[TheForge] Chip Bed Forge

Mon Feb 20 16:49:15 EST 2006

Hi Mike!

It's 'Design and Visual Arts' by the way, not 'technical department'!

Rich.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net 
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Porter
> Sent: 16 February 2006 17:02
> To: Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Chip Bed Forge
> 
> 
> Michael,
>  Try Flame Engineering if you want to find "state of the 
> British art" crafts 
> heating equipment. Unfortunately, every bit of their stuff is 
> also quite out 
> of date. England and the rest of Europe designed all their 
> forging/brazing 
> equipment to run off of butane--not propane. Butane had been 
> thought to have 
> several advantages over propane. One of them is that butane 
> receives a big 
> flame temperature boost (356 degrees more than propane) from 
> a lot less 
> added oxygen (a ratio of 1.8 to 1 instead of propane's 4.7 to 
> 1). But, the 
> main advantage was supposed to be safety. Propane cylinder 
> pressure is 109 
> PSI at room temperature, to butane's 17 PSI. Sounds almost to 
> good to be 
> true, right? Well, it is. Lower pressure turned out to be a 
> mixed blessing 
> at best. You see, all their heating equipment needs large expensive 
> motor/compressors, and the attendant safety equipment that 
> goes with such a 
> system...and we find it all down hill from a design 
> standpoint from there. 
> Oh sure, 17 PSI is plenty of pressure to establish a flame 
> with, but the 
> fuel cylinder rapidly super-cools, with a resulting drop in 
> pressure that is 
> pretty close to zero. Europe is now starting to mix butane 
> with propane, 
> playing catch up, but not doing very well at it. Catching up 
> always requires 
> 'fessing up to your mistakes as a first step.
> 
> The only real innovator I have found in English heating equipment is 
> Bullfinch, who not only has come up with some pretty clever 
> single gas torch 
> designs (I love their ignition system), but even appears to 
> have its own 
> foundry. However, I tested Bullfinch's biggest brazing torch 
> against a 3/8" 
> tube burner last year, and the burner won (just). When tested 
> against a 1/4" 
> burner with a much narrower target pattern, the 3/8" burner 
> was completely 
> blown away, but by then I'd got rid of the torch, so they 
> couldn't go head 
> to head. For about fifty-seven bucks you can buy a High-heat 
> Torch (Model 
>  "D" blowpipe): Made by Grobet USA, which will keep up with 
> the 1/4" burner. 
> The Model "D" blowpipe uses compressed air, to collapse a 
> brush flame into a 
> super fast (and therefore super-hot) needle flame. All this to say: 
> "European heating equipment isn't worth the shipping charges, 
> let alone the 
> prices they ask."
> 
> Apparently, Europeans agree with this view, since you can find used 
> brazing/forging equipment for sale on UK sites at about 1/10th of its 
> original price. As near as I can tell, sales to the school 
> system is all 
> that keeps these guys in business. However, the head of a 
> London school's 
> technical department corresponded with me for a while last 
> year, while he 
> was building a tube burner and pipe forge for home use. 
> Apparently 1/10th 
> the price still didn't make local gas forge designs appealing 
> to him. You 
> can draw your own conclusions :-)
> Mike P.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Horgan" <lughaid at earthlink.net>
> To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 9:35 PM
> Subject: [TheForge] Chip Bed Forge
> 
> 
> > Some years ago I made a gas forge for use at the Renaissance  Faire,
> > hiding the hot box under some black lava rock. It worked 
> pretty well , at 
> > least as a nail forge, but you could only heat one end of 
> the bar, with no 
> > pass through. Last year we used a Whisper Mama, tucked away in a 
> > faux-brick forge.  Still pretty obviously a gas hotbox.  I 
> wanted a coal 
> > or charcoal fire, but the Faire site, regulated by the Army 
> Corps of 
> > Engineers and the local county Fire Inspectors wouldn't 
> allow the "Open 
> > Fire"
> >
> > This year we are putting together a ceramic chip forge, basically a 
> > gas
> > burner feeding the bottom of a pile of heat resistant 
> "rocks."  I've been 
> > looking at the past postings on the forge, and talking off 
> list with Paul 
> > Boulay , Rex Price, Frosty and Mike Porter, about the ins and outs, 
> > advantages and disadvantages of this type of forge. Whether 
> it can be made 
> > to work with a venturi burner or if a blower is needed, 
> what type of media 
> > to use  for best heat transfer to your steel, and so on. 
> I've also been 
> > looking at the "expensive" commercial versions available in 
> England as 
> > used in the school systems,as shown in the graphics page 
> here,  and some 
> > slightly different types available in Germany,
> >  
> http://www.angele-shop.com/catalog/index.php?cName=gas-forges-
> gasforges .
> >
> > There have been some great ideas pop up, not to mention the usual 
> > kludges
> > I'm apt to come up with. <GRIN>
> >
> > Mikie in particular has a great idea for a recuperative forge that 
> > looks
> > great for a commercial forging station, if perhaps a bit 
> more than I was 
> > looking to do as a portable forge at the Faire
> >
> > Seems like there's some interest in this, so I'll be summarizing in 
> > later
> > messages some of the stuff we've been talking about, as well as the 
> > results from some experimentation I'm doing.  I've got some 
> refractory 
> > media due in this weekend so I can try to produce some 
> results to share.
> >
> >
> > Michael D. Horgan , lughaid at earthlink.net 
> > http://members.aol.com/lughaid/ posting from
> >  A BRAZEN FORGERY
> > Blacksmithing and Metalwork
> > Claremont, Ca.
> >
> >
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