I have a question about the Tim Lively washtub forge. I was wondering if instead of one piece of pipe one inch in diameter down the center if I could use two half inch diameter pipes off to the sides of the trough. I ask out of curiosity and to see if it would better for forge welding ( no flux eating up the pipe ). Of course I would drill the hole 1/8 instead of 1/4 and keep the same spacing. As well as having the pipes rotated toward each other so the air blast would hopefully meet in the middle.
Thank you for any advice in advance.
Justin,
I had to look up Tim's washtub forge, as I had never heard of it before. I don’t think you'll find any advantage in using two smaller pipes in this forge. If your intention is to spread the air blast through the charcoal, it would be just as easy to drill the holes in the single pipe angled outward. It won't be the flux that eats up the steel pipe. It will be the heat from the fire causing it to oxidize, when the blast is not pushing cool air through it.
I had to look it up too <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />
I would tend to use it as designed as he has already done a lot of research.
Another thing to remember if you go with 2 pipes is and 1/8" holes (and the same number of them)is that you will have a different air volume. The area of a 1/8" hole is .0122 square inches and the area of a 1/4" hole is .049 square inches. So if you use 1/8" holes, you will need 4 times as many holes as 1 pipe with 1/4" holes or twice as many holes in each of the 2 pipes.
Brian
