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Propane ribbon burner forge build
- Thread starter Dan Dubeau
- Start date
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
So it's been air drying in the basement for 2 weeks and I haven;t had enough time to cure it off until today. Couldn't find my infrared thermometer, so ramping up the heat the measured and scientific way wasn't possible, so I more or less winged the curing procedure, and heated it up slowly on and off over the course of about 3 hours, then and held it there for over an hour and a half. Everything went well, except the spot where I repaired by the back opening has cracked away from the main refractory. Oh well, TBH is looked like it had started to crack away even before I fired it. I don't think it'll be a problem area, but I'll address it later if it does.
First off a couple nights ago I welded up a new receiver stand to hold the forge. I'm going to change the way it's mounted to it, Right now it's just a short 2" square tube welded to the shell. It's a bit flimsy and as the blower assembly is too heavy and it leans to one side. It's not going to break, It just bothers me. I'm going to make a flat plate to bolt to the feet on the forge, with a thicker 2" tube section welded to the bottom of it. I also added the 2" ball valve I had to choke off the blower with a bit of my favourite Irish aluminum. What I difference it made. Very nice and controllable now. And the blower is way over powered IMO.
I might be able to get it to run a bit lower to more I get used to it, but this is it running down pretty low with the blower almost fully choked off. You can see the refractory by the back door cracked. The rest is solidly intact just fine though.
So after a while I had a little helper show up and want to forge something. She took the honors and struck the first hammer blow. This pic is after some drawing out already.
I helped her draw out a point, but she wanted to curl it all on her own. I helped a little bit, but honestly this was pretty much her all on her own. The curl that is, I drew it out for her.
Not bad for an 8 year old
. We watch a lot of blacksmithing videos together.....
She went back inside (it's cold out), and I had some fun with the other end of the bar. Drawing it out, and forging a knife blade shape on it. Nothing particular, just wanted to play around moving metal, as this is my first "real" forging attempt. Didn't take too long to draw it out to a nice tapered blade section. What I ended up with though (it's just mild steel after all), is a nice little fire rake, that will come in handy as I build a solid fuel forge next.
All in all a pretty fun afternoon. I think I'm going to enjoy my new hobby. It'll go nicely with all the others lol. I don't think my right arm is going to though....time to build a forging press.......
Now that it's "done" (90% anyway), I need to move on to some other projects for a while.
First off a couple nights ago I welded up a new receiver stand to hold the forge. I'm going to change the way it's mounted to it, Right now it's just a short 2" square tube welded to the shell. It's a bit flimsy and as the blower assembly is too heavy and it leans to one side. It's not going to break, It just bothers me. I'm going to make a flat plate to bolt to the feet on the forge, with a thicker 2" tube section welded to the bottom of it. I also added the 2" ball valve I had to choke off the blower with a bit of my favourite Irish aluminum. What I difference it made. Very nice and controllable now. And the blower is way over powered IMO.
I might be able to get it to run a bit lower to more I get used to it, but this is it running down pretty low with the blower almost fully choked off. You can see the refractory by the back door cracked. The rest is solidly intact just fine though.
So after a while I had a little helper show up and want to forge something. She took the honors and struck the first hammer blow. This pic is after some drawing out already.
I helped her draw out a point, but she wanted to curl it all on her own. I helped a little bit, but honestly this was pretty much her all on her own. The curl that is, I drew it out for her.
Not bad for an 8 year old
. We watch a lot of blacksmithing videos together.....She went back inside (it's cold out), and I had some fun with the other end of the bar. Drawing it out, and forging a knife blade shape on it. Nothing particular, just wanted to play around moving metal, as this is my first "real" forging attempt. Didn't take too long to draw it out to a nice tapered blade section. What I ended up with though (it's just mild steel after all), is a nice little fire rake, that will come in handy as I build a solid fuel forge next.
All in all a pretty fun afternoon. I think I'm going to enjoy my new hobby. It'll go nicely with all the others lol. I don't think my right arm is going to though....time to build a forging press.......
Now that it's "done" (90% anyway), I need to move on to some other projects for a while.
Lucky you.Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Lucky for now. We had a good dumping already, it just didn't stick around. I'm almost ready for it too, only a few "outdoor" jobs left to do. Might drag the sled out tomorrow and get it running. But will probably wait until the snow comes and it's -15 just because that what I always seem to do lol. Same with the plow jeep.
KeeponDragon
no problems... just challenges
I am soooooo stealing ( I mean borrowing) some of the design aspects of your forge build. A cohort and I have been messing around with blacksmithing for a couple years now.
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Steal or borrow away. Most of the ideas I stole also, but a few were dictated by my available junk pile.
Post up when you start building it. IMO this forum has some real potential to combine all aspects of the metalworking trade. As opposed to a forum for just machining, just casting, just blacksmitting etc. It would be great to see this place grow to support that.
