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  #16  
Old 10-02-2015, 11:52 PM
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Originally Posted by dtec1 View Post
i will deffinitly post pics as soon as i can. i left my camera in my car and i lent my car to my sis so she could go to massachusettes. But there really aint to much to see just a 11in deep by 5.5 inch (inner diameter) and i moved the burner hole from the side up a lil so its at a tangent horizontal on the top. i am going to weld old hole closed and put a tube and screws on the new one today.

C craft....i noticed in your pics first you had a venturi system then you changed it to blown right? When you had it venturi how did you have it hooked up. Did both burners feed from one tank? If so say you had a 0-30psi regulator and it goes to 2 burners the psi gets split right so the max on each burner would be 15 psi right? So the only way to run both at 30 would be to have a 0-60 regulator right? or is there some other way of doing the pipes to achieve this? I dont plan on doing this on this forge (maybe when i make a new one eventually) i am just curious
So I had this all typed up once and hit the wrong button!!

I will try and answer as much of your questions as I can! Yes I am converting over to blown. The pics you saw are several months old as my wife has been very ill and all work in the shop has pretty much came to a halt! the blown feature has not been completed. With my wife sick, I can sit on the PC and do it quietly and still be within ear shot if she needs me.

The idea of a burner working correctly is where you can get a proper hot flame at the minimum of propane being burnt! It should look like this when properly adjusted!



As Ray told you this can be achieved by delivering the correct amount of propane to the burner(s). You do this by a high pressure regulator.

This is like the one I use http://www.agrisupply.com/product.as...yWoRoCjuPw_wcB

Also as Ray mentioned the problem arises out of the propane delivery. Your average BBQ propane tank is a 20lb. tank. The problem with running two burners off of a single 20lb. tank is that the rate of the propane leaving the tank, will cause the tank to freeze up.

The solution to this is a bigger tank or two 20 lb tanks being manifolded together. I built this so I could store my tanks in my storage shed and not in the shop were I am grinding and welding and well you get the idea!

This is my solution and I can run up to it with a moving dolly and roll it around without any strain or need to pick it up!! This is an older pic as the HP regulator it right there at the tank now!



So in short if you got enough of a tank for propane you can run all the burners you want with that type of HP regulator and do it well!! They make tanks in sizes from 20lb all the way up to those big enough to use to run a house!

https://www.google.com/search?q=prop...IBfoArZLDcM%3A

The man I was telling you about with the five burners has his own well head gas, (long story). So he has the pressure and runs it all with one regulator!!

Here is another shot of my forge in its infancy!



I would venture to guess at least every part of it has been re=worked at least once and some parts more!!

Well I hope that explains everything as well as I can but, don't hesitate to ask if it don't! The only dumb question is the one you failed to ask!!


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With every custom knife I build I try to accomplish three things. I want that knife to look so good you just have to pick it up, feel so good in your hand you can't wait to try it, and once you use it, you never want to put it down !
If I capture those three factors in each knife I build, I am assured the knife will become a piece that is used and treasured by its owner!

C Craft

Last edited by C Craft; 10-02-2015 at 11:55 PM.
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  #17  
Old 10-03-2015, 06:09 AM
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Larger tanks are always better for consistent pressure and no freeze up. Good reg on bigger tank is important as well. I run 100's (2) at the shop and they last me about a year. The 20's are my traveling/demo tanks but I still get 1.5 to 2 days from a 20, depending on how much steel I have to heat, how much I have to stop and talk/explain, or if I'm doing high heats for welding or WI work.
Efficiency of the burner and tank configuration go a long way toward overall economy and heat control.
My favorite travel/demo forge has more patches than the scarecrow on the Wizard of OZ, but then she's 15+ years old still cooks with the best of them and I have excellent thermal control.
I do like CC's approach to torch placement and mount all my newer builds with the torch coming in at an up ward angle just at center line to get the most swirl possible with out putting direct heat on my steel, just makes good sense.
I do prefer two smaller burners each with it's own needle valve over on larger one. Gives me better fine tuned heat control. I use a larger single in my welding forge (verticle) that work just fine. None of mine are assisted air or blown. And yes, you can weld up damascus with a venturi burner .... it's all in overall design of both torch and forge body (plus a lot of tweaking).
The trick for me was learning to build a basic forge that works right with no serious issues then start making thought-out mods to get it to do a little more a little better. Same with making knives.


