[TheForge] plastic forge?

[Bruce Freeman]

Rather than wonder about this magical substance that notably has never
been commercialized, why not brainstorm to find something or some
things that fill some of those functions.

There are, for example, a number of ways to resist heat.  Most
refractories (graphite being a notable exception) that resist heat by
virtue of high melting point and being oxides (impossible to further
oxidize).  Others are ablative -- sacrificial.  Graphite almost falls
into the last category, or maybe does.

Suppose you try to use bituminous coal as a refractory.  Get it hot
enough and it expands into breeze (coke).  It fails at that point
because it starts to burn, but what if it were somehow protected from
burning by a refractory "glass" layer.  Hence, composite something
like bituminous coal with some sort of high-temperature
oxidation-resistant substance.  What's neat about this is that the
breeze would then act as an insulator, protecting what's beneath.

What you want to do is to form your "clinker" right on the surface of
the breeze.   So, this all gives rise to the question of why
bituminous coal does not already act as a refractory.  I suspect that
probably relates to properties of the breeze vs. the "glass".  Maybe
the glass won't "wet" the carbon?  Maybe the continual degassing of
the coal breaks the glass layer, making it ineffective as a "flux"?
Maybe the glass sits on the outside of the breeze only, leaving the
open "gas bubbles" exposed to the air blast?  Solve this problem and
you might develop.  Even light microscopy could help determine the
facts, and scanning electron microscopy would probably solve it in no
time.

Of course, graphite is mainly of interest because of it's high melting
point.  Perhaps the equivalent behavior could be obtained using more
standard ceramics.  But the "plastic" nature of our hypothetical
material is now conceivably a problem.  How does one form a ceramic in
a plastic manner?  Well, cement comes to mind -- castable or rammable
refractories.

All just brainstorming.

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 3:11 AM, peter fels <artgawk at thegrid.net> wrote:
> It's hard to refrain from thinking of different applications for it....
> sorta like relations with  a harbor Fright catalogue when i was poorer.
>
>
> On Jun 12, 2011, at 3:27 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:
>
>>
>> I posted a note to uk.rec.sheds (chiefly because someone had used the
>> word "gubbins" and the Starlite guy recounted calling his product
>> "gubbins" when first encountered) and had this reply:
>>
>>    From: bobharvey <robertharvey at my-deja.com>
>>    Subject: Re: Sheddi Taxidermy
>>    Newsgroups: uk.rec.sheds
>>
>>    Ah yes.  Starlite.  I recall reading almost exactly that article
>>    some 20 years ago in some engineering journal.  It included a
>>    photo sequence of someone stirring molten steel with a stick, then
>>    putting the stick in a bucket of water without the normal
>>    dangerous consequences.
>>
>>    I always assumed it was all true, unlike the "combustion engine
>>    that runs on water" man, who used to pop up occasionally.  'cos It
>>    was clear that that was bollocks.
>>
>> If it's bogus, at least it has staying power.  If it's not, why can't
>> I have some?
>>
>> --
>> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>>                                                           /V\
>> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
>> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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-- 
Bruce
NJ