forges

[magnum .44]

me and my father are making, a big forge from an old wood buring stove and need some questions answered.
first, the inside is round, about a 24" i.d. what type of heat insulation should we use and were can we get it.
second, we want to make a shelf inside the forge to rest steel on while it's heating up, how do i do this? out of what kind of material?
last, how many burners should i put in the forge? where at? remember it's a 24" i.d. anbout 24" deep. i'm using forced air, and natural gas.

 

[Edward R Schott]

Wow that will be a monster.
The link below may be of some help.
http://www.webpak.net/~rreil/design.html



------------------
Edward Randall Schott
Knifemaker
EdwardRSchott@aol.com

www.angelfire.com/ct/schottknives/

 

[DCK8]

you may want to down scale this thing a little bit you are goind to find that you have to much area to keep hot and you will either have cold spots or burn a tremendos amount of fuel,my forge has about a 4 x 4 x14" chamber and it works fine can go from a cold start to welding heat in about 10 minutes,and another thing you got to becareful not to over insulate your forge to much and it will take forevr to get hot andto little and it will not stay hot when you put a billet in took me a few tries till i built one that was effecient but i finall figured it out

 

[Centaur]

Mr. Schott's referal to Ron Reil's page is a good one. Ron's page has detailed information on creating a forge from a freon tank. He uses 2 layers of 2" kaowool, plus a coating. He also has sources listed for kaowool and kiln shelving.

If you use the same insulation, that would cut your inner dia. to 16".

I created my forge from a 5 gallon gas can, lined with kaowool. The forced air/propane mix comes in underneath the work rest (a piece of kiln shelf where the billet is placed.) The blast is split by a wedge shaped firebrick, and flows to the sides of the forge, up the curved surface of the forge, then crosses over the piece being heated. Reaches a welding heat in about 10 minutes.

Hope this helps

Centaur

[This message has been edited by Centaur (edited 02-13-2000).]

 

[magnum .44]

thanks guys, this forge is big becuase it's for ironwork, not knifemaking. possibly damascus in the future.