Re: 483 Getting Ready=Chama Yard =Photos

Charles Hettrick Wrote:
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> Back during my blacksmithing days, the coal was
> washed, slack separated and saved. All was
> usually done at the forge in a tray with weep
> holes to the ground. For welding fires, a mound
> of larger chunks was laid down and started to burn
> from the inside. Then shovel fulls of drained but
> still very wet slack was troweled onto the outside
> of the mound. It makes a gigantic smokey mess as
> the coal turns to coke. (In a shop where the
> smokestack draft is poor this can lead to gambling
> which happens first: burnt eyebrows or death by
> explosion when the gasses ignite. I usually met
> the fate of death by explosion.) But it forms a
> hard shell which reflects the heat to the welding
> zone and keeps the atmosphere inside reducing (not
> oxidizing). Thus, the slack created an optimum
> temporary oven for forge welding. As the fire
> burns away at the coked shell, the outside of the
> shell is tamped with the back of the shovel and
> more slack is troweled onto the outside. Tamping
> the shell consolidates the shell and knocks coke
> loose from the inside where it falls into the
> fire, now acting as fuel. The second layer of
> slack does not create billowing plumes of gas like
> the virgin layer. It cokes more slowly and the
> fire is now hot enough to burn the off the
> explosive gasses. Given enough slack, the fire
> can be kept going for many hours. Also, there are
> far less clinkers as the incombustibles are heavy
> and generally sink to the bottom of the tray which
> are easy to separate with the shovel. Slack is
> not used in general forging as it blows off
> without combusting or in the worse case with high
> volitales it does combust and while blowing off.
> That's when I do a vigorous RAIN dance to purge
> all the fire bees that are down the back of my
> shirt.
>
> El Wet

WOW!!! very interesting, thanks for posting.