At this point I had to choose to use the same refractory mix or just go headlong into the Zirconia coating.  Headlong I went.

Above is the YSZ mixed with a binder and applied.  It took forever to air dry!  The weather here had gone cold so I brought it inside for a week of drying.  Following that, I attempted to cure it with a propane torch.  Some of it delaminated and cracked.  I made up a fresh batch yesterday to patch up what needed patching.  Fired up the forge after quite some time of indirect heating to cure it hard.

I don't have a temperature reading, but I was once again able to practice turning good steel into bad.  We'll see how the interior looks later.  I had to wrap things up, it was getting late.

[Frosty]

Those look like awfully thick coats. Did you try putting a light bulb in the forge to keep it warm while drying? It really speeds it up even in warm weather. Just a small bulb, 40 watt incandescent is plenty. 

I'm really interested in how using plistex as a binder for zirconia works.

Frosty The Lucky.

[LeeJustice]

Yes, it was really thick.. I even filled in the hole which you see in the one photo of the damage.  Clear down to the insulating wool.  The binder that I used in the most recent test is not plistix at all.  The prior test of adding YSZ to plistix is uncertain.  There were areas of that layer which cracked and delaminated.  You can see evidence of that in the other photo as well.  I just had to employ a lot of patience, mixed with a little impatience, to give it the time it needed to seem dry enough to fire it.

[Frosty]

Yeah, that's the problem you're having. You want LOTS of THIN coats, latex paint thin. Thin coats dry completely in under a day and don't shrink check (cracks like in yours) or delaminate. Mix it the consistency of latex paint and butter the sub-surface before applying. Buttering is wetting the surface with clean fresh water, it makes a major difference to how mortars, plasters, etc. bond.  Spritz, or wipe on with a wet sponge or cloth. 

You can make it as thick as you wish but you have to do it in thin coats. Plistex and Matrikote are not water setting they dry so a light bulb or fan won't hurt a thing.

Being in a hurry is NOT your friend. Patience will be rewarded.

Honest.

Frosty The Lucky.

[LeeJustice]

This is all uncharted territory for me.  I did butter the previous coating.  However, the binder I used is in a solution of 50% water.  I expect that there is no absorption of water or binder with Zirconia, but adsorption.  Shrinkage should be minimized, as such.  I think that my first torch firings caused it to curl because it was drying too much from the outside, causing tension from some shrinkage on the outer part first.  That was why the most recent time I used an indirect heating.  And actually, on the prior test, I was trying to heat the forge from the outside, which is pretty ineffective due to the insulation.

I might also try to make myself a Zirconia brick out of this stuff sometime.

[Frosty]

What were you using as a binder? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[LeeJustice]

I was using Aluminum DiHydrogen Phosphate.  Mikey had mentioned that he thought Phosphoric acid could be used.  I wanted to stay away from playing around with acid.  But that sent me down a little rabbit hole in which I found that Phosphoric acid is used to react with aluminum salts or hydroxides, and the result is Aluminum phosphate or aluminum dihydrogen phosphate.  I chose to forgo the messing around with the initial steps and buy the end product.  It was not cheap, either.  Still trying to get something of an improvement, or new altogether.  Wish me luck.

[Frosty]

You can buy wheels anywhere you know. Marten, "Monkey forge"(IIRC) in the Netherlands, developed a very good refractory / kiln wash 97% zircopax to 3% Bentone a type of bentonite clay. One of the guys in our club has followed the recipe using drilling mud bentonite to good effect.

The trick is not using much binder I plan on using Plistex and zircopax in a similar ratio. I did a clumsy experiment on my last forge sifting the aggregate from  Kastolite 30 and combined it with approx. 50% zircopax with acceptable results.

Regardless of what I did or might do next I'll be watching for what you come up with and the results.

Frosty The Lucky.

[LeeJustice]

I have also considered that putting the YSZ coating on top of the Satanite can have ill effects if the coefficient of thermal expansion between the two is too much of a mismatch.  That being said, I am considering maybe another new Mr. Volcano as the test rig.  It has been a pain to be out of commission forging while I am also experimenting with my only forge.

It is also possible that the Zirconia that I am using is too coarse for this type of binder.  The finest that I have recovered passes through a number 400 sieve.  The rest are larger, progessing from #'s 270, 230 and 140.

About not using too much binder, I am concerned about not using enough of this type.  Not enough and all of it will maybe just blow away.  It is only this binder, for now, and the powder.