Fire in the Hole-New Forge (pics)

N

nc_cooter

Joined
Sep 26, 2004
Messages
574
Finally finished my forge. I used two freon tanks for the body, two modified sidearm burners,2" inswool,hard firebrick floor.two coats satanite,and final coat of ITC-100.
(Many thanks to Darren Ellis for supplies and help)

forge-1.jpg


forge-2.jpg


forge-3.jpg


forge-4.jpg


forge-5.jpg


I am using 4psig pressure and it heats really fast.

Questions or comments?

Mike
 
Man that turned out great. I wish I could find the time to get one together. :(
Scott
 
Kenny- I spent about $100,but i scrounged a lot of material over the last 6 mos.

Scott,Emre,I.G.- Thanks for the kind words.

Mike
 
Yeah, that's a sweet piece of work Mike! Looks to me like you've incorported every good idea I've heard about building forges. :D Nicely done, thanks for sharing.
 
Mike,
Nice job! Looks like that would make welding heat with little pressure. I really like the chokes.
If I have followed your piping correctly it looks like you have a ball valve to shut off each burner and a single needle valve to control pressure. I have been planning another forge and have thought to control the burners individually with needle valves and a single leaver action ball valve shut off. Would you comment on the 'why' of your design for us dummies?
Lynn
 
Lynn- During normal operation, the needle valve is bypassed by the ball valve shown just to the left in the drawing. The needle valve is used to set the burners to an "idle fire mode" just to keep the forge warm.
The pressure regulator is used to adjust the actual full fire mode when the bypass valve is open. I used a shutoff valve on each burnner so i can use one burner for smaller knives. The back wall can be moved in to shorten the forge interior.

Mike
 
Yeah Mike! You up for a visit this week? A hatchet skipping off my hand has me out of the shop. What perfect timing :D ;) :p

Dont ask :o
 
Good job.

What's the theory behind the loops in the copper tubing. I understand if it's being used as a sediment trap for natural gas ...but is this forge propane?

Also, just to clear up how the idle works ...I understand the theory of putting in a ball valve which is open for normal flow, and the needle valve for idle flow, with one simply flipping the ball valve to put it into idle mode...
But, if it runs at 4psi in regular mode, and the chokes are adjusted accordingly, what is the psi setting for idle mode, and don't you also have to adjust the choke for idle mode when you flip the ball valve?

Just wondering, as my forge has no idle mode setup, and runs in normal mode at 4.5psi ...which is already 'low' for an atmospheric forge. It doesn't seem to want to run at anything much lower than 4 psi, no matter how I adjust the choke. the burners simply won't fire at lower pressures.

I suppose if the forge was cranked up to higher psi's for forge welding, then the idle mode set to around 4 psi would make sense ...but you'd still have to adjust the air flow each time you switched back and forth from 'normal' to 'idle' mode, wouldn't you?
 
Good questions Jiminy. The theory behind the copper loops is that i am lousy at running copper tubing and i don't have a tubing bender. The loops give me plenty of room for error and still get a bubble tight connection. :)
The chokes are normally left wide open on these burners. I am able to get a stable flame from 1 psig to 16 psig. I only adjust the chokes to give a fuel rich flame to reduce scaling or to completely shut the choke when using only one burner. Are you using a sidearm burner?

Mike
 
No, I've got vertical mounted burners.
My understanding was that the burners were (usually) to be adjusted for an ideal 'neutral' flame by using the proper choke to psi setting, as opposed to a 'lean' or 'rich' flame.

I see what you're saying, though. Even if you had the flame set at an ideal neutral burn, when you flipped the ball valve to idle mode the flame could do whatever it wanted, as long as it stayed lit (and used up less gas).

And that's good that your burners will operate down to 1 psi. My understanding is that it is unusual for an atmospheric forge to operate reliably at such low psi's ...using no blower. You obviously did an excellent job constructing the burners to get them to operate so well. As I said, very good job.

And I still think the loops are a 'sediment trap' :)
 
Hi Mike, that forge turned out great! Send me whatever you have for pics, I can resize/compress them, for the site. :)

-Darren
 
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