Went with homemade refractory cement for my forge lining instead of buying the pre-made stuff

Emma Mason · 2026-10-03T11:00:04.222878+00:00

Last month I finally got around to relining my coal forge after the old clay mix cracked apart on me. I was staring at two options: drop about $60 on a bag of pre-made castable refractory from a supplier two states over, or mix my own from a recipe an old timer in Ohio gave me using fire clay, sand, and perlite. I picked the homemade route mostly because I could get everything at a masonry yard near me for $22 and I had a free weekend. Mixing it was messier than I expected, perlite floats everywhere and the consistency took three tries to get right, but I packed it in layers about an inch thick and let it cure slow for four days by keeping a light bulb near it. First fire up it smoked like crazy and I panicked, but that was just the water cooking out, and after a couple of short burns it set up hard as a rock. Two months in now and no cracks, no spalling, and the heat retention actually feels better than the old lining. Anyone else here mix their own or do you just buy the bagged stuff and eat the shipping cost?

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Went with homemade refractory cement for my forge lining instead of buying the pre-made stuff | Blacksmiths - Free To Speak