Wow! Only relining once a year? I was lucky to get 6 months when I was using a kawool forge for Damascus. I can't say if it's any longer lasting, but long ago I went with ITC-100 over Satanite..... because ITC gave me about 500F higher temps with everything else being equal.

In my experience, the only type of forge that will "last", is one of castable refractory. The first castable forge I built lasted me over 5 years before it ever need any patching, and went another couple years before it was shot.

For a number of years I went with kawool, thinking overall it was less expensive, but due to the poor durability, it actually cost me more to keep relining a kawool forge then is does to just bite the bullet and go with castable.

Now I'm back to a castable welding forge....it ended up being about $700 by the time it was said and done, but I doubt I'll have to built another for the better part of a decade.

I've been running my oval vertical forge since the last rebuild for over a year.

The other day I figured I ought to take a look inside and lifted the cover off.

I had been doing another project using some Satanite and had some left over.

When I lifted the cover off, I only needed to patch a couple areas using maybe 3-4 cups of Satanite.

I was done in 90 seconds.

2" wool covered with a thick layer of Satanite. I can get steel far hotter than it needs to be.

On my first vertical ribbon burner forge I used satanite and itc 100 over koa. It would crack easily if I bumped it or just on it's own. My second shorter ribbon burner forge I used under a 1/2 inch of castolite with itc 100 over koa. I don't have any cracks with the same use and it will take the bumping that I've given it and still gets to 1500 in 5 minutes.

Gilbert

I second the castible refractory.

I cast a forge that took a real beating and the flux barely touched the interior over the course of a year.

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the input.

I used Kaowool and cast a sleave inside of it. I heard of a trick so I bent some light stainless to fit inside of it. 2 years before the stainless needed replaced.