Gas Forges

Hello all. I have not posted much so I apologize in advance if this isn't in the correct area. I'm xxxx bent on getting my propane forge to reach welding temp. The goal is to weld canisters and billets of 1084 w/15n20 which from what I've read is anywhere from 2100F to 2500F. Everyone seems to want to talk colors when i'm looking for temps. The forge has 2" of kaowool, 4 thin coats of satanite rigidizer, and 4 thin coats of ITC 100HT. All layers were properly cured before the next was applied and the burners tips are roughly 1" up into the lining. My laser thermometer read 2100F but I don't trust it's accuracy so a thermocouple is on order as well as a ceramic …

So my two burner Hells Forge arrived yesterday. I plan on assembling and lining it on Thursday so I will be ready to play with for this weekend. Any tips or tricks I should know about with this forge? Either for set up or general use. I do have some extra fire brick I can use to make "doors" so I don't lose excess heat. But that is about the limit of my knowledge. Also this is my first forge beyond playing with a weed burner.

Went out to do a little smithing and my regulator froze, resulting in the forge surging and dripping liquid propane. The regulator is connected directly to the 40# tank. I was running about 3 psi, and it happened in less than 10 minutes. Temperature is 70F with high humidity, and the regulator frosted over and the adjustment shaft was frozen in place. I switched to an identical tank, the one I normally use, and ran without any problems for about 10 minutes before I ran out of time. What could be causing this? My only guess is contaminated fuel. I had a problem with a naturally aspirated torch on this tank previously, but it was below freezing in the smithy so I a…

Hey folks tried searching google and here to see if I could find anything on what temperatures can “chimney” out the burner of a cooling gas forge but came up empty. Has anyone done any testing to see what kind of temps can backfeed? Looking at a couple components that have a max temp rating of like 250* and want to make sure I’m not going to melt or warp or ruin anything. Thanks folks!

I'm interested in building a brick pile forge out of refractory bricks similar to the one Frosty recommended in https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/43976-t-burner-illustrated-directions/?do=findComment&comment=773558. Everywhere people talk about these designs on IFI I see them recommending Morgan Thermal Ceramics K26 bricks and Plistix or ITC100 kiln wash. I've been looking for UK suppliers of these but none of them seem to be available. The bricks can be come by but only with enormous shipping costs from America. I want about 300in^3 of internal volume to run off a 3/4" T burner and that would be hundreds of dollars of bricks with the cost of getting them in this count…

Good Afternoon everyone, I'm a long time lurker of these forums, but I've never posted as most of what I was going to ask was accessible via the search bar. This is the one exception...I think. Question: What are your opinions of gasoline powered forges? I ask because I'd like to take my current gasoline furnace setup and reconfigure it to power a forge to start learning basic blacksmithing. ------------------------------------- My furnace at home gets to ~ 2500 degrees in ~30 minutes and is made from a full sized beer keg. It runs on compressed air and gasoline (the stuff in a car). It uses a Delavan siphon nozzle to generate and maintain the Air…

I've done some backyard blacksmithing with a campfire forge, but occasionally have need of quick localized heating for small jobs like the one in front of me now - heat and bend the tang on a scythe to get it properly fitted. This particular job I can't do in the fire or a traditional forge as it would kill the heat treatment on the blade. I have access to a weld shop, and could do this there, but would like the capability at home. The plumbers torch I have is inadequate for these tasks though it did work on a small spring heat treat job. Any options out there short of buying a full size welder's torch?

I've got a forge shell, vertical, 2" thick cast liner. 250 cubic inch interior. I have a blown burner on 1" pipe. I know how to basically tweak the gas and air to get a bit of dragon's breath and a neutral to reducing atmosphere. I've changed from a 3/4" venturi that will weld clean stacks but struggles on long soaks. I'm changing burners to get closer to yellow/white than orange/yellow. My question is this: What happens if my blower is just too much? Choke down the blower and the gas a bit more? Leave the air alone but mess with the PSI at the regulator and the flow at the needle valve? Sorry I haven't been around in quite a while. Work internet was bloc…

Hello, I am new to this stuff and I am trying to build forge because I could not get finished forge. So, I designed with fusion 360 but I'm not sure my design will work or perform well. I'm planning to use T burner by Frosty with 3/4 pipe and I measured volume to be ~320 in^3. My major concern is placement of burner. It seems too off from floor of forge. Thank you for reading!