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  #18  
Old 10-03-2015, 04:43 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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thanks guys as far as the tanks i think i get it i just thought that if you have 2 burners running of one tank and using a 0-30 psi regulator that each burner would only get 15psi but makes more sense now i dont really have the option of getting a large tank right now but i aint crossing that bridge yet anyway. As far as the zinc screws i cant really grind them that would screw up the threads but welding a lil bar on the head of a stainless one can be done (bingo theres that light bulb again) . One thing you guys maybe can clear up is i noticed in rays video that the main forge everything was made with castable refractory right even the floor? Ray do you put bricks in or just leave it like that. I was thinking instead of using brick to put a layer of castable and then a layer of buble alumina or the other way around or would i even need both would castable be enough on its own?
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  #19  
Old 10-03-2015, 06:25 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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My forge is fairly large so I put several bricks in the floor to take up space and then poured in castable until the floor was filled and the bricks were covered. Even with the bricks in there it still took 30 pounds of castable to fill in the floor. The castable is far more durable than the alumina and I've never used it after the first time I tested it.

A forge may look simple but it is a reasonably complex environment. You can't just choose to do one thing without affecting other things. Its like building a hot rod car. If you drop a 700hp blue printed engine into the family sedan without making any other modifications the engine will tear the car apart.

Similarly, if you dump a huge amount of castable in a forge for the floor you will then need a huge amount of propane to heat it - either a small propane feed over a very long time or a huge propane feed to get it done quickly. My forge requires a full 45 minutes of two 1" blown burners running near wide open to reach its maximum temperature. That's not very efficient if you're just trying to heat treat a blade. On the other hand, if your are working with 7 - 15 pound billets like I do and you want them to heat up right now then it might be just the ticket. Even the huge amount of flux I use won't be able to significantly damage that floor for many years.

We have all said it before and I will say it again: there is just no way you're likely to build your perfect forge the first time out, especially if you have any sort of financial restrictions. Build a heavy floor like that and you will need burners that really produce. If you have those burners then you will need a lot of propane to feed them.

You have a shell already, you have wool in it and some Satanite. Put a brick in the bottom, stick a burner in it and start making knives. Worry about what needs to be changed once you know what it won't do that you want it to do ...


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  #20  
Old 10-03-2015, 06:38 PM
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PS

It occurs to me that you may not be clear on exactly what castable is. It isn't magic, its just a specific type of cement. Basically, its the same stuff as the firebricks you already use but in a powdered form that you can mix and pour. Satanite is one formulation of castable (a very soft formulation). Missou, which is what I used, is much harder and resembles the stuff your driveway is made of. I used castable instead of bricks because I wanted a large flat surface that would be able to withstand having large white hot steel billets pulled across it without having to worry about flipping a brick out of position. Like I said, use your forge for a while to see what its weaknesses are according to the way you work before you worry about changing it.

BTW, I know you haven't asked but if it should cross your mind to use cement from the hardware store for the forge - don't. That's what we in the forge building business like to call "a bomb" on a bad day or simply a disaster on a good day ...


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  #21  
Old 10-03-2015, 07:33 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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NO NO i definitely wouldn't ever used regular cement from a hardware store. I was asking about it because when i first got this forge as i said before it was a 1/4 inch metal shell with one layer of wool and a firebrick. There was no coatings. Now that i ripped the wool out and put some new wool in followed by a couple layers of satinte, ITC-100 on the top, and buble allumina wich as i said fell out yesterday (i will put back in and add another very thin layer to hold it all together wich you recommended probilly tomorrow). But i have seen pictures where the wool goes around and the brick placed in and then the coatings only go down to the brick or if there is 2 layers of wool the top one goes from one side of the brick up over the top down the other side to that side of the brick. I think this is done so the brick and still sit lower in the forge. That is what i should have done i think because since i put the coatings all around if i just go and put a brick (the "slit brick") in the forge because the wool and coatings were put in with out thinking about the brick it sits up very high the top of the brick is priity close to coming up halfway in the chamber. Even now that i have moved the burner position up to top horizontal (remember fig.2 in previous post) any work sitting on the brick would be close to the flame. What i had done to try and remidy this was to take one of these bricks cut off between a 1/4 and 1/3 off of it then taking the remaining piece and hitting it with a angle grinder and masonry wheel and grinding off majority of the brick it went from 1 1/4 thick down to about 3/8 of a inch thick. Then i marked where it sits and put the bubble alumina underneath and on the sides of the brick ( wich again i have to fix the bubble alumina). But i dont see this being really all that great of a solution. for now it will work yeh but there has got to be a better way when i need a new brick and alumina. It took forever grinding the brick and i dont think it can be the best thing for the bricks durability taking off that much material off. Thats why i was thinking about the castable stuff and i deffinitly wasnt going to cast a whole body or part of a body. i was thinking of trying to mold a thin piece that i could lay ontop of the wool and coatings just on the floor. replacing the allumina and grinded brick with a thin layer of castable.

