I think I finally got it! - Forge floor lining

Laredo7mm

Laredo7mm

Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
1,240
Hey all, I think I finally found the solution to the bottom of horizontal forges getting eaten away by flux. I have tried steel, stainless steel, ceramic, porcelin, and "welding brick." All of those either failed (got eaten away) or couldn't handle the thermal shock and cracked.

A while ago I bought a 4 x 4 x 24 chunk of EDM graphite off of eBay. I was going to use it for casting molds before i found my pure nickel bar stock. I ended up giving it to one of my suppliers at work that does EDM stuff. Well, they never used it so they gave it back to me.

I thought I would give a piece a test run in the forge. I heated a 4 x 4 x .75 piece upto orange and put some borax on it. It handled that with no problem. I then took it out of the forge and quenched in a bucket of room temp water. No problem with that either. Then stuck it back into the hot forge and it handled the thermal shock just fine. After that I took it out and let it cool down. After it was cool, I was able to scrape the solidified borax off with my finger nail.

So I cut a 4 x 18 x .625 slab off and milled out a 3.5 x 16.5 x .1875 channel in it for the melted flux to collect in and not run over the sides. The stuff machined beautifully, and I was even smart enough to have the shopvak running to suck up all the graphite dust as I milled.:D It was still a bit messy, but the little woman was in bed already.:rolleyes:

Anyway, time will tell, but it is looking very promising. The real test will be when i start using the "special" SS flux. Keep your fingers crossed. But for now, it is shower time before the wife to be finds out what i did.;)
 
all got abbreviated for some reason. Now to see if it was browser or board software. WIll edit them and fix it.
 
They work now. Thanks!

That stuff could be used to make deep etch handpieces for electro etching makers marks also.
 
I ate the bottom lining of my forge out with borax at a hammer-in last year. To keep on welding we covered the bottom inside of the forge with clay cat litter. After I got home I was planning on cleaning it out and putting more kaowool in it but I got in a hurry to make some knives and...................I still have the cat litter in there now a year later and I've put a lot of borax in there since then and it doesn't look like it hurts that cat litter at all. Doesn't seem to affect the temp of the forge either. Anyone know of any reasons why I shouldn't keep doing this or why it is not a good idea? Just thought I would throw this in here.

Hillbillychuck
 
Hey chuck good to see you back on the forum have not seen you for a while. Have you put a post on yet about trying you knife on the deer
you bagged.

Back to business I know a fellow that did not clean the bottom of his forge at all it filled up to the top of the door. ( about half way)
he just worked in the top half. any excess ran out the front. He has been doing that about 6 years. I was suppised he did not seem to get any slag inclusions between layes or any thing like that.
 
Hey Chuck,

Glad to see you back on the forum. Sorry about your forge. We all know who did that. Its his birthday today so give him a ration of happiness. He might still be down in Florida catching all the redfish.

See you in a couple weeks.

Mark
 
The only problem I see with leaving the kitty litter in the bottom of the forge is when you want to use the forge for anything else besides forge welding. Ideally, I would have more than one forge. I would like to have three, but I am limited on space.

Plus having an uneven floor makes it difficult to do mokume. Yeah, I know, copper contamination. But I have not had any problems. I even forge the mokume in my welding forge and have not had any problems with contamination.

Hopefully this graphite will work. I will post more after this weekend.
 
Larado

I agree with what you are saying. I gennerally empty out my kitty litter every couple of sessions. I normally give it another coat of the paint on linning while I am at it. The paint is Sold here as thermocoat 300 .

It was just an observation that depending on the use you can have a bit of felexability and it is not the end of the world is a bit of linning is damaged. I have also pached some holes with plugs of forge wool and paint.

I am keen to get back onto the rolling mill. I have not fired up for ages.
 
hey reg can you help out a fellow aussie, i need to get hold of some refractory material for lining a forge but i am having trouble finding a supplier in oz, if you can my email is edwards_knives@msn.com.au



trying to find the stuff is driving me :mad:
 
I run sinker edm's at work. I have hundreds of pounds sitting about my room at work. I know it has a very high melting point, but never thought of it for a forge lining. I think that I might have to snag some pieces and try it out. Please keep us posted on how long it lasts!

Jamie
 
the problem with Graphite is the fact that it will burn away if your forge atmosphere isn't perfect, I've got the floor lined with it in my forge, but covered with itc-100, and throw a tile in when it's heat treat time, as it helps produce a good reducing atmosphere. works well as crucibles as well, but again, it'll burn away without a good reducing atmosphere.
 
Not sure on this, but isnt graphite a severe inhilation hazard? Would there be an issue with it contaminating your breathing air when at those temperatures?Like I said, Im not sure on this, just thought Id mention it.

Ive heard great things on the "Bubble Alumina" lining material that Darren Ellis sells, havnt tried it yet though.

God Bless
Mike
 
Have you tried the bubble alumina from darren ellis? i have been using it for about 4 months and love it no problems at all with flux.
 
Hey guys, Bubble Alumina is the cats meow when it comes to flux resistant forge lining material...this stuff works. I've finally got it listed up on my website if anyone's interested.

:)

-Darren
 
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