New guy from 9800' Colorado. Recently picked up a Peter Wright Anvil, welded up a stand based on designs I've seen here... Now in the planning stage of a forge/burner. Have a interested Bushcraft sized knives and Axes. Want to be able to weld. Considering a 20lb propane tank size forge. Any help will be appreciated regarding burner design. Thanks, Kevin

Gents and ladies I'm fairly new to blacksmithing. I follow a course with a blacksmith to become a blacksmith. But now the first year is finished and during the break I still want to practice making steel hot and shaping it into something. I want to make smallish things : hooks, firepokers, bottle-openers, tools to make those thinks (so tongs and chisels and ...) small scrolls (i have a trivet made out of 3 scrolls that I like and some friends as well) I have a small workshop I rent (cheap). The building is an old stable used for chickens. The building is used and cleaned over 15 years ago and transformed into a workshop. The ventilators are still in and half of…

I've been banging my head against a wall for quite a while now, trying to figure out how to hook up my propane tank to my Frosty T Burner, and still haven't been able to figure it out. I bought a Harris propane regulator, but the output has left handed threads, and I can't for the life of me find an adapter or any other way to connect that to a propane hose or other brass fittings listed on Frosty's instructions. Did I get the wrong kind of regulator? I saw some people mention that you shouldn't use a normal BBQ regulator since it may not give enough pressure, and I figured an industry standard one should be more than adequate, but now I'm stuck. I'm probably making this …

I am planing on buying my first ever forge. Don’t want to take the time to learn to build one so I will just buy one. Was thinking to buy a hells forge two burner forge on Amazon. Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions for a better forge? Or a cheaper one that works just as well. I’m going with propane since it’s cleaner. since this will be an addition to wood shop don’t want to have coal smoke in my garage. Does the shape matter I see round, oval,square. Leaning towards square so I can stack on shelf When not in use.

Newbie here. I built a new forge with a ribbon burner burner is 8" x 4" with 20 each 5/16" holes fed by a 2" supply pipe. I read most guys run at 1 PSI Propane for forging and 5-7 for forge welding. I cranked up the forge last night to see what pressure I could get, I never even registered 1 PSI when it started choking due to to much fuel. the gas supply is 1/4" pipe and the air fuel mixer is a 1/4" 90 elbow in the 2" supply pipe. I am wondering if I will never get those pressured due to the large orifice size of the gas supply or if my blower is not adequate. I do not actually know what my temps are I guess I need to crank it up and see if it will fo…

I started the Mr. Volcano last weekend, this weekend was the second run on it. About 3 hours each Saturday and Sunday (12 hours). I was looking at several threads about tuning a gas forge. I am wondering how does these flames look? I am running at about 3-4 PSI. Flames at ignition. I close the back and front to about a 1" opening on each to warm up. And then after a few minutes the sides are orange. I leave the steel in the forge until it is bright orange, like the right side of the this last picture. I welcome your thoughts and feed back. ARMY

I have been piddling in coal forges the past several weeks. I'm really new to blacksmithing. From a practical perspective, I figured getting into a propane forge would be handy and convenient. I can build one, but since I am ignorant of most of the ins & outs details of any of it, I figured I'd just start simple and cheap so I can spend a little time getting familiar with the process and arm myself with a bit of experience before deciding how to build a nicer one. Plus, just buying one would shorten the path to first ignition significantly. So I decided to just go cheap and small and ordered a Mr. Volcano. It arrived today and I was up & running quickly.…

Before we moved, I built this little guy and heated up that piece of metal in the picture. And then we decided to buy the new place and packed up all our stuff. I pulled my little buddy here our of the box and set him back on top of the wood burning stove that will be used as my forge table. It is using a Bernzomatic TS8000 with an adapter hose connected to propane. at the time I thought an angled flame coming from the side was a good idea... now i am not so sure. I am thinking of buying a burner and rearranging this so the burner is on the top. I am in the process of building the Mr Volcano 1 Burner Forge. I wil…

