Thread: Working on a mini forge for my son - making progress

Happy New Year everyone. I thought I would report back on this forge build.

All the parts came in and we packed the Kaowool first (with respirators on) and then painted on the ITC 100H refractory agent. I probably didn't order enough ITC 100 and we were a little thin on the door but it came out fine. We dried the refractory with some warm air over 2 days and then cured it on the 25th when he (my son) opened the burner as a present.

On to the first project - which was to forge some tongs out of some square stock.



Once that was done he was onto the first project of forging a knife out of an old prybar.



All in all - the forge worked great. Plenty hot. The metal easily reaches non-magnetic stage and reheats after pounding quite quickly. We're only running and between 5 and 10 psi and it's plenty hot. After he did some grinding and getting things how he wanted them (he wanted a rough look), then we heat treated and quenched in warm water.

Everything looked good but it was too brittle to take even a 30 degree edge without micro chipping so he bought a 25 dollar toaster oven and tempered about 1.5 hours at around 300 and it took a 25 degree edge and is very sharp. Since it was his first knife he didn't want to test the strength of the blade by beating it up but it definitely doesn't feel too soft on cutting.

He's interested in making straight razors but we'll have to buy some known stock for that.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Adam