The Armour Archive

Hello.
I just cobbled together a fairly sizeable forge in the last two days, and test fired it today. I will get some pictures of the modifications tomorrow when I fire it up again with several amigos. it's...very hot. and very quick at heating things up, like steel...and gloves!
never mind Archie's Little Red Forge, it's now Archie's Fairly Sizeable and Red Hot Forge!

and here it is in action (the last picture was it almost, but not quite done) you can't see it in the picture, but there were 1/2 foot long flames shooting out from underneath the cover while the blower was running.

Dude . . . Are you running manure in there?

Nicely done. I like it a lot, except it's a bit low. Hell, you can work around that, great job, man.

Now make something cool!

I'm gonna get me hands on some manure as oon as possible!!! (might do something with it as my science project) I'm just running charcoal and wood right now. I've built it up so that there's only one blower in use, which allows for a more vertical firepot with a concentrated blast. It gets to a welding heat in 2-3 minutes, and melts the fingertips of new gloves(something to show off how dark metal is still hot metal) I'm having a few friend from school over tomorrow, and we're going to fool around with it a bit. (with gloves and safety goggles, mind) and grill sausages on it. should be fun!
if need be, I'll prop up the washtub on a few more bricks to give it some height.

Watch out with the sausages. I've eaten chared on the outside but raw on the inside brats, and they're unsafe and disgusting.

I'm glad you're having fun, and you've learned the black heat lesson (It's the black heat that gets you every time, burned my gloves just yesterday)

Remind your friends that if it's glowing, it's over 1200 degrees, and it only takes 212 degrees to boil the water in your body. Something that hot will change the way you live, if you're not careful.

That being said, have a blast. Got some nice tongs?

perrty!!!

looks like my furnace did when I casted aluminum (before it burnt me and I kicked it)

be careful, I am still suffering a 1 1/2" charcaol burn!
0 fun!
~Casey

just made a few adjustments, and it works mighty good, and looks a bit like some kind of archaeological dig, it's much cooler, and works much better now! pikkies tomorrow.

Mike F wrote:Watch out with the sausages. I've eaten chared on the outside but raw on the inside brats, and they're unsafe and disgusting.

I'm glad you're having fun, and you've learned the black heat lesson (It's the black heat that gets you every time, burned my gloves just yesterday)

Remind your friends that if it's glowing, it's over 1200 degrees, and it only takes 212 degrees to boil the water in your body. Something that hot will change the way you live, if you're not careful.

That being said, have a blast. Got some nice tongs?

Yes true, you'll want to boil them first. in beer and after they are cooked, then grill them, and with hot mustard like with horsey sauce in it, mmmmmmm good.



Max

With that HUGE blower on it, I bet you could get an anvil up to forging heat! That looks like a pretty powerful forge, if you don't burn holes through it somewhere, you'll have a lot of fun with it. Make sure everything is properly covered with the sand you use as a lining. Speaking from experience, rust may become a problem eventually, but that depends on how moist you store it.

Just a few basic safety tips:
1) metal doesn't have to glow to be hot (you found that one out already).
2) even after dipping a chunk of steel in water, you can still burn yourself on it.
3) DON'T use synthetic materials in clothing or gloves. Hot molten plastic on your skin is not nice. Burning natural fibre on the other hand is just annoying or painful at most.
...
99) don't forget to put those bricks under the wheels!

Have fun!!!

But... what did those porpoises ever do to you?

Dont let PETA hear of this!

is that a galvy tub?

aye, that it be. a galvy tub, with lots o' unsulation. here's a picture of it in action. it's um...very powerful and hot and eats through fuel viciously. It got so hot that when I left a horseshoe in the fire for 2 minutes while helping a friend figure out how to open the tongs, I came to pick it back up, and only came up with one half, the half in the fire had melted. I like it.

He knows about Zinc, never fear.

Looks like it works pretty well. Good job. Watch out for those horseshoes, though.

Do you have that on a dimmer switch/rheostat?

you mean the blower? no, it's either on or it's off. I might start hand cranling the things with a gear arrangement, right now it's going too fast.

Put a damper over the squirel cage where you can adjust the air flow. It should slow down the blow power.

Wow! did you say you melted a horse shoe with your "Radio Flyer Little Red Wagon Forge"...? That is impressive.. look on the Internet to see that it was over (2500°F) to melt steel.

Next you will be casting dishing forms and stakes hu?
Check out how to do sand castings.....

I better look out for the competition. Yes?

Hal

Ps: Yes, like the members said, don't forget to chock the wheels......

Oh my... the stuff you can do with enough air-blast. Have you the ability to either slow the fan way down or to waste-gate some of the blast away from the fire?

