[TheForge] Re: Sheet Metal Bender

[Mike Spencer]

GHS> For whatever my opinion is worth, use the galvanized iron 24gage.
GHS> First time make the fire hot and have the door and window open.
GHS> After the first ten minutes you should have no more zinc fumes.

I dunno about that. For a forge, you should never be getting your
smokebox or flue hot enough to emit the white flocculent stuff -- zinc
oxide -- that you see when burning off zinc.

I used to have galvanized stove pipe on the kitchen range. When we had
a stovepipe fire, the pipe began to turn yellow in the hottest spots.
We had it under control before it got hot enough -- red hot -- to
start making the white zinc oxide "smoke".  If your galvanized forge
flue shows yellow spots after use, it's probably getting too hot there
anyhow and you might want to re-engineer it a bit.

Bruce> By contrast, the galvanized pipe you'd be using would not
Bruce> generally get hot enough for the zinc to burn.  Where it does
Bruce> burn, it burns slowly, so will not in the remotest stretch of
Bruce> imagination fill your shop with fumes.

I agree.  A really vigorous flue fire might produce a lot of fume but,
unless you're sharing the flue with a wood stove, that won't happen.
Coal doesn't create the heavy creosote deposits that wood does.

- Mike

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