Cable forging

[BillyBones]

I think we have all pretty much had the warning from the mods about language at some point. To add to what George said we also shy away from religion. 

By stick, no you will not pull it out of the forge, will feel kind of like a magnet sticking to it, or maybe touching paint when it is tacky.  

I am no expert on gassers but i would also suggest closing up that entrance a bit. 2 fire bricks with a small opening between them will work. Keep as much heat in as possible. 

[Pigsticker]

The current insulation appears/is directly in fire from manufacturer. I got an extra piece of insulation with forge( not lyn kaowool) and just looks like plain insulation. Here's a good pic. Would a firebrick on each side help, over this burned insulation? 

Tx

[LeeJustice]

Rail on end is more mass under the hammer.  You have the entire length under the hammer blow rather than a small cross-section.  You might make up a box of some king to hold it with some feet to give it more stability.  As far as the wool in there, I can't tell if it is rigidized, but it sure does look bare.  The rigidizer I used was already pre dyed red.  It has been recommended here to use dye so that you can tell if you are coating it uniformly, see spots you have missed.  That I why I felt that I needed another application, it just did not look red enough to me.  BTW, use blue, or whatever color that will stand out well.

I mentioned that I bought the one that Mikey had recommended, he has already posted another recommendation in a different thread today.  It is the single burner Hero forge by Mr. Volcano.  It is 88 bucks and also sold on Amazon.  I don't know if you want to put out more cash just yet while you already have the shell of a forge.  The Mr. Volcano kit is very complete, with a superwool xtra, I think that they call it.  It comes with rigidizer, hard refractory (satanite), a burner with hose and regulator valve.  Pretty good instructions, laminated even.

[ThomasPowers]

Hard firebrick are temperature soaks; take a long time to come up to temp or to cool down.

[BillyBones]

I forgot the how hard to touch it part, no pressure is needed. If it is at temp just touching the 2 together will make them stick.

[Pigsticker]

Did I say anything religious or are you anticipating it? If I did Im sorry

[ThomasPowers]

I once had a smith weld some 3/4" dia steel to my 2.5" sq stock in a forge at around 7000' by just pushing it against my piece while repositioning it in a shared forge---we had to use a sledge hammer to pound it off!

PS: No; we are just coaching you a bit ahead of time...

[Pigsticker]

Will the push contact be enough to lift the cable? I really like the propane forge idea as it takes 20 min of warmup to be ready and I'm back upstairs minutes after turning off the propane so I can think through the whole process. Plus fire here is a severe threat. I've grilled out twice with charcoal and now have two 1' circle burn marks. It is always super windy and neighbors houses are not brick (beach) and less than 25'from foundation to foundation so even quick '20'fires can get out of hand. Like blowing coals after I go inside

Tx again

LJ the forge I bought was supposed to be capable of 2600. Would this kiln be more trustable? It couldn't be born in OR too, I'd guess that leaves Chinese production.

Tx.

Still not cussing out of recidivism

TP I really don't care about soaking longer to get me to the usable heat I'm under now right?

If I buy the volcano, what to can I rely on from the factory?

[Pigsticker]

What temp?

[Pigsticker]

I think I'm gonna be gone now. Though I can't remember it, a moderator has in informed me they warned me (before?) this first post about about cusswords. Maybe I knew him or her as a child.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all your help. You guys have been awesome. I completely agree I'm in deep water but it doesn't seem to matter to me. I guess I'll be cussing alone with uncooked wire rope. Thanks again for helping soooo much

You guys keep your heads up 

Tx

 

 

[LeeJustice]

Just google Mr. Volcano.  Decide from there if you want it.  Made in USA.  Here is the post Mikey made earlier today:

 

[Pigsticker]

I don't know if you'll get this but should I try first to refractory, harden my kwool. Loot isn't plentiful around here

[Pigsticker]

If you get this, I'd mean I'd  redo my existing forge.

Thanks LJ

[ThomasPowers]

Taking longer to heat up costs money as well as time.

[Pigsticker]

TP both ok if it gets the heat right. I've got extra $20 a week for gas and time is wide open. Or I could try to harden, cement and die red cheaper? It seems like I could hold kaowool in my hands and use it as long as it's "sealed" wool. Not really

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Gotta watch the language or you'll end up moderated, meaning everything you post will be read and edited by a moderator before being posted to the open forum. Dropping the F bomb is one of the few ways guaranteed to get a person banned. 

If you're operating with a disability you aren't the only one here, LOTS of us survived something and carry the scars physical and mental. I'm a TBI survivor and operate under both mental and physical issues. Nobody here will cause you grief over it, we'll try to allow for it if we know how. Don't worry about spelling we have some beloved members who make you look like an English Teacher. Honest. 

Lots of suggestions have been made, hopefully I can clarify some of the points. Reading differently worded explanations helps, we may say the same thing but differently. Make sense?

You have a good enough forge but it needs some work. We make rigidizer by mixing "colloidal" silica sold under a trade designation as "fumed silica." The designation is a manufacturing technique and has become incorporated in the generic name. 