Multi-Porpoise = Flipper + Terrible Copier Mishap

I will probably not do much steel casting, though I want to do a fair amount of bronze soon (I'm going to try somne raising in bronze). I have just come up with a cunning air valve idea, which I will attach late this afternoon (singing carols to people with strokes in the morning ) it is amazing what you can do with ridiculous amounts of fuel and a massive blower!

"it is amazing what you can do with ridiculous amounts of fuel and a massive blower! "


Yeah, like melt your liner, wheeee... Perhaps one of the best early moments for me was when my homemade forge melted its brick liner--I used fire brick of the type that is used in wood stoves. I knew then that I had finaly reached a critical proportion of air blast, hardwood lump charcoal, and fire pot design. It was a bloop of melted brick, it covered my tiny conduit blastpipe, I chiped it out and then proceeded to melt/burn up some rebar. I should also mention that I used an airmattress handpump from wallyworld to do this. From that point on I was hooked, I've since redesigned and constructed a larger perminant forge. As for massive quantities of fuel, research the processes of making your own charcoal, for a whole new set of fun, backyard experiments.

Dennis

I researched it a few weeks ago, but, when I have a blower this big to burn the smoke away anyhoo, why not just use wood? I just cleaned out the forge, and removed all of the lining except the trocks and bricks, because I'm going to seive the perlite out, and add wood ash, so it won't messy the fire up quite as much.
oh my gosh the clinkers!!!! I got a massive pile of clinkers on the bottom of the forge, and around the tuyere. Luckily it's a side blast, so the clinkers didn't block off any of the air, they just crusted into massive gobs around it. they're quite pretty, actually, I could imagine recasting them as jewelery. hmmm...

two halves of my biggest clinker (it broke in two while I was gouging it out, there are a few other little bits of it too)
http://www.yourimg.com/page/0519355/Picture031.jpg
I am completely redoing the liner, so that it will not gum into the charcoal.
I also raised it up about half a foot on a big chunk o' timber, so it's at about anvil height. much easier to work with now.

hehe, multi "porpoise"

. Try using coke, that stuff sticks together like no-ones business!

He's have to be careful to not burn a hole right through the cover, though. Coke is some powerful stuff.

You have a ways to go youg Padawan---Stone county ironworks used to nail their largest doughnut clinkers to the wall.

Thomas

But those must have been made with a bottom-blown forge. I tend to make nice big donut clinkers, coal is the best ingredient there, coke works with some effort, but to make big clinkers with charcoal really takes some serious work!

But with that fan and the right amount of charcoal, just about anything you stick in that forge will either burn or melt!

fired it up last night and made my first object. it is a practice knife to get my bearings for a commision from a teacher. it roughly chops carrots, and is big and chunky. I know that when I do the real thing, it's going to be twice as wide, and half as thick (the finished knife is 1/8 inch at the spine, eew!), and with a nice handle (left-right twists are my favorite, and they're fairly easy to do) I'm gonna use the money from the knife for a big sheet of thick guage steel to raise a few things out of. also working on smelting a wee bit of bronze.
The final knife won't be done for a few days though. I dried my skin up from making the forge, chopping up two trashbagsfull of wood into forge-sized chunks (sawdust) and burned them from my gloves burning through in several places. I'm now stuck away from the forge smearing funny pastes on my knuckles. they don't burn as much though, and I'm going to re-evaluate my setup for safety and such while I don't have the tempation to just go out and forge.

That reminds me: treat yourself to an aloe vera plant. When (not if) you burn yourself, cut off a piece of the plant, and use this to soothe the burn. It will often prevent blisters if applied quickly enough, and is perfect for your skin. It does leave stains though, but who cares if you're dusty and dirty already.

As a kitchen cutlery salesman, I may be somewhat biased here, but I think a vegetable cutter such as a chefs' knife should be no more than about 5/32" at the spine. A thin blade slices well; a thick blade is more of a weaponish design and it resists being broken -- but its thickness impedes a slicing cut. Wüsthof builds chefs' knives with very thick spines and V-section wedge-grind blades -- which are pretty durn sturdy, but this blade section means the knife is reluctant to get into the work. Wüsthof has built a bayonet when what they needed was something nearer a razor.

I might have the blade be 1/16 inch thick at the spine, and the width (when looked at from the side) will be about 2 or 2.5 inches. It's going to be very much a slicer, not a weapon hacking thing.
I just cleared out the firpit today. Got the biggest clinker yet, it's a donut clinker bigger than my palm. I get a ton of clinkers, but since they form around the wide side blast tuyere, and I have my work relatively high up in the coals it doesn't effect anything. I just pull them out once the forge is cool. For this reason I can just use garden mud full of leaves'n grass as a lining for the forge which is dead cheap, and very effective, and I can vary my firepot size with a little bit of water. I also sculpted my air valve a bit so it works far better. thursday night it was just far too strong.