[TheForge] Oil fired forges

[theforge@mailman.qth.net]

Dave,
There is a smith that used to belong to the GoM who lives 
just west of St. Cloud (I think). Ken something. He used to 
work for the Burlington Northern RR in their forging shop.  
The railroads switched to oil after WWII.  He is using a oil-
fired forge in his own shop.  It looks just like a coal fired 
forge with a side-draft hood on top.  There is a fire box 
below, made of fire brick.  A residential oil burner is 
mounted to the side.  The heat and some flame comes up 
through a slot in the same place the coal firepot would be.  
He could heat stock in the same way a coal forge would be 
used, but had the additional feature to heat long stock by 
sticking it down through the slot vertically into the 
firebox.  A very nice system, lots of heat and not very 
noisy.  Used oil burners are a dime a dozen from a service 
co's. installing a new boiler or newer used ones sell for 
$100-150 around here.  Turn the switch on and you have 
instant heat.  I suppose you could turn it on and off just 
like you do with your blower on a coal forge once the oile-
fired forge got the firebox up to temp.  That's the way 
residential furnaces/biolers are made to operate.

If ther is anybody else with experience firing with oil, I 
too would be interested in learning more.

Regards,
-Rick Korinek

Ps. I heard from Rob Murray that the GoM had a fantastic 
conference a week ago.