[TheForge] Re: Ceramic Chip Forge internal pics

[richard maynard]

I've never used coal; we mostly use coke in the UK - but I gather it's quite 
similar.

There's the obvious; you don't have to keep restoking the gas, so it's one less 
thing to forget. It reaches a 'steady state' and stays there. It's ready to 
forge much quicker, it's much, much, cleaner and never spits. Sadly it doesn't 
smell as good (as in it doesn't really smell at all. Coke smells good!!!)

The biggest difference is that you can't change the shape of the fire; you can 
make it hotter/cooler by varying the amount of gas that gets fed into the air 
supply, and that changes the size a bit, but you certainly can't rake out into 
a long thin fire for forging long thin things like you can in coke, for example.

There's a pretty low limit on size, too - the specs quote 50mm (2") round but 
the biggest I've forged is 25mm square, which was enough! There's a lot of 
standing around while it gets hot again!

I've never done forge welding, either in gas or coke, but I have left things 
for too long in the gas forge and seen them melt :-( I suspect this means it's 
hot enough for forge welding, although whether the atmosphere (in terms of 
reducing/oxidising) is right or not I have no idea. It may be possible to heat 
up the forge and switch off the gas and air - the chips would certainly stay 
hot - and get a completely neutral atmosphere. Would this be good?

It's basically a lot less hassle with gas. I'm about to move into a house that 
has space for my own forge (as opposed to using the one in the school where I 
work) and I really am in two minds over whether to have a gas (although it'd 
have to be propane) or a coke forge. I may end up going with both, actually. 
The speed of lighting/warming up of the gas is great, and I suspect given that 
I have a full time job I might find that it's worth having a 'quick forge' on 
the gas of an evening whereas it wouldn't be worth lighting up the coke.

It's also quite good for cooking on. It's a Christmas tradition now (since I 
started it, anyway!) to have bacon sandwiches cooked on a hotplate over the 
forge on the last day of the Autumn term.

Does this answer your question?

Cheers,

Rich.

Quoting GHS <ghs at execpc.com>:

> Rich, how would you describe the similarities and differences, comparing 
> coal and the ceramic chip forges?
> 
> 
> Mike Graf
> 
> richard maynard wrote:
> > I've posted some pics of the internals of my ceramic chip forge to the
> archive 
> > for those who are interested.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Rich.
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