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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 02-13-2010, 03:02 PM
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squigly1965 squigly1965 is offline
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Building new forge Materials Help Please.

Ok getting ready to place an order with Ellis for materials needed to make my new forge.
I have a couple questions.
What kinda of Inswool should I get? 1"? 2"? HTZ?

How useful is the rigidizer?


thanks
Chris

Last edited by squigly1965; 02-13-2010 at 03:13 PM.
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  #2  
Old 02-13-2010, 06:47 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Generally, you'd want to stay with 1". If you need thicker than that, your forge body is probably too large.

You should paint the wool with Satanite once it's installed in the forge body. One pound is probably enough but get 5 pounds if you can afford it, you'll need it again. That will make the wool as rigid as it needs to be ...


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Old 02-14-2010, 10:23 AM
Rick McGee Rick McGee is offline
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Hmmm... That's interesting. I've been contemplating what my next shop tool project will be. I thought a forge, but being it's going to be awhile before I'm set up to beat metal in submission, a heat treat oven will do everything I need. Seems every one else wants to use 2 inch wool. That makes it more expensive and sources a little more limited. Not to mention the body for the forge/oven starts getting a bit large for the average scrounge on a budget.
I've been measureing throw-away items like mad. Closest I been able to get was large coffee cans and paint cans. I had disregarded them as too small at about 6 inch dia, due to the use of 2 inch wool will leave a 2 inch chamber. But if I can indeed use 1 inch effectively, I'll have a 4 inch chamber !!
If I use 1 inch in a 6 inch body, will the outside of the body stay cool enough to touch ?? I gotta worry about odd visitor and accidents.
Also will it be likely to retain heat well enough to anneal steel by bringing it to temp and shut it off, to cool naturally with the door closed ?
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Old 02-14-2010, 11:27 AM
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squigly1965 squigly1965 is offline
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you could get an 8" stove pipe and work inside that. Maybe like a holiday Peanut brittle tin or the likes. Really it is just to hold the shape till the Satanite hardens I believe

As for the Heat on the outside. Well I can comment that I've seen quite a few of these forges secured to wood. With a with there being a curved cut and the forge set in the valley with something like plummers tape securing it. But Only If the Forge is Being Used Outside. I'm sure with over 1400˚F inside the forge after a time the body will get hot. My 2 Brick Forge's surface isn't usually too bad. But to err on the side of safety. Treat It like the Stove Top.

As for the Annealing. The other guys can correct me here if I'm wrong. But if you are going to do that use a few pieces of extra steel in the forge as they will help keep the forge from cooling too quickly. Also using Vermiculite or the fine white ash from the fireplace in a metal container bucket or such, works as well

Last edited by squigly1965; 02-14-2010 at 11:35 AM.
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Old 02-14-2010, 02:24 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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No matter if you use 1" or 2" that alone will not be the best situation for annealing. Like Squig said, vermiculite or wood ash is best. Other than that you need a forge with a lot of mass to hold the heat. One of the advantages to wool is the forge can heat up very quickly but there is little mass to it for holding the heat.

Also, the same goes for the outer skin temp. No matter what, it will get to hot to touch sooner or later.

As to materials, there is no need to locate 2" wool if you decide that you need it, just use two layers of 1" wool ....


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Old 02-14-2010, 06:21 PM
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NJStricker NJStricker is offline
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squig,

The forge I posted a picture of a while back has 1 inch of ceramic wool, coated with fireplace cement I purchased locally. The chamber is 3 inches in diameter and 14 inches long. It gets hot enough to both heat treat and forge using a Bernzomatic propane torch.

The outer shell (black stovepipe) gets hot enough to cook eggs on (not that I've tried) after running it for an hour or so.

I use vermiculite to anneal.

Hope that helps.

Nathan
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Old 02-14-2010, 09:46 PM
Rick McGee Rick McGee is offline
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Points well taken. I'm going to have a couple of feet of 1 x 2 mild steel left over from the grinder build and had already figured on useing that to help with the mass prob in annealing, especially if I use the vermiculite. Prob is vermiculite is real hard to find around here except during the gardening season and then seems to only be in small bags. That and an annealing station is just one more thing to clutter an already crowded garage. But if that's the best route, it's just going to have to be a little more cramped.
How much vermiculite should I surround a blade and mass extras with anyways ?
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  #8  
Old 02-15-2010, 01:36 AM
reefera4m reefera4m is offline
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MY $.02

1. For vermiculite try Lowe's, they carry 3.5 cu ft bag of vermiculite for $23
2. McGill Warehouse for ceramic wool (Inswool, KOAWOOL are just expensive brand names for the exact same stuff).
3. I'd recommend something more substantial for a forge body. 3/16 wall 8" diameter steel pipe for example. Any thing that might flex or bend will wreak havoc on any cement or clay lining that you might use like ITC-100 or Satanite. They are pretty brittle to begin with and will break/flake at the least movement. Something as thin as a stovepipe/coffee can and will get hot and it will flex/warp as a result, crumbling any cement/clay coating you use.
4. If your add a furnace/refractory cement coating to the ceramic wool and then a layer of ITC-100 you'll not only need less wool (1" is more than adequate) but increase the efficiency of your forge substantially. You'll also extend the life of the wool by coating it should you decide to use flux/forge weld.
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Old 02-15-2010, 10:36 AM
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Vermiculite or wood ash is insulation for the annealing process so the more you have the better. If you can surround the hot blade with 6" or more you'd be golden. A 5 gallon pail full of vermiculite will work fine for small blades (put a lid on it to help hold the heat). No additional mass is required with this approach, the mass statements referred only to trying to anneal in a forge.

