Will a regular firebrick work for a one brick forge?

T

Troy Webber

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I recently won a copy of Wayne Goddard's $50 knife shop book.I was telling my father about the one brick forge idea ,so he brought over a firebrick and I drilled it out for him.The refractory brick was so soft that I figured it was the "soft " brick that Wayne was talking about in his book.He took it home and called me the next day to say how well it worked for bringing 1095 up to critical.
Well,I did a search for "one brick forge" here on the Shop Talk forum,and it seems that the soft brick Wayne Goddard was talking about was something entirely different than regular firebrick.
What exactly will I gain by using the soft firebrick?Thanks,
troy
 
You won't gain anything. The advantage to the soft brick is that it is easy to hollow out. I'm amazed you were able to hollow a regular firebrick.
 
I couldn't believe how easy it was to drill out.I didn't even use the hammer action- only rotation.I was able to do all the drilling in a couple of minutes.My dad used a giant dull file he had to smooth out the interior of the hollow and widen the opening to fit some pliers he is using for tongs.
troy
 
Troy, It sounds like you may have a "soft" fire brick of some sort. I know that the hard fire bricks that I use around my forge are as hard as the ones on the side of my house. I could be wrong though....

-chris
 
The brick felt really hard when I tried to hollow it out by hand with a shop knife.It felt pretty much like a regular brick.But it drilled and filed easily,so maybe the outside is harder?The brickyard where he got it is just down the street.I'm going to pick up a few of them tomorrow to make a forge for me.They were $1 apiece.The guy at the yard said they were refractory firebrick,and when my dad asked if they were the soft kind,the brick guy said that they were really difficult to cut.He said no one at the yard ever called them soft.:eek:
thanks Peter and Chris,
troy
 
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