forge construction question

V

vikingGoalie

Member
I'm in the process of replacing my 1 burner mr. volcano forge with a PID controlled ribbon burner forge (small step up).

armed with youtube knowledge i set off....

I acquired a dead 20 gallon air compressor for nothin and am using the air tank from that for my shell.
2 inches of kaowool on the outside, kastolite 30 between that and the form. sounds easy enough right?

I got shell cut out, form made, ribbon burner plenum and so on. what i didn't expect was this...

I followed the manufacturer's instructions on mixing this, which was 10lbs to 1.8lbs water. This mix would not exactly pour it was more like you had to squish it into place. I used a board that fit between the wool an dform to smash it down.

This seemed to work. however.... even though i was very aggressive in pushing the refactory down into the tube, the area underneath where the ribbon burner form juts in is devoid of kastolite (insert swear words here). to further complicate this, I didn't realize that until AFTER i pulled the forms out. (which i did after 2 days in a bag and a 3rd day out of the bag). you can see the result in the pictures.

So I guess my only option now is to mix up more and trowel it in over the exposed kaowool. first time doing this...
so I guess i need thinner mix (i.e. more water) then what the instructions say. I will say that where i got it in as I wanted it is ROCK SOLID.
the other question would be around my assumption. any suggestions on completing this? or gotchas in completing the casting in two steps like this?

https://imgur.com/a/QnPhSnR
 
i guess the other question would be, is this salvageable. would i be better trying to knock all that (30lbs) of kastolite out, reuse the kaowool. Get more kastolite and mix it thinner and try again... just i really hate to start over from a time/money perspective if I don't need to.
 
vikingGoalie said:
i guess the other question would be, is this salvageable. would i be better trying to knock all that (30lbs) of kastolite out, reuse the kaowool. Get more kastolite and mix it thinner and try again... just i really hate to start over from a time/money perspective if I don't need to.
Click to expand...
Everything is salvageable if you try hard enough :) . I’ve only used kastolite a couple times, but I mixed water in till it was “right”, didn’t follow the directions. Once you pour it, just low fire it for a couple hours to dry it before you really send it. Might be better off just breaking it out and starting over.
 
Did you spray the Kao-Wool with a mist of water prior to putting the Kast-o-lite on?? If not that could be the reason it didn't adhere to the Wool. I would chip out the protruding Cast-O-Lite under the burner, mix up a smaller batch of the cement, spray the area affected down with water (and onto the already cast Kast-o-lite) and manually put the cement over the area, blend into the already cast part . I would not thin the Kast-o-lite down as it could reduce the temperature rating of it. Once you get that in there if the Kast-o-lite isn't as smooth as you want lightly mist with the spray bottle and smooth it with your hand (latex gloves are great for this). Do this sparingly again you aren't looking to alter the Kast-o-lite mix just smooth any protruding areas that could be Hot-Spots.
 
i did not spray the kaowool, but i'm adhered to kaowool really well tbh. the problem i had was that it packed in tight even using a board and a mallet to drive the kasto downwards but it hadn't filled in those gaps on the bottom even though i couldn't pack anymore in. but thx for that tip and i'm gonna go that route with mixing up some more and trowelling it in misting as I go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top