I agree with Reefer that a thin forge body might flex and can crack the Satanite, etc but I've never found that to be much of a problem. The interior cracks some and a bit might flake off but I do a lot more damage to the interior by bumping my billets into it. Every two or three sessions I scrape out the interior to remove loose bits and patch things up with some more Satanite (I said you'd need extra) and it's good to go. If you need more durability than that you should probably cast your forge interior. With a cast interior you'd have the mass needed for annealing but the forge would heat much slower and weigh a ton. It's all just economics and trade offs .

If you can't find vermiculite and don't have a source for wood ash, look for kitty litter. Most kitty litter is largely vermiculite and some people use it in the bottom of their forges to soak up welding flux because it is then easy to sweep it out ....


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 02-15-2010 at 10:46 AM.
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Old 02-15-2010, 10:51 AM
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squigly1965 squigly1965 is offline
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thanks Ray
you got to the answer before I asked the question about the forge body.

Putting together the list for the burner parts. This will be a forced air burner.
here's what I'm planning on getting

need help with the Diameter
(1) Gate Valve
(2) nipples (same size)
(1) 90˚ elbow
(1) Nipple (smaller Dia)
(1) reducer

do I need a flared tip?
Are any parts are missing

Forge body will be a 18"-24" section of 8" stove pipe

Chris

Last edited by squigly1965; 02-15-2010 at 01:45 PM.
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Old 02-15-2010, 02:42 PM
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Working on the assumption that you can always turn down the heat on a big burner but can't get any more out of a small one after you have it wide open, I'll quote sizes on what is generally accepted as the standard size for a forced air burner (they can easily be made smaller by simply scaling the parts down).

The gate valve and two matching nipples are 2", the nozzle is 1". If you are lucky, you might find a 90 degree elbow that goes from 2" to 1" thus eliminating the need for the reducer. Try to get black iron pipe rather than galvanized. Galvanized is OK for all parts except the nozzle if you can't get black iron. If you must use galvanized for the nozzle, grind off the galvanizing.

No, you don't need any kind of flared tip, just a 1" open pipe.

You need a ball valve on your propane line, usually placed at the gas input to the burner body (one of the 2" nipples) as an emergency shut off.

Of course, you'll need a blower. Ideally, this would be a blower capable of delivering100 to 150 cfm with about 30 - 35 ounces of static pressure. This means the air coming out of that thing must really push!. It would be more like a shop vac or a hand dryer than what you would feel coming from a circulating fan or a hair dryer.....


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Old 02-15-2010, 08:52 PM
Rick McGee Rick McGee is offline
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well dang. Now I got all these freon tanks sitting here for nothing. Hmmm I guess I'll have to think of another use for them.
Now I gotta start scroungeing for a forge body option with a bit more body.
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Old 02-16-2010, 12:01 AM
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squigly1965 squigly1965 is offline
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I could use one of them tanks. But I don't think you'd be willing to meet me half way...LOL

I have a blower. I'm hoping it's powerful enough. I have another but It runs off 220v and well thats been a problem for me on other projects as well.
I do have a shopvac but would rather use something a bit quieter. I'll go grab the blower while I'm out tomorrow and see what happens.
Need to check a few things there anyway.

Last edited by squigly1965; 02-16-2010 at 12:14 AM.
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Old 02-16-2010, 09:24 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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I didn't mean you should use a Shopvac, although that has been done. I mentioned the Shopvac only to give you an idea of the kind of air pressure your blower will need to produce. Wimpy blowers that produce a 'breeze' won't do it, you need more like a small hurricane.

Other guys have used freon tanks so I suspect you could too. Might be a little short but that really depends on what you want to forge and how you are willing to work. One additional advantage to the burner I described above is that if your forge has extra volume in it due to a largish body and a single layer of wool, it won't matter much because that burner can heat up just about anything.

In a pinch if you can't find a suitable blower there are plans on my website for building your own blower as well as building a gate valve ....


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Old 02-16-2010, 10:13 AM
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squigly1965 squigly1965 is offline
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alrighty well I suppose if I need to I can modify the 220v blower with a 110 motor. I have a Craftsman bench grinder can use there maybe. The blower i'm hoping I can use was used for a vacuum table. It had a way to attach to either the suction inlet or the blower outlet. I grabbed it for a different project. Which I don't remember now what it was. I have used one of those little coleman air mattress blowers before and it does far out [perform that from what I remember.


Other than the whole Losing my job thing. It was pretty cool when my old job shut down. I was able to salvage a grip of stuff. And some of it I will actually be using. So I'm not just a pack rat.

One thing, I imagine it's fine. But would like to make sure that the one burner is enough
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