It's used by mixing it with clean fresh water in a spritzer bottle. I don't know a specific measurement, someone might but you can add the powder until it won't take anymore, pour some out, reserve it and add water to the spritzer bottle until it's all in solution. Adding a few drops of food coloring lets you see where and how much you've applied to the ceramic blanket. Don't worry, it's virtually impossible to apply too much. Of course you CAN get silly about it but . . .

Before you spritz the "rigidizer" you need to "butter" the blanket. This is a mason's term meaning wet it down, plain fresh water in another spritzer bottle is perfect. What buttering does is allow the rigidizer solution to flow along the fibers without drying on contact. It WILL concentrate where fibers cross and when dry and heat cured stick them together making the blanket more rigid and more resistant to mechanical damage. It's hard to over butter so don't be shy but don't get silly about it. Okay?

Heat cure this type of rigidizer with a torch or the burner. Carefully bring it to dull red heat. This fuses the silica into a glass and encapsulates the fibers so they can't break off and float around your breathable air. Do this in the evening if you have trouble seeing the colors, dark even. 

Butter before the next step. It doesn't hurt to butter before applying any castable, paintable, spritzable material to another. Don't worry, there's an established process for driving off all the water before the final cure and putting your forge to work but it IS a process to get your forge as right as reasonably possible. Okay? 

Lastly is a hard refractory "flame Face" also known as "Contact surface" as a more generic industrial term so if you read it online it'll be easier to figure out. Be aware what the face is in contact with is a context thing and could be darned near anything. For us it's a propane flame and "Flame Face" is a common term on Iforge. Another damaging chemical out forge liners come in contact with is the extremely caustic molten borax based welding fluxes we  use. Silicates are dissolved by caustics which is why some fire brick tends to go away when forge welding and if you get it on uncoated ceramic blanket it will dissolve like a sugar cube under hot water. 

Lastly is a "kiln wash. Depending on the refractory you use a kiln wash may be optional but for some refractories it's pretty necessary. Some "kiln washes" can be used as stand alone refractories. Plistex 900 and Matrikote are two that have been reviewed here and tend to be our recommendation though Matrikote isn't carried in the Iforge store so isn't mentioned often. It works very well though.

Mix Plistex with clean fresh water to a consistency like latex paint and brush it on the buttered castable refractory liner, allow it to dry thoroughly and apply another coat. A number of thin layers is MUCH more durable than one thick coat. You can brush it directly on "BUTTERED" rigidized ceramic blanket refractory as well. Again multiple thin layers is best. You'll need to apply a thicker final coat of Plistex if you're using it as a stand alone refractory. 

Rigidize, and apply the refractory and kiln wash to ANY exposed blanket, even in the burner port. The liner will last MUCH longer and it's much healthier. Honest it's worth it.

Once you've finished applying the last coat to the inside of your forge and allowed it time to dry. A couple SMALL holes drilled in the bottom of the forge shell allows liquid water to run out and STEAM to escape without pressurizing  your forge. We're not building a boiler yes? The final drying process is simply lighting the burner for a couple minutes and watching for escaping steam once it's dried bring it to red heat for a few minutes and let it cool for a bit. This sort of "bisq" fires the kiln wash but mostly ensures there is ZERO moisture trapped in the liner at a low enough temp it won't blast hot chips around your shop.

That's it, she's ready to go to work.

A couple door baffles will really up it's performance by re-radiating the heat shed by flame leaving the forge openings back into the forge where you want it. They're simply a couple refractory bricks. Morgan K-26 are sort of becoming our most highly recommended fire brick. They're light weight, insulating, contain alumina so are resistant to hot flux and have a rated max continuous working temp of 2,600f. A coat of Plistex and they make excellent forge components. Anyway to make the door baffles you need a "porch" in front of the openings. This is just a flat surface that can withstand the heat that close to the forge. I use a couple fire bricks in front of mine. A porch also lets you lay longer stock on it so it stays in position in the forge. The baffles are just fire brick laid on edge on the porch a LITTLE way from the forge so exhaust gases can escape without causing back pressure. I like two laid on the long edge and one bridging those to cover the entire opening. You can pull one or both bottom baffles apart to make an opening as large as you need, same for the top baffle if you need a tall opening. A small gap in the back baffle as a through hole lets heat the center of long stock, say for twisting, bending, etc. in the middle. Yes?

About your rail anvil, I used one for years before finding my Soderfors and still use the rail when it's the better anvil. The suggestion to mount it on end results in a greater depth of rebound, meaning your hammer blow is more effective because the rail doesn't compress as much. A rail laid on the flange, rail side up flexes like a spring when you hit it. Watch a train rolling by for an example of what's happening. RR rail is designed and heat treated to be flexible. That's the short version of why rail on end is better for forging.

However you need a swage to consolidate the cable while welding and guess what RR rail has two! Laid on it's side rail surface towards you provides a nice swage where the rail and web meet. The other swage is a little tighter and where the web and flange meet. 

