I am a Blacksmith, I am a Primitive metal worker, I work with Metals, Wood and Stone so ask my anything pretinant, or related to history. - All other subjects are optional, and the meaning of life is 42, or any other thing you make of it.

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I want to make a furnace, I have the design already figured out, but I need some primitive materials to pad the inside with, I'm hoping to achieve temperatures approaching 2000 degrees, what would you use for this purpose?

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

How do you make money when machines can do everything that you can do, except better?

Good questions - I work on custom one off small items or small artistic items that 99% of fab shops (the modern equivalent to smiths) wont touch, and I am also qualified an licenced to work on historical restoration projects that require skills and tools machines are not allowed to work on - I also do a lot of historical reproductions for private collections and public display and there is a LOT of money in that, I also allow for a large degree of material flexibility a lot of woodworkers will pay for custom tools or modifications of tools especially of historical styles, often times my research is just as valuable as the work I produce.

I want to make a furnace, I have the design already figured out, but I need some primitive materials to pad the inside with, I'm hoping to achieve temperatures approaching 2000 degrees, what would you use for this purpose?

100% Clay cat litter and Fine Play Sand - you will have to play with the mix but 3/1 clay an sand is about right, Lay a plastic tarp on the floor about 8ftx8ft is about right for a small to medium furnace, wet the clay from a watering can with a rose head till it's got the consistency slightly less elastic than playdough and get to stomping till it's uniform then start mixing in the sand a handful at a time an keep stomping and adding a little water to keep the consistency you got before - once it's mixed thoroughly, roll it up in the tarp an leave to settle over night.

When you start lining it do everything you can to avoid any voids or air bubbles as that what causes cracks, once it's lined take a couple of cups of play sand and toss it in the work space, and build up a nice even coating - then comes your first fire, this is called the Drying Fire, and its long an slow you start off with a nice slow gentle burn to drive off any easy moisture, then build a bigger fire (or turn up your burner) and then build it to a nice hot working heat that you have to maintain for 12 - 24 hours to vitrify the sand into a rough glass.

This is slower but a lot cheaper than modern refectories and also lasts a lot longer at high temp, I have a small 6ft portable (well for a given value of portable) copula furnace I line with a mix almost exactly like this (I do something else but it's a work in progress the base recipe works fine) and I get it FAR hotter for prolonged periods than you intend to get to.

 

[SanctedElectromagnetism]

I build my forge out of random bricks and rocks i found around my house. Burns pretty damn well but I just can't shake the feeling that its leaking heat since it burns up wayyy too much fuel for so little work. Due to this I run out of fuel quickly and have to resort to chopping up and burning random wooden bits I find. Whilst wood IS a decent fuel source, the issue of contamination becomes present. Imparting impurities into the metal and also slowing down the burning.

I'll try to get my hands on some cement or something. I would also need some refractory type shit for the kitchen knife im making (yaki-ire type shit).

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

Just get some heat bricks, they are insanely cheap like in the UK I can get them for 50p each if I shop around and I am willing to collect, you can get them free if you know anyone replacing a Gas Boiler, is your Burner home made or is it manufactured because I have seen some Chinese burners that eat gas because of poor design they work an get stuff hot (it's hard to make a burner that wont work) but the performance is shit.

I would also need some refractory type shit for the kitchen knife im making (yaki-ire type shit).

What Steel are you using? you can do it with a natural clay slurry an building layers but that's a hard skill to do and getting a good result is more about heat control and the Steel than it is what refractory you use but you are thinking along the right lines going that direction.

 

[SanctedElectromagnetism]

What Steel are you using? you can do it with a natural clay slurry an building layers but that's a hard skill to do and getting a good result is more about heat control and the Steel than it is what refractory you use but you are thinking along the right lines going that direction.

truck spring steel. Truth be told I'm still undecided on whenever or not to actually go through with the yaki-ire because kitchen knives aren't usually quenched like that. And it also increases the risk of cracks forming with such thin steel apparently

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

A autistic question incoming, I've seen the claims that chainmail was easy to make and just time consuming. I always found that claim dubious. Getting metal to a thin wire, then wrapping it in a circle never struck me as a especially easy thing to do.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

truck spring steel. Truth be told I'm still undecided on whenever or not to actually go through with the yaki-ire because kitchen knives aren't usually quenched like that. And it also increases the risk of cracks forming with such thin steel apparently

Yea thin spring steel you have to baby for knifes especially in the hardening an tempering, I have some resources bookmarked at home I will post for you that should point you in the right direction that deserves a better answer than I can give at the moment (I''m at a country show right now drumming up some work) gime some time and I'll post some info you'd fine useful.

A autistic question incoming, I've seen the claims that chainmail was easy to make and just time consuming. I always found that claim dubious. Getting metal to a thin wire, then wrapping it in a circle never struck me as a especially easy thing to do.

Drawing wire is easy, especially for small lengths it's about a 10% reduction in diameter per operation and it's something you can easily fabricate some assistance machinery that rolls it onto a mandrel as part of the process - the time consuming tedious part is the linking and that made it cost more because it involved small fiddly work especially if it was the riveted kind an not just the linked kind that was cheaper to make because it required less work.

The process is bar, forge round, draw down to size, repeat that until you can get it into the first hole in the drawing plate, draw the work through the plate, work the tip down a little an put it to the next hole and so on with a normalising cycle every few cycles your material requires, until you get the diameter you after, take your cutters or nippers cut off the mandrel, squaese them till the tip over laps strike with a hammer on a small anvil to get a small face, punch a little hole through both sides slip a little wire through and strike to form a rivet. attach the next link an repeat.

It's not a technical issue that stopped it from being cheaper in terms of manufacture Wire drawing is simple an well understood it's the linking that was slow an fiddly that didn't have a good way of being sped up - ironically until the era where it started to become less useful as a form of defence an by the point that sort of thing became trivial Chainmail was something mostly left in the history books.

BTW you can buy kids to try this yourself https://www.ironskin.com/product/make-riveted-chainmail-starter-kit/ I've not bought them but I do some work for HEMA folks and they all recommend that place and kit - you don't need that kit you can assemble your own tools an try it yourself but if you want a one stop shop give them a go.