Forge Question

T

Trick

Joined
Mar 3, 2001
Messages
351
Howdy,
Simple question, I think.
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I have access to a bunch of fire brick from my Dads friend that used to work at a foundry. Is there any reason not to build a forge using all fire brick and not any kao wool? I don't plan on it being too awful mobile.
He also says he has some kind of natural gas burners that would melt the bottom out of the ladles for the brass if not careful. I am sure I will be asking about those when I can find out more about them.
I also have some friends that work at a place that makes huge stainless steel tanks, they can get big enough scrap pieces to make the outside of the forge. :D I am trying to work on a budget, cheap or free. :D
Thanks,
Ric
 
Go for it Ric. My neighbor uses an old heat treat oven thats made of firebrick. My heat treat oven is too. Wish I had a source for some, I'd like to build a forge with them.
 
Michael,I just bought some today at Rinker Concrete for $.87 each.I can't imagine there is not a brick or concrete dist. near you.Dave
 
Ric,

I've been forging with coal about 7 yrs, a couple of years ago I wanted to make a furnace type coal forge that would retain heat better and make a long fire for heat treating, this is what I came up with and it works really well, just takes it a while( 30-45 min) to get to forging heat when you first get it started, but once your there you can forge a couple hours on very little coal and once you've finished forging and need to normalize just knock down the air and you'll have a long even bed of coals. I got the idea from Tim Lively's web site, theres some really good info on it, except I used fire brick to line the inside and used an adobe type mix for the outside skin to hold it all together. I put a 1" steel pipe down the center and drilled 5- 1/4" holes in it for the air supply, put a valve on the outside to control air flow, ran another piece of short pipe than hooked my blower to that. You can see by the pic. it trying to get hot. :D E-mail me if you want more info.

Bill
 
Thanks everyone, I think I will see how much he has and what I can come up with. The way my dad and him talk is that he has a bunch, enough for several projects. I will have to ask him if it is soft fire brick or not.
Bill, your forge looks great. I think I will try something like that. I think dad said he has two or three 35 gallon drums of coal. I could probably get something like yours going quicker than I could a propane forge. I will send you an email.
Thanks again everybody! :)
 
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