[TheForge] Chip forges again

[Jerry Frost]

I got to devote a whole day to playing in the basement last week so I played 
with fire clay, sand, cement and various other things.

What I did was attempt to ram up a chip forge. I used a 12" gold pan to form 
the chip pan, a 1" piece of 4" ABS plastic pipe to form both the air(fire?) 
grate and the receiver for the grate. I used a 4" funnel hot glued to the 
ABS, glued to the center of the gold pan and framed in to form the pan and 
table of the forge.

I tried to break it out of it's form a little bit ago and discovered it's 
way crumblier than I expected so I made a thin cement "wash" and wet it 
down. The molding is pretty porous so the cement wash soaked in quite well. 
Then I made a grout consistency batch and plastered the bottom. hopefully in 
a couple hours to days I'll be able to strip the form and see what it looks 
like.

The mix I used is: 3pts fireclay to 2pts silica sand to 1pt portland cement. 
I dampened the mix as little as possible to get it to ramming consistency. 
Too dry I believe as it didn't ram up very hard at all. <sigh>

I gave Bruce's idea of rice a try but I cooked it first and mixed it into 
the refractory directly ajacent to the fire. If I'd added it dry it would've 
absorbed moisture from the refractory, expanding and damaging the rammed 
parts.

It wasn't till later I realized coffee grounds would've been even better.

I only used perlite in the refractory in places away from the fire as it's 
only good for 2,000f or less without degrading.

Well, that's what I did last weekend. (outside of cleaning the barn, 
installing the new stove and working a day's OT.)

Frosty
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If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/