After playing around with home made castable forge body I decided that they suck. Going on the assumption that the Inswool liner was doing all the real work I made a wire basket and lined it with two inches of wool and painted the whole thing inside and out with Satanite. I was right - it works great and holds up better than the castable stuff I used and has a total weight of about 8 or 10 pounds. I can move it around without worring that I'm gonna damage it. I't has an inside diameter of about 8 inches, Outside 12 or thereabouts and is 24 inches long. I ran it up today and melted a pre 1982 penny (mostly copper - melt point 1940 degrees fahrenhiet I think) and could probably get a couple hundred degrees hotter if I wanted to. Only complaint that I have is that it still won't heat the whole chamber to a uniform temperature. Guess I'll have to add a second torch closer to the front to do long blade heat treating. Here is a picture of it:
- posted
19 years ago