Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Failure by fire...

Well, things were going pretty well for a while, so for the sake of cosmic balance I had to suffer a setback. I tried making some homemade steel - oroshigane, the way Michael Bell taught me in Oregon, and things were going pretty well. Filled a graphite crucible with about 2 Kg chips of antique wrought iron and charcoal dust, sealed it with fire clay, and put it in a vertical forge. 

 

Managed to bring up to 1050 C degrees with just my atmospheric burner, but alas...

 


... after about an hour the whole forge was on fire, so I had to abort everything. The reason; back before I met master Bell I had built my two forges with the materials I could find at the time, namely rockwool and a fire cement used for building fireplaces. Well, it is proven now that these materials cannot stand forge temperatures. So I have to go out and look for some proper ceramic blanket and refractory cement to insulate my forge...



....better luck next time.

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