Darren Ellis's Bubble Alumina

Greg Covington

Greg Covington

Joined
Oct 28, 1999
Messages
1,563
Darren sent me some of the bubble alumina refractory to try out in my forge.

My main forge is one that Ron Claiborne built and has worked very well except that my obsession with chain, chainsaw, cable, and other scrap has been rather hard on the forge floor.....the borax has taken a toll.

I cleaned up the floor and repaired a few areas then line the floor with a slurry of the the alumina....which looks like coarsely ground styrofoam. I then fired the forge up and force dried the new refractory.

So in went a mess of large link chainsaw...all rusty, wired and tacked to a 1/8 bar of L6....and alot of borax. The resulting billet was cut in two, then stacked around some more L6.

I had a real nice forge temp....nice rainy day here in Ohio....cool too. The inside glowed near white and the billet would come out singing.

I expected the flux to do its damage.....but to my surprise it had little or no effect on the alumina. Awesome stuff!!!!

Thanks Darren!
 
Greg, I'll keep that in mind. I've been told my press is about done, maybe I'll have some sent out with that. Is it in a dry form? Sounds to me like you have been giving the press quite a workout. How's it holding up?
 
Raymond Richard said:
Greg, I'll keep that in mind. I've been told my press is about done, maybe I'll have some sent out with that. Is it in a dry form? Sounds to me like you have been giving the press quite a workout. How's it holding up?
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Ray....the alumina is in dry form.....just hope that the DEA doesnt intercept the package.....looked like a 5lb bag of coke!

The press is 100%......Ron is totally correct that you can start to feel exactly where you are with it. You are gonna love yours!

With cable and chain it can squish it together extremely fast......as the bar takes shape I give it a few "once overs" with a hammer to help close up little voids......you can hear it happen as the bar lets out loud snaps when hammmered.

The aforementioned billet of chainsaw/L6 has grown into a nice 6.5" bladed swayback fighter......it is tempering as I type this. The preliminary etch shows a sweet pattern with no voids. I am thinking about a wrought guard and buttcap with elk in between.

With very little practice you can make a nice bar shaped billet.
 
I've ordered some from Darren for my forge. I built a great forge last year, and proceeded to ruin the bottom of it twice, with anhydrus borax, that I always use way to much of. I'm hoping that this will end the problem!
 
indian george said:
I always put into the bottom of my forges hard one half firebricks and have never eatting thru it. :D
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I.G......Mine has hard firebrick for the floor but it is a horizontal style and the molten borax can seep between the rounded walls and flat brick and eat away there. The alumina seems to take care of it.
 
Thanks Greg for the feedback, I'm glad it is working out well for you! So far, everyone who has used this stuff has been pleased with its resistance to flux. I had been hesitant to carry it due to the cost, but so far the results are promising. In fact I've sold out of my initial batch from that single post over on the Damascus forum at The Knife Network and am waiting on my next shipment to arrive...hopefully it will get here before I head down to Batson's.

:)

-Darren
 
John Frankl said:
Good info. What is the name of this stuff on Darren's website?

Thanks,

John
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Hi John, It's not currently on the site...I'm waiting on the next shipment to get here before I update the web page...had a rush of orders for it from a post Bill Wiggins made about it over on TKN and sold out in a couple of days.

It'll be listed as "Bubble Alumina" when I update it. It sells for $25 for a 5 pound bag...and I can ship these for $3.85 using the USPS flat rate envelopes...just fyi for those who may be interested... If anyone wants any, feel free to pre-order, and I'll ship as soon as my stock get replinished...

-Darren
 
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