[TheForge] Re: Chip forge

[Mike Spencer]

Frosty quoth:

> I suppose if you used a small gradation of chips, say passing a -20
> seive, conduction would become the significant transfer. (vehicle?)
> The problem with using fines as chips is forcing the flame through
> it without blowing it out of the forge. Not impossible I supppose
> but I'll bet it'd be really finicky to set up and use.

Which leads to fluidized bed technology.  A quick google leads me to
believe that "finicky to set up" may be exactly right. 

> Every time you put a piece of steel in it it'd change the flow
> patterns and some media would fall out of suspension and some would
> get blown out of the fire.

Yeah, stuff like that. I spotted the mention of "at least 70 CFM, at
2-3 PSI, per square foot of surface area of the diffuser plate" for a
fluidized bed burner/furnace/forge air feed.

Nevertheless, this:

> Comments from people who have used chip forges say it can be hard to
> push small or delicate work into the chips.

would be solved with a fluidized bed.  

I don't suppose many of us want to build what's pictured here:

     http://nett21.gec.jp/JSIM_DATA/WASTE/WASTE_5/html/Doc_509_1.htm

in the back yard. :-)  OTOH, this guy at Ryerson:

    http://www.ryerson.ca/~mecheng/fluidbedlab.shtml

might be worth talking to if one wanted to pursue the subject.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^