Drum forge WIP

Ok, here's a pic of my old style burner nozzle, and the new one:

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Btw, I actually used this thing to heat treat a damascus sword I started about two years ago:

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Phillip, nice work on the furnace and that blade in the last pic!

However, I highly recommend NOT using galvanized iron for a burner nozzle, or welding said components. There can be very serious dangers to your health when the plating burns off.

Best,
Steve
 
stevomiller said:
Phillip, nice work on the furnace and that blade in the last pic!

However, I highly recommend NOT using galvanized iron for a burner nozzle, or welding said components. There can be very serious dangers to your health when the plating burns off.

Best,
Steve
Click to expand...

Not as much as there used to be in the old galvanizing formulas, Stevo. That small amount will burn off quickly... and in a realtively well ventilated area, pose little threat.


Rick
 
Good to know they changed the formulas and its less of a danger, and I'll read up on it. However, I've already taken too many risks in my life - my choice is either unplated to start with or pickle/blast it off.
 
That's a good precaution to take, Stevo. If you were burning off large amounts of galvanized pcs in your forge, I'd say your were pushing your luck. I believe the old stuff had mercury and lead in it. My friend has worked at a galvanizing plant for the last 15yrs.

Rick
 
I'm resurrecting this thread because Scott's HT forge thread reminded me of it- and to acquaint the possibly uninformed of it's awesomeness. Also, I have a statement and a couple of questions for Phillip (hope he reads this).

First, that triple twistcore sword blade is just ridiculous- you know that, right Phillip?

You must have used this several times by now. Is it getting a good even heat, and have you had to do any tweaks to it to get it just right?

Is the burner aimed in tangentially for swirl, and to what extent if so?

Have you toyed further with the idea of a tempering mod?

Thanks again for posting it.
 
The tempering mod using resistance coils will work but you will have a couple of issues using the current setup.

1)Because the forge is gas fired the environment required is at odds with use of electric elements. You will want to maintain a reducing environment for the forging process. Unfortunately as i discovered trying to create a reducing environment in my electric pottery kiln, electric elements will have a significantly shorter lifespan in this environment.

2)For the cross section of the blade that you are trying to temper the diameter of the drum is way too large. This will equate to a significant increase in the amount of amps that you will have to draw since it while most likely be driven by a mercury switch rather than SCR proportional control.

Your best bet would be to construct a box made of 2" refactory board 16-18" per side and 48" high. The box would be hinged so that it opens length wise for easy maintenance the of interior. The box could be lined with the 2" kaowool though at tempering temps this wouldn't be necessary. if you were to use this for the overall heat treat process you would definitely want to use the kaowool also. The use of the refactory board will provide you with additional thermal mass to allow easier maintenance of temperature and the smaller size of the box allows for the use of smaller gauge element wire to provide more consistent heating over the whole blade via a greater number of element rows. If you are having issues with uneven heating you would then incorporate a downdraft vent that draws the heat through the floor and slowly introduces fresh air through the top to overcome the temperature gradient caused by the heat naturally rising.
 
I hope this isn't too off topic, but since we are talking sword tempering...there is a very detailed wip pinned in the tools section on the Fogg forum by Dee, a female maker from Autralia, on building an electric tempering oven. It's not hard, some fire bricks, angle iron, thermocoupler, basic wiring, etc., and you have a precision tempering oven. Definitely on my list this spring.
 
I've seen it, and it's great. Two birds with one stone is always a plus, though.

Thanks for the thoughts, Andy.

Phillip?
 
Salem, guess I don't understand. I read the replies as saying you would still need 2 forges, one for Ht, one for tempering. It seems a Ht forge would take quite a while to come down to tempering levels. Isn't it best to put the blade into tempering fairly quickly after HT, so a second oven/forge would be better? Where did I miss the two birds with one stone?
 
Salem Straub said:
I'm resurrecting this thread because Scott's HT forge thread reminded me of it- and to acquaint the possibly uninformed of it's awesomeness. Also, I have a statement and a couple of questions for Phillip (hope he reads this).

First, that triple twistcore sword blade is just ridiculous- you know that, right Phillip?

You must have used this several times by now. Is it getting a good even heat, and have you had to do any tweaks to it to get it just right?

Is the burner aimed in tangentially for swirl, and to what extent if so?

Have you toyed further with the idea of a tempering mod?

Thanks again for posting it.
Click to expand...

Hi Salem,
Just saw this.

Thanks. :-) I hope it turns out good enough to sell. It's not as straight as I would like. I'll finish it out anyway and at least hang it on my wall.:cool:

I have used it once, and it worked pretty well. It heats evenly, and holds a pretty constant temp, though I would make the set point the middle of the range for whatever steel you're using, just to provide some safety.

The burner is aimed for swirl, though I couldn't be real specific. I just sorta aim it at the side in a way that feels right. LOL

I haven't thought anymore about turning it into a tempering oven. I just use my 22" Evenheat, doing one half of the blade at a time, plugging up the opening with a piece of kaowool. Not real elegant, but it works.

You're welcome, and I hope my replies make sense. :-)
 
Well, the remark about the reducing atmosphere was a bit incorrect IMO. It should be easy to run slightly reducing when running gas, or even neutral with some Satanite on the blade. The coils shouldn't suffer, especially since they would only be powered on up to 600 degrees max, and atmosphere would be irrelevant at those temps.

Then, I understand that it's a good idea to temper soon after the quench- but that forge should come down in heat pretty quick if you can take the top off to accelerate cooling, leave the fan on, etc. The only time I'm worried about getting to the temper that fast is if I quenched for hamon in water.

So you can see why I still think it may work, or at least hope- let's just say that my wallet likes to kill two birds with one stone where possible.

I agree, in my dream shop, I'd have a dedicated sword tempering oven for sure. Hell, I'd have a 48" Evenheat just for that. To elucidate however, I did see Dee's build and thought it was super cool.

Maybe Phillip will still chime in about his forge here. I did notice that a pic I failed to load earlier answered one of my questions- it would appear that the burner is not tangential.
 
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