New Forge

Gliden07

Well-Known Member
So I started building my new forge. It's the basic propane tank style, 1" Kao-Wool, hard firebrick floor, ITC100 liner. Still not sure on burner/Burners. I had an idea that I wanted to ask opinions on. I was going to cut 2 slots on back end, on opposite sides, weld a couple pieces of angle iron back to back where the slots are and bolt end on, then finish the cut all the way around. Now I can unbolt the end and it will be aligned. This way when it comes time to re-line forge I can unbolt end and replace Kao-Wool easily. So then I started thinking that there may be a lot of heat loss coming out were the cut would be. What say the masses??
 
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I'm a big fan of KISS, and not so big a fan of building any kind of cap or lids on the ends of a forge..... if they are bolted on, the heating/cooling cycles will quickly "lock up" any bolts or threads and you'll end up having to cut any type of fastener. For ease of maintenance, I recommend leaving both ends open, and using hard firebrick to block them up. On my general purpose forge, I have two hard bricks, on end, butted up side to side for the rear "closure"..... If I need to pass something through the forge, I simply slide the bricks apart a bit. On the front, I made a "tent" opening..... 1 half length brick on each side, and a full brick resting on top....this allows me to adjust the size of the front opening as needed. I'll try to get some pics later and post them if you'd like.
 
Sorry it took so long! Here are those pics....

This is my general purpose forge with an open front end...


And with the front end blocked up with firebrick..... 1/2 a brick on each side, and a full one on top......
Forgefront.jpg


And finally the rear.... a piece of 3" angle iron tack welded in place, and two firebricks, each standing on end to cover the rear opening....if I need to pass something through the forge, I just pull one or both the bricks apart as needed....
Forge_Rear.jpg
 
I built my forge and closed up the back and welded it in place. Since then I have cut a small opening to be able to pass longer blades through like Ed mentioned. If i had to do it again I would leave it open amd use bricks like Ed does, im probably going to plasma cut the back open. But I mainly use mine for heat treating simple steels.
 
Check out the Build a Gas Forge attachment at the Forge Supplies page of my web-site. The shape of the tank ends help protect the ceramic blanket and just makes a better looking end result. Rather than the angle irons use common door hinges then if you need to re-line it you can just knock out the hinge pins. If you need a larger opening you can remove one pin and prop up the side with a fire brick. I always put the hinge on one side with the two knuckles pointing up on one side and 3 on the other so that you always get the same alignment when you put it back together. There is little or no heat loss because of the mating edges. Don't put fire brick inside for a floor because it is a heat sink. Cast over the blanket with a castable refractory like Kast-0-Lite (a light weight, insolating, flux resistant castable) and then paint over the Kast-0-Lite with Metrikote (similar to ITC-100 but much cheaper and according to Mike Porter serves our purposes better than ITC-100).

Let me know if I can help you.
 
Ed what diameter is your forge??

The pipe/casing of that particular forge is 8". I have 3 forges in the shop..... the one in the photos I use for forging straight steels. I also have a large welding forge, and another forge that is a large horizontal oval shape used for larger items such as sheet metal, etc.
 
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