Light weight building block forge

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Has anyone any experience of building a forge/furnace using a light weight building block like Thermalite or Celcon? I would like to use proper foundry blocks to build a forge (is it forge or furnace?) but I am having difficulty sourcing them locally, I live in Illogan Cornwall. I have watched some videos on youtube where small forges/furnaces have been built using a building block instead. They seem to work. I would line mine with fire cement and heat it electrically not with a gas torch.

Lee

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

[David Davies 8Participant @daviddavies8]

Hi Lee

I have used Thermalite blocks in the past but I have found that they melt locally when subject to extreme heat. If you can, try and source some HR 140 bricks from a refractory materials supplier or a kiln maker. Castree kilns in West Wales used to advertise such materials on fleabay. Usual disclaimer.

Regards

Dave

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Thanks Dave, I have found a supplier closer to me than Wales, CTM potters supplies in Exeter. I will keep looking. Lee

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Hi all,

Well, what an eventful few days since my last posting about trying to find suppliers of materials to make a foundry. I discovered that pottery suppliers usually stock most of the materials I needed, but I couldn’t find a supplier in Cornwall. A web search turned up many potters, but only 1 supplier who had shut down a few years ago. I sent an email to one of the potters asking where he got his materials from and the reply was the supplier who had shut down. He hadn’t shut down, just moved 500 yards round the corner. I went to see him and got both the sodium silicate and some silica sand, but no refractory blocks. When I returned home I sent an email to the potter thanking him and continued my search along a different tack, I would search for people casting metal hereabouts and ask them who supplied them. I left an email with a local business that is an engineering company that also casts metal, JW Engineering of Camborne, Cornwall. Five minutes later they phoned me inviting me to a pour today 10^th Nov. I went along and watched as John was timing the melt of 25kg of cast iron in his home made foundry. Before long John and his wife Angela helped by their son used a small crane to lift the crucible out of the foundry and poured the iron into two moulds. A second smaller melt filled the third mould. If that wasn’t enough the potter has sent me an email stating that he probably has some spare refractory blocks I could have. I am arranging a suitable time to meet up. If all goes to plan I could have a foundry up and melting by next weekend, but I have family visiting so that could slow me down a bit. Meanwhile I will experiment with the sodium silicate and silica sand to see what sort of mould I can produce. Because of the shape of the cylinder block I think I will have make the mould in six parts, four sides and top and bottom. The sides will have to be semi self-supporting, green sand won’t do that. That is why I need try different strengths of sodium and silica to find a mix that will hold its shape with very little framework.

Lee

[David Davies 8Participant @daviddavies8]

Hi Lee

I'm glad to read that your perseverance in finding materials has paid off plus the added bonus of seeing a foundry in action!

I don't know if you have read the two books by B. Terry Aspin (Chuck) in the workshop practice series, No 4, Foundrywork for the Amateur and No 25, The Backyard Foundry. I found them very helpful.

Cheers

Dave

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