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:
http://home.comcast.net/~greyangel1/AngelStation/pics/newforge.jpg
GA
GA