Boosk and Google

Mike B, It's great that the knowledge in so many of these old books have been made available digitally to people who would otherwise never have access to them. I will say though that I still prefer the look and feel of a paper book in my hands. There is something pretty fine about holding a book that is a hundred and sixty years old and being able to read the same text that someone else did back then. The screen just isn't an adequate substitute for that experience but it is far better than letting these snapshots of a different time perish.

DW, Yes I do have some good friends and I surely have been very lucky that so many have shared their knowledge and skills with me over the years. I was expecting to see a few salvaged books on marine and industrial steam from this friend, certainly not the boxes which showed up. There's a lot of material to go through

Thomas, Agricola- didn't you get a signed copy of metallica when it was first published? (grin) Steve G

Steve,

I'd take a paper book over a digital one any day as well. But it was pretty neat to be reading the Overman book 90 seconds after seeing your post. (And now that I travel with a cheap netbook, I can put as many books as I want on the SD card without running up checked bag fees.)

Tom C... Welcome back from Florida.... We missed you at Boone's. It was a great day.

The snow has finally melted enough here so I was able to start working on the 3B project again. This past weekend was the first I've been able to work on it since mid-December. I was able to cut one piece of heavy plate I'm using as part of the base (had to do that outside). I have more cutting to do on another piece of plate tomorrow. I also have been able to work a bit on the building site. I put some crusher_run (road bed material) over clay (I had excavated before the snow storms) to provide a base for the floor. Today, I put stone dust over that. Two pieces of plate (total 3.25 inches thick, welded together) will be the base for the hammer (rather than a concrete foundation). The plate will sit on the floor. This is a two piece hammer so the hammer frame sits higher than the base of the anvil. The anvil will sit on the plate (actually on hard maple and a belting mat), with the hammer frame sitting on "C" channel which will be welded to the plate. This type of foundation (based) has been proven in use by Bob Bergman and Ralph Sproul installations. Studs will be welded to the "C" channel for bolting the hammer frame down. I believe I have everything I need to put it together now. I still need to do a little machining on the cast_iron wear plates to fit them properly. Once I get the base plates in place (and welded together), I can move the anvil and hammer frame in place. The path I need to carry that stuff over still needs to dry out some before I try to move the heavy stuff.

I also have some work to do on the dies, but that will come later. The first test runs will be with the dies as they came with the hammer.

I have to get the hammer base, anvil and frame in place before I can finish the building. After the building is done, I'll be able to put the hammer back together (meaning install flywheel, motor, compressor parts and ram). March rains will not be helpful. They start later this week.

I am making progress though. Before all the snow, I was hoping to get it ready for the first test before Spring Fling (end of April). I may still make it if I don't run in to too many unforseen challenges. Exciting times....

old

Steve:
old Books and etc.

Likewise on handling old books.-----My wife was buying me old blacksmith things on e-bay, at one time. One piece of paper was a ledger from a blacksmith. document was on 12x8 unlined paper, August - March 13th. 1848 (a customers account, with all the smith did for him, costs/dates etc. The penmanship perfect. (something they don't teach the kids now days.)

I also, prefer to hold and read paper. I got a few blacksmith literature on discs, but prefer reading from a book.-----------Mike B, if I traveled a lot a SD card would definately be better than carrying a bunch of books.-

New forge

I posted a couple pics of the new forge I recently finished. It uses three of the new SGensh burners and easily reaches welding heat at around 16 psig. So far I really like the way it works. It has an air curtain to stop the "dragon's breath" and that really works great. It also has one burner that is actually outside the forge body, mounted in the "porch" area for taking a small spot heat or pre-heating for welding work. I can even roast a weenie on it, I suppose. The counter-balanced guillotine doors are really handy - much better than hinged doors or loose bricks. All in all, I think I like this one.

Rich

New forge

I should have noted in the previous post that the burner that is mounted oin the porch floor is not one of Steve's new ones - yet. Currently it is one of Larry Zoeller's early sidearm design burners, but will be replaced with a Sgensh type as soon as it arrives. Steve's burners develop more heat in a shorter flame cone than any other burner I've used and I find them better all around. As noted, the tow inside the forge will take it to welding heat and that forge chamber is around 800 cubic inches. (It is 14" long by 9" wide by ~7" tall at the top of the arch, for those who want to do the calcs themselves.) :-)

Rich

Steve G... You never answered my email... Anyway, I keep seeing good reports about your burners...

Rich W... Nice looking forge. Good ideas. I see brick on the shelf. What are you using for the floor and sides/ceiling on the inside of the forge? I'm always experimenting with my forges... may incorporate some of your ideas in my next project. I'm going to play with a ribbon burner to try to make a "super quiet" forge (blown). It's hard to listen to classical music with atmospheric burners (no earphones allowed).

Nice work on the forge, Rich. I like the removable section for working on already curved pieces.

Tom C

New Forge

Rich, Nice forge design. From the photos I don't see the burners. Where are they and how are they mounted? Besides the porch one.

Mike and DW, You are so right- paper is wonderful till you have to pay to haul it around. A friend was looking through this haul of books last evening and found one printed in Italy in 1767! I can't read Italian so I'm going to have to get some help in figuring out just what it is. Dave, Did you once post some of the information from that ledger sheet? I seem to remember you mentioning it before and thinking at the time it was pretty cool.

