- Joined
- Nov 9, 2006
- Messages
- 1,072
My wife, two oldest boys and I were lucky enough to get forging lessons from G L Drew last summer and the boys have been bugging me since to get our own forge. So, for Christmas, everyone received hammers, Kaowool, firebrick, and black pipe to go into our first home-built forge. I've documented much of the build below:
First step, create the shell. I have a few old propane tanks lying around so one was sacrificed for this project. We removed the valve and filled it with water before cutting the main opening with a saber saw. When Ben asked why we filled it with water, I told him it was so we wouldn't have pieces of Drew boys splattered around the shop. We cut the holes for the burners with a bimetal hole saw. (boy, was that loud!)
Number two son was drafted to mount the burner brackets. 1 1/2" pipe niples held in with conduit lock rings.
Number one son got the job of lining the tank with Kaowool. Two layers of 1" in the back and all around brought it right up to the cutout. You'd think I'd planned it that way...
We built the burners using Ron Reil's simple burner plans. I did order custom flares from Larry Zoeller as well as a regulator and plistix 900F refractory. Here I am tweaking the flare adjustments.
We were getting ready to fire up the burner and I told Ben to take the gas tanks outside. When he asked why, Aaron beat me to the punch, "So we don't have pieces of Drew boys splattered all over the shop." Pretty smart kid.
A firebrick for the hearth and some legs welded on and we're ready for refractory.
Here it is ready to fire up for the first time. NO I didn't leave it in with all that flammable junk, it was too cold outside to get the picture. I put two ball valves on the gas manifold so I can run one or two burners as needed.
Here's one burner running hot to dry the refractory.
I didn't put a hole in the back just for simplicity's sake and to see how it would run with just the front open. At 10 psi, there's quite a bit of Dragon's Breath pumping out. I still need to tweak the burners and add chokes to see how low I can get the gas flow and still keep good forging heat. I'll probably open up the back at one point, but it's ready for action!
Now, I need to find a good ash stump for the anvil...
J-
First step, create the shell. I have a few old propane tanks lying around so one was sacrificed for this project. We removed the valve and filled it with water before cutting the main opening with a saber saw. When Ben asked why we filled it with water, I told him it was so we wouldn't have pieces of Drew boys splattered around the shop. We cut the holes for the burners with a bimetal hole saw. (boy, was that loud!)
Number two son was drafted to mount the burner brackets. 1 1/2" pipe niples held in with conduit lock rings.
Number one son got the job of lining the tank with Kaowool. Two layers of 1" in the back and all around brought it right up to the cutout. You'd think I'd planned it that way...
We built the burners using Ron Reil's simple burner plans. I did order custom flares from Larry Zoeller as well as a regulator and plistix 900F refractory. Here I am tweaking the flare adjustments.
We were getting ready to fire up the burner and I told Ben to take the gas tanks outside. When he asked why, Aaron beat me to the punch, "So we don't have pieces of Drew boys splattered all over the shop." Pretty smart kid.
A firebrick for the hearth and some legs welded on and we're ready for refractory.
Here it is ready to fire up for the first time. NO I didn't leave it in with all that flammable junk, it was too cold outside to get the picture. I put two ball valves on the gas manifold so I can run one or two burners as needed.
Here's one burner running hot to dry the refractory.
I didn't put a hole in the back just for simplicity's sake and to see how it would run with just the front open. At 10 psi, there's quite a bit of Dragon's Breath pumping out. I still need to tweak the burners and add chokes to see how low I can get the gas flow and still keep good forging heat. I'll probably open up the back at one point, but it's ready for action!
Now, I need to find a good ash stump for the anvil...
J-