ALSO i did get a new burner on it today i dint have time to really put it through it paces but i tested it out and SOOOO much better than what i had!!
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  #22  
Old 10-03-2015, 08:07 PM
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I think you're trying to make it too perfect. If I understood you correctly, you have a brick sitting on the wool (maybe a thin slice of brick, whatever). Simply put, reach in there with a sharp knife and cut out the wool all the way down to the steel. Replace that wool with a brick. If you have two layers of wool then use two bricks. If the brick sits 1/4" higher than the wool, so what? If the brick is 1/4" lower than the wool, press the wool down a little. If you want to throw some alumina in there then do it (or save the money and don't do it).

As far as I know, you have not done any attempt at forge welding yet but you seem to be trying to prepare for it. I don't know how old you are but if you are as old as many of us you probably won't be welding much with a hammer - it is simply too hard to do on anything more than a couple of pieces of thin steel. If you are young AND stronger than the average bull you might manage a good bit more but may find that even then then skimpy results are not worth the effort. Without the need to weld most of the stuff you're doing isn't necessary at all. Without a significant investment in power equipment serious welding is not possible for most people (define 'most people': those who cannot swing an 8 lb sledge rapidly for at least 10 minutes). Of course, you may have something else in mind ....


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  #23  
Old 10-03-2015, 08:56 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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If i was to just cut the wool and place the brick in and just moved the wool around to meet the edges. would the flux do anything to the steel shell if it managed to get between the brick and wool/coatings. that was what i was trying to prevent.....damage to brick wool coating i think would be easier to fix that the shell body of the forge. As far as forge welding i have made one billet of 15n20 and 1080. I got it to weld and started drawing it out a lil bit. Trying to do this with my old burner was hard to say the least i think i remember telling you that it took forever to get to welding temp and even then it got there but just barley. Also i am 29 but i have serious knee issues (even after multiple surjery's) i cant swing a sledge hammer more than a few swings at a time. Ha i thought " yeh no problem i only need my arms to swing" haha VERY WRONG! I did have my cousin that helped me out the day i started drawing the billet out. But gave up with that cause of the burner but excited to continue now that i have a much better burner as of today. Iam lucky tho i showed my neighbor a blade i made from a old nicholson file and he got very interested and wants to learn also. He is 24 and has told me many times he has no problem swinging a sledge all day but we will see how he feels after he does it but at least i do have some help if i need it. Also i know i jump into things with both feet and go overboard sometimes thats just my nature. I made a huge life change a couple years ago wich left me with alot of free time and a all in addictive personality so by ALL means if i get to be to much just tell me to slow down i wont take it the wrong way at all i know i go to quick sometimes. Just let me know i dont want to become a annoyance and i do appreciate all the help every one has given you guys deffinitly saved me ALOT of headaches and probilly alot of time and money!
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  #24  
Old 10-03-2015, 09:28 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Sure, the flux will do some damage to the steel shell but it isn't going to eat through it like the Alien's molecular acid blood. Especially not as thick as that shell of yours is. So what if it did? You can always weld a patch on it or even build another forge. We have to rebuild forges all the time. That much heat plus the flux there's just no way it won't need maintenance now and then. Don't worry about it - if it happens you'll handle it. I literally built a forge and two different burners in less than two hours on that video, it doesn't have to be a big deal. You're just concerned because you paid so much for that forge - put that down to the cost of education. Get on with making knives and your forge will let you know when and if something needs to be changed or improved just like it did with the burner....


