Bob Ouellette

I'd really like to see it when you do!

Looks good! I'm glad the fish mouth weld worked out!

I can't wait to see it! I'll be the first to admit, I didn't develop any of the knowledge on my own and keeping it to myself doesn't help anyone

Here we go. I've even made a few notes about how I'd go about forging the shapes (feel free to disregard if they don't work for you!) I think setting the edges first might work out best, but I can't experiment to find out at the moment.

Good luck! What did you differently with your welds? Also, I was rereading your initial post and thinking of how to make all the weld seams hold better. Have you thought of forging a very thin, short scarf on the ends of the two steel wings? Not enough to add mass, but enough to help get the very ends to close. I'll draw a picture of what I'm thinking and post it in a little while.

The inside of the forge will be kaowool. The table will be fire brick and I might cast the opening for the air curtain.

The body will be made from 1/8" sheet, lined with kaowool and coated in ITC 100. Thanks for the tips! I've already looked at your site and it's really helped with my understanding of ribbon burners. Now for the update! I added the bottom shelf and some bracing for the legs. After I weld up the forge body, I'll add some alignment pins for when it inevitably needs to be relined it can drop back into the same place or get stuck needing destructive removal. Then I'll cut out a slot for an air curtain in front of the mouth of the forge. I set a fire brick in the corner to see how well it fits, height wise and I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Having had an increasingly difficult time breathing over the last year and a half (not Covid related, thankfully), I decided to sell my coal forge and switch completely to propane. I made a coffee can forge last summer and that's been fine for blades less than 2" wide and that don't require forge welding. I decided to make a forge that would have 2 ribbon burners. I'm going to put a valve between them, so one can be shut off and have half of the forge chamber blocked off with a fire brick. The brick can either be slid over or removed completely to accommodate bigger blades or large scroll work that I plan on doing as well. The table is 30" x 30" and will be covered with fire bricks to support any work I have at the same level of the forge floor, because messing around with goofy work rests is a hassle I don't want to deal with. I ordered the steel a while back and cut it to size once it was delivered to my work. Having a machine shop full of tools I can use is quite handle until I can afford to build my own gigantic shop. It's all been sitting in a pile because I didn't trust the welding hood I had to keep my eyeballs safe. I was finally able to afford a new hood with some undeserved stimmy money, so I got started welding it up. I'll be sure to take pictures as I make progress. Here's a general idea of the forge body/burner set up. My fancy new shield, recommended by one of the welders at work. Got the walls welded onto the table. The legs are on and a bit wobbly. The big square sheet will be welded in to hold the blower and supports will be added to brace the legs.

My lungs can't handle solid fuel anymore. I sold my coal forge and I'm working on building a new gas forge.

I just had another thought. In addition to letting the to get thicker, slightly fish mouth the point so that the flats overlap the steel. They'll essentially be weeks scarfs and help you seal that area up. Makes me wish I had a forge I could weld in.

Thanks, Rob! I didn't start clamping after the quench until I started messing with stainless. At that point, I already had the pieces I needed set up by the oven.

Thanks! I milled a radiused platten. I took a piece of 4140 and welded it to a piece of heavy tube for rigidity, then mounted the whole thing to a rotary table with the edge at 18". I wish I could take credit for the idea. I've considered regrinding a knife I've previously fished and decided against it. It's a good representation of the skills I had at the time.

Me too! The other big one I hardened at the same time did, but I got lucky with this one.

These are a neat idea and I like both of them. Thinking about your first piece, I wonder if the tip of the socket material were slightly thicker than the blade material if it would help the weld. Essentially, let the tip get thicker as you point the piece instead of flattening it back down to the original thickness.

Those are pretty slick. It's definitely something I want to try sometime.