Hi all, this is my first post on here and I’ve come to quite the conundrum. This is my first time trying to build a forge or any burners. I’m not any sort of propane expert and I’m trying to build a forge burner. I got my design off of youtube and have tried two different ones. Neither of them have worked even though I built them almost identical to the video. I see so many that look exactly like mine and I have tried many different things with airflow, hole size, nipple length, adjusting the psi… nothing works and I was hoping to possibly get some answers on here. Any sort of help would be greatly appreciated and thanks so much if anyone reads this! Side note…

Here's my latest twist on Ron's classic EZ burner..... 1/8"x 4" sch 80 pipe nipple 0.8mm mig contact tip 1/8" pipe cap 1 1/2" - 3/4" bell reducer 3/4" - 1/2" "rigid conduit reducer bushing" 1/2" X 6" (measure 4" including 1 threaded end and discard the rest The nozzle is a piece of 3/4" tac welded to a 3/4" merchant coupler ie straight thread with a little set screw I run my 1/8" nipple/fuel rail through bell centered at the bottom of the exterior lip with a set screw on either side to secure the fuel rail. I drill and tap the fuel rail to take the mig tip. I trim some threads off the mig tip and then trim enough off th…

Has anyone had any experience with a Marshall Excel regulator? I'm having some challenges with mine. I bought a new forge and I'm just setting it up. The regulator has a turn knob that either increases or decreases the psi of the gas but no matter which way I turn the knob the regulator gauge hits the pin past 30psi. I've seen this forge run at 1 psi on youtube and know that 30+ is way too high. FYI it's a Mighty Forge draft pro. Any ideas? Thanks.

I have been given a gas furnace in pretty good condition from our local TAFE college. It has a blower installed on it and was set to run on natural piped gas. We normally run our big furnaces on oil but we do have a bulk LPG tank for running our little furnace that we use on our 2cwt hammer. The little furnace is a venturi style 2 burner setup using fairly high pressure LPG. My question is has anyone had any experience in conversion of natural to LPG, ie will I have to change jets, mixers, and recomended or suggested gas pressures to use. Basically I was going to put a plug and cord on the blower, plug it in, connect the LPG to the furnace, put in a lighting flare an…

Diaclaimer: Number one I can garuntee you that if I sound argumentative or like I am giving you attitude or dismissing you I am not I promise so please bare with me and trust it's a misunderstanding and that I am only trying to communicate nothing more. I've been dealing with stupid spinal cord damage in the neck. I only bring this up because it affects my hands and I drop the phone and mistype a lot and I struggle tap on the spot to get the curser to fix a typo. I loose focus so I in one paragraph I may use fractions, decimals, even use metric smh. I will use rough approximations instead of specific terms or quoting because I will literally forget what I was …

Hi all, I recently had time to get back to my forge. My ribbon burner was cracking and was always touchy so I went to a straight pipe with a flare. I am seeing some odd behavior I would like to understand and am hoping the forums expert eyes can help. this is when forge is first lit. I would like to close off the front opening more but when I do, the flame dies. https://photos.app.goo.gl/4dw4SYqCp2GYnkqJ6 this is when I start to turn up the gas and air. Not sure what is happening here… lots of yellow flame but all burning in secondary flame?? https://photos.app.goo.gl/yRVrkohjmPKuTkbe7 The next two are taken as forge warms up and a…

Yes I know I need to find ridgedizer so let's get that out of the way. Just picked this up last night. It is set up for low pressure gas and has a variable blower fan. I will have to convert it to LP grill tanks. Will the fan work or be usefull with a high pressure set up? Or how would I go about setting up a 40# LPG into a low pressure system? The Smith says it works great as it sits but got rid of it because he built a bigger one. I know I need to ridgedize the fiber. I need to brick the openings. There are a couple welds that have broke free in transport home I believe. And the plaster/concrete on the bottom slides around in the forge. Anyone know the …

I previously wrote a review of the NC Knifemaker forge, thought I'd cover the Graham I've been using, as well. Construction The forge has a round exterior and interior chamber. A friend of mine commented it 'looks like a coffee can forge', but the fit/finish are obviously better, that's just a comment on it's shape. The stainless legs are sharp and, unfortunately, have no way to bolt the forge down. There is a sliding rest, which is a nice feature, although it looks a little spindly at first glance. I was worried it would flex or bend under heavier bars, like a 1in 52100 round bar, but it doesn't even when it's near full extension. The…