I've decided to build a gas forge

[KPeacock]

I've noticed this. It seems that all of the forge pics I've seen simple let this stuff sit there. Thats all good and well, but Thee has to be a better way. perhaps thats just the engineer in me trying to reinvent the wheel though. I'll likely flip a coil and try one of the aformentioned methods.

 

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't work and then the forge will function just as everyone elses does. I just see it as a waste material building up. We don't simply fill a toilet and empty it when it's full. We plumb the stuff we don;t want away from our home. I see the forge as the same thing. Why not plumb it away? I'll be happy if the idea works, but I'm not going to count on it. I'm far too green on all of this to pretend to have a better way. It would be ncie though

[Alan Longmire]

I've seen a few solutions to the flux puddle problem, none of which work really well. There's the old thick stainless plate on the floor, which is removed and brushed off from time to time, the basin and drain system has been done by somebody, I forget who, and while it does work a little bit, it clogs fast and you still have the sheen of flux on the floor that's too thin to run out. The tilted floor has the same problem. The best system I've personally played with was a forge lined with wool, the floor of which was covered in hard refractory of some sort. The owner made a little scraper thingy curved to the same radius as the forge floor, and when the flux puddle got too big he'd just rake out the molten stuff and let it ooze into a sheet metal box hanging from the forge front for that purpose.

 

I like the Fogg style vertical forge with a hard bottom for welding, myself. The flux is out of the way, and you're not gonna build up enough to block the airflow before it's time to reline anyway.

 

So saith Alan who still uses his coal forge despite having a stainless shell, two yards of kaowool, five pounds each of satanite and bubble alumina, plus a red hat regulator, needle and ball valves, plus ten feet of hose...If it were to miraculously assemble itself I might use it, but it's a good little space-eating pile where it sits so I hate to disturb it.

[Mike Blue]

... The owner made a little scraper thingy curved to the same radius as the forge floor, and when the flux puddle got too big he'd just rake out the molten stuff and let it ooze ....

 

So saith Alan who still uses his coal forge despite having a stainless shell, two yards of kaowool, five pounds each of satanite and bubble alumina, plus a red hat regulator, needle and ball valves, plus ten feet of hose...If it were to miraculously assemble itself I might use it, but it's a good little space-eating pile where it sits so I hate to disturb it.

 

 

onto the floor in my case.

 

Alan, if you couldn't use the computer to communicate here, I'd accuse you of being a Luddite for your reluctance to advance to new technology.

Edited November 21, 2008 by Mike Blue