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  #25  
Old 10-04-2015, 08:58 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Rogers View Post
Get on with making knives and your forge will let you know when and if something needs to be changed or improved just like it did with the burner....

Dido, I will guarantee you in the future after you use the forge for a while you will say, "Dang-it, I wish I had done............". If is time to re-work you will do it then or perhaps on the next build!!!

No one has ever made the perfect forge, at least not the first time. I like to share my ideas/mistakes because depending on how far along you are on your build it can help or at least keep you from making some of the same mistakes I made!!


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With every custom knife I build I try to accomplish three things. I want that knife to look so good you just have to pick it up, feel so good in your hand you can't wait to try it, and once you use it, you never want to put it down !
If I capture those three factors in each knife I build, I am assured the knife will become a piece that is used and treasured by its owner!

C Craft
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  #26  
Old 10-04-2015, 09:16 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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Alright thanks guys i think i will just put the bubble alumina pieces and ground down brick back the way it was for now then. Gota patch up the old burner hole. I welded a plate over it but gota put wool and coatings. I will get some pics up on either monday night or tuesday when i get my camera back. Oh also Ray i tried lighting the forge how you do it with paper (i couldn't find the long grill type lighter i usually use) and i thought i got to the propane fairly quickly after throwing in the paper. But when i got done i noticed on the roof had a big black spot kinda how soot would build up in a regular fire (not nearly as bad or thick but assuming same process) Do you guys think that it will negatively effect the refractory properties of the coatings like the itc-100 for example. I have to put coatings on the hole i have to patch up anyway so i thought maybe a coat of itc-100 would help but i dont have alot of the itc 100 at all so i dont want to use the rest on this spot if it serves no purpose. Kinda weird question so if ya dont know dont worry ill just have to get more itc soon i think
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  #27  
Old 10-04-2015, 11:18 AM
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I wouldn't worry about a little soot. Once you get that forge working properly and it gets really hot its all going to become moot. The ITC will get sooted over, burned off, scraped off and the alumina will get covered in flux and scraped off when you drag a billet out of the forge. You really need to stop obsessing over the coatings beyond the Satanite. Coatings don't hurt anything and they can help efficiency but they are delicate at high temps and may not survive for long. In my opinion - for whatever it may be worth - ITC-100 is a waste of money if you have a good forge with good burners. A good forge will hit 2000 F plus with no trouble without any help from ITC-100. The ITC might help you save a little propane but it isn't going to make the forge much hotter (not for long anyway as the high heat will destroy it). The alumina might save your wool for a while but so will some kitty litter or a little more brick, either of which is cheaper and more durable than the alumina.

Use the Satanite and forget the rest. The forge is just a tool and just like sanding belts and flux the forge is a consumable resource. So, start consuming it and make a knife ........


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  #28  
Old 10-04-2015, 02:21 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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really? i have read all this stuff with people raving about that stuff (itc100. anyway i got it because my old burner was taking for ever getting to temp wich that problem has been solved with a new burner. I also got everything patched up and ready to go (old burner placement). going to tap and set screws to hold burner tonight and tomorrow i have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do so i am going to bet back to working on that billet i started. ill let ya know how it goes.........
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  #29  
Old 10-04-2015, 02:55 PM
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ITC_100 is great for the purpose it is intended for which is to help squeeze the most heat out of low performing burners like you started with . But, its a reflector and if you throw enough heat at it, or put enough soot on it, or bump into it with a billet enough, or get flux on it then it doesn't reflect much at all. And there's no reason for it to reflect anything if you have a high performance burner since the forge is already hotter than required for the task at hand (basic welding and heat treat). In that scenario ITC-100 is wasted effort and money ....


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  #30  
Old 10-07-2015, 05:08 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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hey, anyone ever used VHT high temp paint ? says on the back to cure using 350 degree oven 30 mins then 400 degree oven 30 min and so on what if you can put it in the oven will it still be suficant to protect from rust and stand up to heat on outside of forge?
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