Forge Building

T

thegeek574

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Sep 3, 2010
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Everyone,
If you have followed my questions in the last few months, you know that I am going to go charcoal, but this is going to take a while and I want to get started NOW. I have 8 square feet of inswool at home, a forced air burner and regulator coming from HTT, and am going to be doing general forging and basic heat treatment. what would you recommend as far as style and configuration goes?

Thanks all,
Steven
 
Have you checked out the Lively/Washtub style charcoal forges? That is by all means the fastest way to get started. A few bucks, basic hand tools, and an afternoon and you'll be forging the next day.

Otherwise, a more advanced charcoal set up depends a lot on your needs and preference, and I highly recommend you figure out what those are before investing a lot of time and money into one.

Unlike gas forges and coal forges where the designs have filtered down to a couple of standard and proven styles, there just isn't a lot of current and available information out there about refined charcoal set ups here in the western world. There are some sources of info for large blacksmithing style side blast charcoal forges, and Japanese sword making type forges, but they're far from common around here and kind of specific for their intended applications.
 
The style kind of depends on what materials you have lying around. 6" pipe I would go horizontal. 8" either horizontal or vertical. 10"+ vertical. A coat of refractory cement over the inswool or rigidizer is a good idea.

Wayne Suhrbier
 
Wayne I think you may have missed the part where he said he was building a charcoal forge. Your recommendations are appropriate for gas obviously, but for solid fuel there are obviously different considerations.
 
I really should have made this more clear and just talked to Wayne today. I am going gas until I can get the charcoal up and running. Sorry about that.
 
Damn. Heh, yeah, I can kind of glean that now from reading your first post, after knowing what you just posted.


Anyway. Vertical all the way.

A hotizontal gas forge is going to (IMHO) be redundant with a good charcoal forge, but a vertical is so much better for a lot of things you're likely to progress into, like pattern welding. The design really makes good use of the blown burner also, since the heat comes from the bottom across the length of the blade versus either end. Unfortunately it can be less good for ht since you can't have a blade longer than the cross section of the forge in there easily. However, you can lay a vertical forge down on it's side if it's tall enough, open the top, and plug the side ports.

Definitely coat the bottom with kast o lite or mizzuo and then bubble alumina if you plan to forge weld in it. 2" of inswool minimum with a coating of kast o lite or mizzuo regardless.

Resist the urge to make it too large. 10-12" starting diameter with 2" inswool and the right burner/blower combo is very efficient.


Sorry Wayne.
 
Nothing is "flux proof" and the concern about firebricks in the bottom of a round vertical forge, is changing them out eventually. If you design it in a way that you can change them out later maybe, but bear in mind that you'll either have to cut them in an arc or work them from the bottom.

I honestly don't know how hard firebrick reacts to flux, but flux eats soft (insulating) firebrick for lunch. I want to be 100% clear; it destroys them faster than hell.
 
Steven,

I made my blown forge from 8" steel, it has 1" Inswool, 1/2" - 3,200 degree refactory and 1/4" of an ITC-100 type IR reflector. It's blown and uses a burner based on Wayne's at HTT.
I run my regulator at 1PSI or less and am using maybe 2-3# propane an hour.....

I'm planning to build another with 10" pipe so I can use 2" of Inswool.

Less refactory cement let's the forge come up to temp faster, but is less stable.

I added an Auberins PID and thermocouple. It takes a little work, but we can keep it running from 1450-2400 degrees holding steady with a few tweaks of the needle valve.

Western Ceramics in Tualatin will sell you some pre-mixed IR coating if you call and ask nicely.

Hope this info helps. You have my e-mail so drop me a line with any questions.
 
I will totally see what we can do, Mr Richards. As far as a enclosure goes, I have a chunk of 12" diameter square pipe that is about 22 inches long. I was going to go horizontal, but I am liking vertical more and more. would the square pipe work, or should I buy something else?
 
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