The swage you want is the rail web one, it's smaller so your hammer won't be hitting the rail and it's more open to use than the web flange one. 

If you have a short piece of rail you can camp or weld down it makes a better swage you can only effectively work 4-6" of length at a time before the heat is gone anyway. 

I recommend you use a heavier hammer, 2lbs maybe more but don't get carried away. You want to strike a "dead blow,' you don't want any snap in the swing you want the hammer to impact and STOP. Any bounce from the hammer is a bad thing when you're setting a weld. Heavy slow blows into the pocket made by the rail web junction "swage." 

What you have is "right hand lay" cable meaning the final twist of the yarns was clockwise as seen from the machine towards the finished cable. If you hold the cable vertically the yarns in the cable slant upwards to the right.  Why is that important? Because there is a way to hammer cable that tightens the lay, turn it counter clockwise in your hand as you hammer. That way and drawing motion that lengthens the lay turns it tighter. If you turn it the other direction  the yarns WILL spread and open up. 

Wire wrapping the ends works but you need to use a bit. It's not like whipping a manila rope, wire rope requires 3-4 x the number of turns of wire. If you use heavy mechanic's wire and heat it in a 400f oven before you wrap the cable it will shrink as it cools and tighten significantly. Wrap F A S T of course and wear thick gloves. You don't need good feel, you need protection from the heat. Cold cable + hot wire means really tight wraps. No, hotter than about 400-450f MAX is NOT better because the soft iron wire is at a point of being plastic and stretches as it cools more than it shrinks. It's like seating a wagon tyre on a wooden wheel, too hot is B A D it makes a loose fit.

I know that was a lot of writing, I can be pretty long winded. Please feel free to ask me questions about any of that I'll do my best to do a good job of clarifying. Or admitting when I'm wrong. I'm used to that.

Frosty The Lucky.
 

[Buzzkill]

4 hours ago, Pigsticker said:

How do I attach flat stock to weld it?

This depends on what you have at your disposal in the way of tools.   If you have and/or can use an electric welder one of the easiest things is to weld a long rod on to the stack.   If you do not have access to a welder then hopefully you have tongs.  One option is to leave a couple longer pieces of flat stock in the middle of the stack so those stick out a couple extra inches and are available to grab with tongs.  If you have tongs large enough to grab the entire stack you can keep all the pieces the same size.   Wire or stainless hose clamps can be used to hold the stack together until the welds are set if you do not have access to a welder to tack the stack together.

[Frosty]

Or you can weld the end of 3 ea. 36" pieces of equal width and hold the cool end in your hand. Remember the flux will squirt out of the joint in no small part at YOU. 

A variation is leave one long and fold it over two short sections like a taco. Flux and crud  likes to be trapped in the fold so you  should start setting the weld at the fold. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Pigsticker]

Jaws on the floor. More info than all in my head combined. I'm gonna have to print it up just to start breaking it down. Liked the part about swing through, not just to. Very applicable good kung fu too. I've been using the 1 pound cause it's fastest. I use 110 lb kettlebell s with each hand and I still can't move the 2lb more than 3 times in 15 sec window??? Thanks though and it'll take me a day just to organize what the thoughts will be. Great stuff. And tbi, come on now. If I had alopecia, asthma or scabies this would be really awkward. Thanks again, great stuff good writing for a tbi

 

[Pigsticker]

Setting at fold means? If that to not have to flux?

[Pigsticker]

I just tried and can hit 5 times in 15 but everything gets dropped. I know it's all wrong, just what I can put together. And I have no complaint about in depth info on the forum. I think I know what somebody is writing but then it turns out my knowledge is backwards. I'd quit asking if I got talked down to. My sense of pride is why I'm out there now 

Tx guys

[Pigsticker]

And don't get me wrong I'm 100% cool with hammering to dust $60 worth of aebl stainless but wasting "extra length" metal feel the same as wasting food. And I got my little forge so I could harden and forge my stainless

[Pigsticker]

If I twist and only part in of it is white color, won't the other parts of the cable twisting at different colors easily w little inhabitant fatigue the metal. Tx  not arguing , just curious

C word above ( curious) means inquisitive in reference to answer about cable fatique. Not you know.

 

No cusses 

 

 

[George N. M.]

Frosty, your discussion about how a cable is laid will be familiar to anyone who is or has been it a steel-wool relationship.  Referring to spinning yarn, the term is Z spun or S spun which is a shorthand for whether the fibers run from upper right to lower left (Z spun) or from upper left to lower right (S spun) when the yarn or thread is viewed while held vertically.  Sometimes Z and S spun are used in the warp or weft of a woven fabric to give it different charcteristics.  When a single spun strand is plied with one or more other strands it is plied in the opposite direction from what the individual strands were spun, e.g. spin Z, ply S.

We have given Pigsticker a LOT of good advise on learning the craft, forges, and welding cable.  I hope he takes some or all of it and sticks around.  Even if he is dealing with some issues blacksmithing is good therapy for what ails you and IFI is one of the most supportive groups around.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Pigsticker]

What issues? Being a bad writer?