Stainless Steel Forges

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I got out in the shop for a while yesterday and early this morning. I finished welding up the bodies of some of the stainless steel forges and things I am making. A few of them will end up on the "For Sale" forum, but most are for me or gifts to fellow knifemakers.They are made from 312 stainless ,with the base plates mild steel. Salt pots have 1/2" thick walls. Forge muffles are schedule 80. The drop in muffle is something I invented. I have not seen or heard of anything like it. It is basically a small salt pot with nothing in it. You could fill it with salt and it would work that way,too. The top has a removable plug to allow the drop in to be inserted. There is a close up with the tube in place in the photos.

The things are from top right to left:
36X10" salt pot with 4" tube
14X10" salt pot with 4" tube
9X10" salt pot with 4.5" tube
24X10" tunnel forge and its 3.5"muffle
Next step:
30X12" gas Heat Treating oven - the right angle piece below it will become the exhaust manifold.
Bottom group:
Four quench tanks - two are 4X18 ,one 4X30, one 6X18 - they still have the base plates to be welded on.
10X16 vertical welding forge with drop in muffle
12X16 vertical welding forge
16X10 tunnel forge and muffle

Hope this gives you some ideas on your next projects.

 

[J.McDonald Knives]

*drools* nice work there Stacy.

 

[Whoever Wherever]

So these will work as forges and salt pots? If I understand you right that is awsome! Let me know if one of those is going up for sale. Nice fabrication work but not like we would expect anything else of you.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Big Jim - Yes, a salt pot is nothing but a vertical forge with a tube down its center. This one has a removable tube. You can set a fire brick over one of the doors to increase the heat efficiency. If you take a regular vertical forge, drop in a tube, add a pyrometer and a controller....voila.... you have a salt pot. If you put in the tube with nothing in it and suspend a knife in it you have a HT oven. With the vertical tube , you could even add argon to exclude oxygen. There is a refractory lid for the tube that has a hook on it to hang the blade from. Having the forge do triple duty as a forge/gas HT oven/ salt pot will save a lot of money and equipment space for those who are short on one or both. It should be capable of doing any normal size blade. The vertical forge is better for damascus, so I guess that make this rig do quadruple duty.
Stacy

 

[J.McDonald Knives]

you should market those forges or the blueprints for them. great job. wish i could afford to build one like that right now.

 

[deker]

Nice work Stacy! I do something similar for HT except for the fact that I have a horizontal forge so the pipe goes in sideways. You should leave one of these next weekend for me to do some "quality assurance testing" for you.

-d

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

The tunnel forges (horizontal) all have removable muffles for HT. They are sitting next to them in the photos.

 

[Gigemtxaggies]

Stacy, Can you please put up pics of your designs in all of their forms... eg a pic of the forge, then a pic of it with the salt pot config, HT config etc. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

The photos are there. The smaller vertical forge is shown with the top plug in place and with the drop in tube inserted (the plug is sitting next to it). To use it as a salt pot, you just use an identical tube filled with salt. When I'm done with these, I may make up a forge building tutorial for making a vertical forge like these.
Stacy

 

[Gigemtxaggies]

I would greatly appreciate a tutorial... I am an Aggie and need things explained in great detail. Then I usually need to have someone read it to me using real simple terms! (JK) Thank you Stacy for all of the knowledge I have gained from you on this forum.

Allen