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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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  #31  
Old 08-06-2010, 09:07 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: How do I know if it can get hot enough?

There's hardly any chance at all that it won't get 'hot enough' but there are simple tests that will tell the tale.

Assuming you don't have a pyrometer (or else you wouldn't have asked the question) there are two temperatures we are usually concerned with: critical temperature used for heat treating and welding temperature used for damascus (or any other welding operation).

Critical temperature is ofyen called 'non-magnetic'. Heat a blade sized piece of steel until it has some red color then pull it out of the forge and put a magnet to it. Did the magnet stick? If it did, put the steel back in and heat it beyond the last color you tested and try again. When the magnet fails to notice the steel you have shown there is enough heat for heat treating that steel. Note: this does not mean the temperature is correct for quenching, in fact, it could be well beyond that point but that's a subject for another post.

Welding temperature will be higher. To test for this, buy some forge welding flux. Heat a piece of steel with some flux sitting on it. When the flux melts, bubbles, and flows you should be in the region of welding temperature.

Expect to heat the forge at least 15 minutes before it can reach these temperatures ......


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  #32  
Old 08-06-2010, 09:15 AM
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Tracy Tracy is offline
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Michael,
Put some steel in it and see. From what you wrote it seems that the entire forge is not heating up, though.


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  #33  
Old 08-15-2010, 10:47 AM
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Michael,
When my forge is at temp, the entire interior glows an even orange color. There are no visible "hot spots". like reefer's, mine has a pass-through port on both sides so i can put any length of billet into it and work on a section about four inches long at a time. The heat distributes well from side-to-side but obviously it is only evenly hot at the part exposed to the burner. I figure the air mixture is correct when the burner doesn't blow out anymore. Since my burner feeds from the bottom, the venturi effect from the rising heat is so strong I actually have to cover the air vents almost completely to regulate the air flow. If you get a lot of orange at the tip of your burner's flame, it's not getting enough air (i'm assuming you are using propane?). The more blue the better - I think.


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