Dave Hammer, What email? When did you send it and could you resend please? I'll send you one to reply to just in case you had the address wrong. Thanks.

Rich, The forge looks great. I'm glad the burners are working out for you. I thought you'd like them once you tried them out even if they do look a little unconventional. I was working away on injectors last evening before I got interrupted- production is ramping up slowly but surely. Steve G

Forge

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

The floor of the "porch" is hard firebrick and the remainder of the floor is high-temp (2600F) insulating bricks with Plistix 900F coating applied. The side walls and removable sidewall section are also the insulating brick with the same coating. These are held in place with stove cement and stainless bolts. The arch of the roof is three layers of 1" 8# density Kaowool, again with the coating, only about three layers of the Plisitx instead of one.

The burners all come up through the floor. I was uncertain if this would work out, (if you look closely you can see that I put burner ports in the roof arch just in case), but it produces a really effective swirling flame and amazingly uniform chamber temperatures. No cold spots, no hot spots, and very little scaling from direct flame/oxygen impingement on the steel. They don't act as chimneys upon shut down, either. I'm satisfied that this is a good plan, so far anyway.

I'm absolutely satisfied that the new SGensh PNB burners are the wave of the future and the right way to fly. They run stable at a wide range of pressures, don't need adjusting, are easy to light and they're several inches shorter than the old sidearm burners I was using. They have a really short flame cone that seems to burn the propane more thoroughly than other burners, and so develop more heat that way. I hope Steve will send one off to John Odom to have it tested for actual Btu output someday soon.

Rich

Any good Information out there?

Hello. My wife and I bought our house about 6 months ago. It was a foreclosure and we were able to get a great deal on it. We also took advantage of the 8K tax credit so that definitely helped. We did an extensive remodeling job and now I want to refinance to cut the term to a 20 or 15 year loan. Does anyone know any good sites for mortgage information? Thanks!

Mike

Rich's Forge

Looks like a nice one! Many good ideas, and well executed. How about pictures of the other side and back. Also a picture showing the burner entry arrangement would be good. I have considered a bottom entry arrangement but always had problems visualizing just how to do it.

I could make a setup to come pretty close on the BTU of a burner. I had my kids use a home-made rig measure the BTU output of various styles of lab burners and we came very close to the published values.

Rich Waugh, the air curtain idea is brilliant! Perhaps now think about a gasser table for all kinds of brand name gassers, but with air curtains and work support slide-outs. If you don't want to go commercial, why not an Anvil's Ring article?

While not as accurate as BTU testing a close analog is to measure the net flow rate from the end of the burner tube. A hot wire anometer will cheaply measure flow velocity, and with the diameter known flow rate can be calculated.
I tested Larry Zoeller's new Zee burner this way and suggested a few tweeks to the flow path to optomize the flow rate. If a fixed pressure is placed on the fuel orifice, the increase if flow rate indicates better internal geometry, and an increase in the induced flow rate of combustion air indicates a trend to a shorter flame as you have complete combustion in a shorter lenght.

In my not very large experience with these type burners, I think one wants the least possible flow resistance in the induced air path, and a slight turbulance just at the burner end to hold the flame, and some just downstream of the gas injection point.
With some simple tweaking of the induction path, 10 to 40% total flow for a given injection pressure can be obtained, especially if using cast fittings and pipe.

Steve, when you get a spare burner, I would love to play with one, and see if it is Tweekable on the induction path. Not lots of experience in burners, 21+ years in flow measurement and Tweeking:)

Rich,

It looks like you've been able to combine a lot of really good ideas in one forge. I do miss the old pig, though. (If that doesn't make sense, I've remembered wrong and it was someone else's.)

New forge

John Odom,

I posted a couple more pics, one showing the forge open so you can see the burners entering the chamber, I think. It seems to work out much better than I had thought it would at first.

Jeff,

Good ideas on the flow testing. Maybe Steve will get one to you for evaluation, though I don't see much opportunity for tweaking on this design. When you see one in the flesh you'll understand why I say that.

Mike B,

Yep, this one replaces the old anatomically correct pig forge. (grin) That one is destined for a re-line and retention as a demo forge, since the new one is way too heavy and cumbersome to lug around. I could have made it lighter I'm sure, but I had a propane cylinder to scrounge for steel and some 1/8" plate so that's what I used. It takes 20# of counter weight for each door so you can guess what the whole thing weighs - about like one of those old Johnson trough forges, I'd guess. Good thing I put it on industrial casters.

Rich

New forge, cont'd

John L,

Thanks for the nice words, John. I'm not sure how such a base would work with just any forge, though, due to differing heights of hearths, etc. On mine, the hearth/base is one unit and the sides/roof are another unit, hinged together. On a freon can forge, for example, the floor is several inches above the surface it sits on. Likewise for a Forgemaster or NCTool forge. The air curtain could easily be adapted to work with those forges, it would just be a design-on-the-fly thing, I think. Ditto for work supports. Basically needs to be a comprehensive package more than an aftermarket add-on, I think. Still worth thinking about, though.

Rich