As promised, I got a few photos of my forges.................
This photo shows my welding forge. It is 16" well casing, with 3" castable refractory lining. The photo shows where and how the burner enters the forge. I have a hood over my forges, so don't be confused by the burner running through the side of the hood.
http://www.caffreyknives.com/forgewelding.jpg

The next photo is a shot of how the burner on my welding forge is set up. The 150cfm squirrel cage is bolted to a pipe flange. The propane supply enters about 2" below the blower, with the needle valve plainly visible. The lead in pipe is 2" ID, and just after the elbow, it reduces to a 1 1/2" pipe. I have found that I get a better fuel mix with the propane supply entering just below the blower, and the reduction in pipe size increases velocity, which gives more heat from the same amount of propane.
http://www.caffreyknives.com/forgeburner.jpg


Lastly, this photo shows my horizontal forge, which is used for general forging (non-welding). It is a single venturi burner, which I made from an old furnace burner found in the scrap yard. It is a very simple affair, with raw ka-wool lining, and firebricks to close up the ends.
http://www.caffreyknives.com/forgeventuri.jpg

Dear Ed,
in regards to your forge plans I can see that you updated them. As I am building one I wonder if I should enlarge the lead in pipe to 2" and place the propane supply also 2" below the blower? I bet that will improve things.
I also thought about coating the inside with ITC 100. This horizontal forge will be my welding forge.

I would like to build another forge for general forging(52100,5160...) but this time the vertically typ that will head up quickly. I have a 12" ID x 16" well casing left and wonder if I should line it with 1" castable refrac and coat that with Kaowool ( 1" ) ?

I am looking forward to get some answers.

All the best and see you hopefully in Germany

Cyrus

Hi Cyrus!
Good to see you on the forums.
The vertical type forge that I have in the above photos has been an experiment, and therefore I have not produced a set of plans for this one.......yet.
Some forlks like the ITC 100, but I'm not a fan of any of the coatings. Used on ka-wool, I have found that it detracts from the heat reflecting qualities of the ka-wool, which actually reduces the ka-wool's effectivness.
On the castable refractory, it is necessary to use 3" of the stuff when lining a forge. Anything less than that and there is just not enought insulation capability to handle the job.
Castable has different properties than the ka-wool type materials. Ka-wool is basically a heat reflector, which will heat up quickly, but it doesn't retain any heat. This means that if you place a large billet in a ka-wool forge, coated or not, it will cause the forge to go almost black inside, and take much longer to heat up a billet. Castable, on the other hand absorbs and stores a certain amount of heat, and because of the mass involved, will get a billet to welding temp much quicker.
On the thought of building a 12"x16" ka-wool type forge, you might be OK, but I think that 12" dia might be a bit on the large size for this type of forge. I'm sure it would get up to heat, but it would take a while, and any large work piece would take some time to heat up to forging temps.
Eventually I will have plans available for the vertical type forge, but for now the horizontal type (the one you have plans for), is proven, whereas there are still a few things on I'd like to "work out" on the vertical design.

hi there
WAS LOOKING AT THE HEART OF THE OPERATION IN YOUR SHOP. THE VERTICLE FORGE IS NEW SINCE I WAS THERE LAST THE OTHER LOOKS FAMILAR.
HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOUR BLACKSMITH SHOP AIRCONDITIONED YET ? AS HOT AS IT GETS THERE IN THE SUMMER MIGHT NOT HURT. HA HA.
DO YOU HAVE LESS CLEAN UP WITH THE VERTICLE GORGE ? ARE YOU ABLE TO MAINTAIN A CONSTANT TEMP MORE SO WITH THIS STYLE ?
BOB GRAY

Bubba!!!
For those of you who don't know, Bob Gray is one of my best friends! He has just been moving around the country for the last year, and I was starting to think that he had fallen in the ocean down there in Florida, and go eaten by some sea monster.
Yea Bob, the vertical forge is new to the shop. I decided to experiment with something different and see how it worked (you know I never experiment) :rolleyes:
I'm liking that vertical forge a lot, and once I'm sure I have all the bugs worked out, I will be offering plans for it too.
Blew the pump coupler on the press last week, which was rather exciting, little pieces of coupler flying about the shop is not a good time!
Glad to hear that you've finally landed, and that all is well. Keep us posted on how things are going!

Hi Ed,
O.K. I will build the vertically forge a bit smaller about the size that Don Fogg recomments just for general
forging purposes. This won't use as much gas as the big refrac one. That one will be used for welding or annealing.

All the best

Cyrus

Hello Ed, this may be a dumb question but I gotta ask anyway!! :) I know you have a top on your vertical forge but what do you use or do you use a bottom and a rack to set your billet on?I have a horizontal, and am going to build a vertical,I also don't put any handles on my billets (hence the rack question). Anyway I appreciate the help, Mike