Need forge advice...

Flux will eat through blanket like gasoline on styrofoam. Hard brick and similar materials can take it nearly forever.

Jeff Dantzler wrote:
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My thought is to take a firebrick and put it in under the shelf to support the center. That way there won't be a lot of weight load being suspended by the shelf. That would up the work weight capacity.
Charly

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I've gotten in the habit of sticking a couple of the hard fire brick in the bottom of my forge for two reasons (at least) - One: as work rests (who needs shelving after that?) and two: as heat soaks. I found that a forge that heats up fast will cool just as fast. I'd stick a piece of metal in there and it would suck the heat right out of the forge. A couple of hard bricks in there help to offset this affect. Takes longer to get the forge up to temp but it holds it there more stable. The bricks are just cheap junk from the hardware store but they work for this kind of thing for a while.
GA