Matt Walker's Forge

Matt Walker is an ornamental blacksmith living in East Tennessee. During the Summer
months Matt does work in yard art (yard bugs), but during the Winter when the season
slows down for this type of work, Matt switches to production Damascus making, and
hence, the reason he built this forge!

This forge is constructed from a stainless steel milk can and features a screaming forced
air burner, I mean this thing really screams, literally! The above picture shows Matt
standing next to his forge as well as his air hammer to the left.

Picture of the front of the forge showing the hined door arrangement Matt
fabricated. It consists of firebricks encased in a metal frame.

The forge is lined with three 1" layers of Inswool and top-coated with
Satanite and ITC-100. This makes the forge extmemely gas efficient!

Front view of the forge with the burner entering on the right hand side. Matt
used three inch tubing for his burner construction. If you look closely you'll
notice a piece of stainless steel pipe laying on the bottom of the forge floor.
Matt uses this to catch the flux when he makes Damascus...and it works pretty
well! ...but does have to be replaced occasionally.

The next three pictures show the door arrangement in different configurations.

Since the floor in Matt's shop is dirt, he mounted the forge on a piece of rebar
embedded in the dirt floor right next to his air hammer.

The burner nozzle consists of a 3 inch pipe forged square into an approximately
1.5 inch x 3 inch square and lined with heavy gauge stainless steel mesh.

View from inside the forge showing the burner inlet tube and the stainless steel mesh
at the end of the nozzle.

The burner assembly Matt built for his forge. Notice he uses an extremely short
burner tube, which isn't always great for mixing of the gasses. To aid in gas/air
mixing, Matt injects the gas close to the junction where the blower attaches...and he's
done a couple of other things to help too....

What you see in this picture is the inside of the burner tube. If you look closely, you'll
see metal rods with copper fins brazed onto them. The idea Matt had was since the
burner tube was so short, this would help in creating turbulence and aid in mixing the
fuel/air mixture.

This is some stock stainless steel mesh that Matt uses at the end of his burner tube. The
idea is this is the last chance for the fuel/air to be mixed before combustion.

The remainder of the pictures show Matt's home built 2x72 belt grinder where he uses a
garden cart wheel for the contact wheel!