[TheForge] hot portable atmospheric forges may need propylene

[Keporter at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/31/2005 4:14:08 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
davesmucker at hotmail.com writes:

Interesting discussion.  At the industrial level the difference  between a 
BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) and the Bessemer Process of old is  replacing the 
blow air feed with oxygen.  Because you don't have to  heat the nitrogen in 
the air (approx. 80 %) you can use that energy to  melt scrap.  That is why 
for steel making today the BOF is  "King".  It can use around 25 percent cold 
scrap as a feed the rest  of the metal being hot high carbon iron from the 
blast furnace (i.e. pig  iron).  Part of what made the BOF go was the WWII 
development of bulk  oxygen by the Germans.  They developed this for rockets 
(V2) but post  war it found it use in steel production.




Dave:
I've about come full circle. Burner design was a way to get around being  
skinned alive for the price of oxygen to the small user when I started doing  
this (2000). It snuck back into my plans in a small way. Just can't seem to kill  
the beast (not for lack of trying). I figure to maim it a little more in  the 
next book though :-) Big industrial consumers pay industrial  prices, but the 
little guy takes a real beating on oxygen. 
Mike P.
Well, it's time to go do something honest before I get  caught.