Forge??

[TJ Smith]

Well I fired up my home made forge.couldn't get weld temp with it.Sounds like a jet.It would go out and refire shooting flames out both ends about 4 feet.I'M shutting it down. Once I get the garage back on it's foundation i'm thinking about buying 1.

Has anybody had any experince with the NC Machinery big daddy or something like that ?
Want to forge and weld.

 

[AchimW]

Hello TJ!
I have bought a ProForge 200 three months ago and did some damascus forge welding and a lot of blade forging in it. For everyday use i would never go back to a coal forge again. You can get a reducing athmosphere in there, so you have nearly no scale formation on carbon steels and you can forge weld with very small amounts of borax flux. And there is the only major problem i had! The flux will eat through the bottom refractory plate in very short time and destroy the isolation. So if you want to forge weld, make shure you have a stainless steel plate or something like that under the refractory, so the liquid flux will not get to the isolation layers.
Next thing i will try is to build a small transportable gas forge like the one in the plans at www.webpak.net/~rreil/minifor.htm
for using on markets and for hardening small blades and chisels.
If you have got BIG flames coming out of the openings of your forge, chances are that the gas pressure was way to high. Try a pressure regulation valve with manometer.

Have fun!

Achim

 

[Ravenclaw]

TJ,
Before you go out and buy one check out my site and go to setup. I built my forge and there may be something there that might help you get yours toned down and working right. I have detailed instructions on how I did it and a parts list.
http://home.airswitch.net/cbenson

Hope this helps,
Ravenclaw

 

[Osbourn]

I had a little trouble getting up to welding heat with my home made forge until I stacked some refractory bricks that were made for a BBQ inside it. The forge is made of gypsum brick, which tolerates insane heats, but isn't technically a refractory material. With the bricks inside and the burner pointed straight at them, they radiate heat from the opposite side that the burner is coming from, evenly heating the steel. If I want a localized heat, I remove some of the bricks inside. The burner still heats pretty evenly, though. I'll post the brand name of the bricks when I have it, but they were fairly cheap at Home Depot, around $13.00 for a box of 40. They're 1/2"x3" square, approximately. They break easily, but they also cut easily so you can make them whatever size you like. I'd try them and a regulator before you give up on your forge entirely.

------------------
Oz

"Never try to teach a pig to sing.
It's a waste of time and it annoys the pig."
-Lazarus Long
Check out my egostistical homepage! http://www.freespeech.org/oz/


[This message has been edited by Osbourn (edited 02 December 1999).]