Post up when you start building it. IMO this forum has some real potential to combine all aspects of the metalworking trade. As opposed to a forum for just machining, just casting, just blacksmitting etc. It would be great to see this place grow to support that.
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Sorry, I didn't mean that in any derogatory way. Not at all, just that there is a pretty diverse and good core group here, and it would be great to see it grow even bigger. It's mostly machining centric, but it would be nice to see the other sub forums like casting and blacksmithing grow, and become as popular as the rest. Snowball effect if you will.
Having sub forums all under one roof for all the different facets of metalworking makes this a pretty unique place, and being a Canadian specific forum makes it even better. The subs aren't as well posted in compared to dedicated forums out there, but it would be nice if they were.
Having sub forums all under one roof for all the different facets of metalworking makes this a pretty unique place, and being a Canadian specific forum makes it even better. The subs aren't as well posted in compared to dedicated forums out there, but it would be nice if they were.
Didn't take any offense at all. No worries. I think the sub forums reflect the number of people out there. Casting and blacksmithing are specialties. Prolly 10x as many people machining out in the wild than casting and pounding. But all are welcome here.
This forum is Canadian Hobby Metal Workers. So if you are working metal in any way shape, form, or method - you belong here.
KeeponDragon
no problems... just challenges
This!...this is why I'm here. I use several processes, each lending it's own characteristics to the final outcome.
And it IS pretty awesome to be able to share them in one forum
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
It is really a great place. I'm glad I found this forum. Over the past few years I got down to really only regularly posting on one other machining forum (PM has become such a wasteland I only pop in once in a while), but it's so machining centric that I've got a message before after posting something I made that wasn't strictly machining asking why I posted it, and what it had to do with machining. Kind of off puting, and people wonder why not many people post projects there anymore and have gone elsewhere. I still post some of my projects there, but with not much interaction it's like talking to yourself lol.
I like seeing all the other oddball stuff we work on once in a while. Machining is the tie that binds us all, but I find it very interesting all the secondary and tertiary hobbies that other people are into. Like people who get into machining to support their telescope hobby, etc. I don't just only want to see the little part you machined for your telescope, I want to see, and learn about the whole thing, etc.
Very few of my projects strictly involve machining, so it's nice to post them all, without snide remarks about them not belonging. I mean, I could post all my strictly machining work projects, but nobody is interested in seeing a CNC machine do all the work.......
. Not even me.
I like seeing all the other oddball stuff we work on once in a while. Machining is the tie that binds us all, but I find it very interesting all the secondary and tertiary hobbies that other people are into. Like people who get into machining to support their telescope hobby, etc. I don't just only want to see the little part you machined for your telescope, I want to see, and learn about the whole thing, etc.
Very few of my projects strictly involve machining, so it's nice to post them all, without snide remarks about them not belonging. I mean, I could post all my strictly machining work projects, but nobody is interested in seeing a CNC machine do all the work.......
. Not even me.Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Dragged it outside yesterday and gave it a few coats of high heat paint to protect it from the elements in it's new home.
I also picked up a 2" gate valve cheap off kijiji a few weeks ago to swap out the ball valve for air intake. I didn't find the ball difficult to tune, but they say a gate is better, and a nice old cast bronze one presented itself cheap enough I thought I'd give it a try. I'll have to rejig the intake pipe, or cut a shorter one to make it fit, as it's a bit longer.
I'm cleaning up one of the backyard sheds and turning it into my temporary "blacksmith shop". I need to get some stuff out of the garage to finish building the sawmill, so it had to go somewhere.
I also picked up a 2" gate valve cheap off kijiji a few weeks ago to swap out the ball valve for air intake. I didn't find the ball difficult to tune, but they say a gate is better, and a nice old cast bronze one presented itself cheap enough I thought I'd give it a try. I'll have to rejig the intake pipe, or cut a shorter one to make it fit, as it's a bit longer.
I'm cleaning up one of the backyard sheds and turning it into my temporary "blacksmith shop". I need to get some stuff out of the garage to finish building the sawmill, so it had to go somewhere.
Last edited by a moderator:
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Are the images in the last post loading for anyone? They show up as red x's for me. All the rest of my Imgur links are showing fine, and I linked them the same as I normally do. They show up in the preview, but come up as red x's in the post for me.
140mower
Don
I get red X's as well.......
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Thanks. Weird, I hosted and linked them the same as I always do......
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
After all these years I finally paint something, and a pic of it breaks the internet.
Fixed it @Dan Dubeau
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Thank you. Was it something I did, or an issue with the board?
Not sure to be honest. I just took screen caps and inserted them.
I'm not a fan of external hosting because if something goes sideways with the host the pics are gone from the forum. On Hobby Machinst we've lost thousands of pics when Photobucket went to paid subscriptions.