Photos New forge build- pic heavy

[JTknives]

Normaly I wright up long descriptions on my projects. But not so much this time. This was not a planned project but a quick weekend build. Basically in a nutshell I have greatly outgrown my vertical forge. I needed a solution fast as it was costing me more time then I can afford. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

[JTknives]

 

[JTknives]

If any of you have questions I would be happy to answer them.

 

[Stromberg Knives]

Wow, I love your builds!

 

[Maelstrom78]

You might have gone into it but why did you choose to have it coming in from the side and not from the top or bottom?

Thanks.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Really great build.

 

[jll346]

Awesome JT!!!

 

[Salem Straub]

Nice and clean, all the square tube and bricks make for a very rational build. Looks to be a performance machine, too!

 

[Ian Fifelski]

JT, you are a building beast! "Just a quick weekend build" It looks great. Every one of your builds is something I want to try when I find time.
I really like the idea of a big, simple 'box' forge where you can easily put all sorts of parts in.

If you wanted to add some flux protection could you just line the bottom (maybe a bit of the sides) with hard firebrick?

 

[Knife freaky]

What PSI are you running at. Sorry if the video said. My internets not fast enough to load videos. Lol.

 

[stezann]

Wow, it looks like a very evenly heated chamber, and you have a lot of room for big stacks!
How safely does it "pop"? I mean, in case the mixing chamber backfires for any reason is it safely vented through the ribbon holes?

 

[JTknives]

My plan is to cast a floor about 1/2” thick, basickly a hard layer to protect the soft brick. I will then use a kiln shelf as my flux floo. The castable will handle the flux but I don’t want to have to rip the floor out just becaus it’s all sticky and covered in flux. I might just use a kiln shelf for the floor over the soft brick and 86 the castable. As to the pressure I’m running that does not really mean anything in a blown forge. The only time pressure tells us anything is if it’s running through an orifice. Like what would be on a ventury burner. On a blown burner it’s basickly a straight pipe right to the burner. There is back pressure when the solonoide closes but that’s set to around 10-15psi. I need to replace my regulator as it’s giving me problems and acts more like a needle valve.

My personal thought on solonoide controlled burners is never turn off the blower. When I built my first pid controlled forge wayyyyy back it had all the bells and whistles. It had a high and low fan control and a high and low set of needle valves. The thought was when the pid turns off the fan would go into slow mode and just run off the idle needle valve. Then the pid turned on and kicks the fan in high mode and the solenoid opens and gives it extra gas. I spent so much time fiddling with it and was never happy. The big problem was the fan as it would not spool up or down fast enough. This would create large woofs of flame out the door of the forge. What happens is the pid kicks on and switches on the gas and starts filling the burner tube. Then the fan gets faster and pushes all that gas out into the hot forge. I slowly started disconnecting things as time went on. I ended up with just a blower running all the time and a solonoide on the gas line. On off from the pid just controls the gas. Once the forge is hot there is no problem with it relighting. There could be a problem if you where trying to run really low temp. I personally think if your running that low then an idle gas line is not going to help you any way becaus it’s going to create more heat then you want.

 

[Gilbert M]

Love your build JTknives looks like it will hold up great and is very serviceable. You mentioned a kiln shelf I have one in one of my forges and it really melts. I'm going to rip it out and form some castable in the same size and shape. With my ribbon burner forge I run my idle line just below my target temp and just have a slight increase when the solenoid kicks on,and it can get down to 1100. I have 2 marks on my gate valve high temps and low.

 

[JTknives]

I had a few mins befor work to add another feature to the forge. According to my math it will read from around 12k btu up to 150k btu. I don’t care about calculating btu but I would like to know the total flow rate of my propane. And according to the experts co2 has the same correction factor in flow meters as propane.the correction factor is 1.23. Basically if you have one that reads AIR CFH then you divide the reading by 1.23 to get the actual flow in co2 or propane. Finding these flow meters in Co2 is about impossible but I had this in a box that I forgot about. So I don’t have to convert my readings. This will alow me to accurately see what my gas usage is. It also has a precise needle valve built in so I ditched the brass one as it was kinda sketchy.

 

[KnuckleDownKnives]

You can get CO2 regulators with flow meters pretty common from a welding supplier. Airgas sells them for right around $100. I'm actually using a CO2 regulator on my forge now just doesn't have the flow meter. I had one laying around and swapped the high pressure gauge out for a lower high pressure gauge so I could glance at is and have a rough idea of how much gas I had left and switched out the tank fitting to one of the quick fittings you can do by hand since I don't have a big tank yet.

 

[J. Keeton]

Absolutely beautiful build. I may need to slightly downsize it and then steel your design!

#PropsFromTexas

 

[Brian Stucker]

Very nice. What size is the propane orfice going into the pipe?

 

[JTknives]

Very nice. What size is the propane orfice going into the pipe?

Like 1/4”