Gas Forges

Gentleman, I am currently exploring the purchase of a propane forge for general blacksmithing. Does anyone have experience/exposure to the Forgemaster two burner blacksmithing forge? In particular is it worth the money, and how long does it take to reach forging temperature, and will it truly reach forge welding heat? Any info from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Frank W.

Hello everyone, Beginner here, looking for some advice. I'd like to build my first forge (I'm on a budget) and I was looking at plans for a "coffee can" forge, but it seems like it might be a little small. I've seen other plans using a propane tank as the body (yes, cutting these open can be very dangerous, I was considering buying a new, never used tank) and lining it with Kaowool, etc... My main question is about using a propane or mapp gas brazing torch as the heat source, any thoughts on this? advice?

I thought I would post the progress of my forge. It will take awhile as I am building it in phases that I can afford. I bought an old air compressor yesterday at the scrap yard for $20. In the past 24 hours I have stripped it down and figured out what I want to do. I do have a question about the propane burners. See attached pics. The last pic is kind of what I had in mind. Tank dimensions after doctoring would be about 18" long by 12" in diameter. 2 - 1" propane burners, which can be swapped out to 3/4" burners if needed. Those are the exsisting hole and a new hole i will drill in and weld 2 1" eyelets. Only the front door will open. I will cut out where th…

I recently saw a ceramic tile propane gas forge. It is interesting, but I know little about them. It did seem like it took a long time to heat some 3/8" rod in comparison to a coal forge, and maybe a good gas forge. But, it acted like a coal forge and the people who used it liked it very much. They said its good for heating small areas, but not large or long pieces. They said they replace the tiles about every four years and use it every day. It doesn't smoke, which is good for the neighbors and complaint list. It was reported to be big in Europe, but not here. The Flamfast, in the UK, want alot of money for one. It's not easy on the pocket book, and reading diff…

I have read the details in the gas forge section. I have a question. I want to build a 2 burner forge. What would be the ideal diameter. I am using it for knife making and some small decor. I was thinking an old bbq type propane tank. A 20lb propane tank, and old expansion tank, or something along that line. Any thoughts? J.

I have some basic curiosity questions about forges. what temp range are we talking about for the perfect forge? does using coal or gas make a differance to your material? would heating the metal to a forge temp without the presance of any fuel or O2 (ie argon or CO2 bubble) be of any advantage? I know some of you will be tempted to tell me how impossible this is, but the question is could you find any advantage to it?

Quick question? I have never heard of or seen a gas forge with burners on the bottom the way a coal forge heats metal. Why?

Hi finally i have gotten some where on my project of building a gas forge so i will make a post and ask you lot to help me if you'd be that kind and tell me what you think and what you would add, edit, redo, remove and what you find good and bad. please hehe i will post a few pics but since there are many of them id ask you to take a look at the links to photobucket and see all the pics if you like i have tried to do it as (step by step) as possible but there might be a few big jumps in there so ask me here if there is something i shall try to explain or make some close up off links The forge The burner photo 1 seen from the side photo 2 the forge seen …

can anybody with a small gas forge that is run by a small camping propane tank please send me pics because i wanna get ideas for my one thanx DM

OK, I think I have read just about every article about gas forge burners, from A to Zoeller and I'm sure the are so mighty fine burners in between. The consensus among all the different designs is that a "properly tuned" 3/4 burner will heat to weld temp approximately 350 cubic inches of forge chamber that is constructed with the typical ceramic wool liner coated with an ITC 100-like product. My question is this: If one was to construct a "properly tuned 1" burner, what sized forge chamber could one heat to weld temperature? My proposed forge will be a cylinder 6" x 15" which calculates to roughly 424 cubic inches. Would the larger burner make up for the the additional …

This burner is similar to the 'T' design on this site, but I added a reducer between the 1-1/4" T and and the 1" main tube to get some velocity improvements from the venturi effect, and hopefully keep the flame coming out the business end. The flare is 1/8" wall steel tubing, that I am going to embed in cast-o-lite inside the forge. It is cranked up beyond where I would use it in a forge for this video, you can see it is dumping more propane than it can burn, and sparking from what I suppose are bits of metal debris still inside the tube. This is inherently unsafe, but it is all cast iron pipe, fuel grade hose on the low side, hard lines on the hi side, and will be us…

This is an idea I've toyed around with for two years now, and due to losing my coke supplier (yep, I'm a coke addict ) and a recent thread about these forges elsewhere on this site, I've begun pursuing this project in earnest. Note that I have never actually seen one running, and that I have built this prototype going off of pictures with what knowledge I could glean from said images and applying common sense/logic. Naturally, I have run into a few problems. The setup is pretty basic. Its no more that a ribbon burner head mounted to shoot the flame upwards, and is powered by a Rex/Porter style hybrid burner. All of this is built on my coke forge (just made an adapter t…

HI all. I read through the stickey about gas forges. I did not find the answer that I was looking for. My question is, could I use a propane torch that is used for melting snow and ice, as a heat source. And would this type of torch reach high enough temps for forging? Any thoughts or advice will be helpful. Thanks

Hi, Is anyone using one of these, I got an earlier version from a school (DS230 Chip Forge) last month and I highly recommend them. Gas Forges: Metal & Heat Treatment Equipment: Flamefast Brian

Hi all I recently completed my first gas forge, although it works quite well most of the time I am having problems getting it to work well all the time. It starts ok and runs fine on both burners for 20 - 30 mins. Back burner then starts to stutter, flame goes soft and burns inside burner tube, no adjustment of choke from full closed to full open makes any difference. If I turn off gas to that burner and back on, it runs ok for a few seconds then goes wrong again. Front burner seems to run ok all the time by itself, although it appears to battle to run at pressures below 10psi once hot. Can a faulty regulator cause this? Please explain what are the condition…

Here's my first attempt ever at building a forge. I'm obviously not done yet, but I'm pretty happy with the way it's going so far. I can already picture a bright yellow glow in my back yard! Thanks for the help I've gotten so far. keep the advice coming. For the burner, I have a thread in the welding/fabrication page. I've gotten some good help there too. Anyways, here's some pics. So far we have the forge mounted on stands, ceramic wool liner installed, and a burner inlet mounted on top. I know the wool looks thick, but it's 1.5 inches. One layer was too thin, but two is pretty thick. Better to over do it than not have enough in my opinion. The cart came f…

I have a small 'two brick' forge heated by MAPP gas using a Hot Head torch (Hot Head Torch Head), which is used for lamp working. I would like to get the brick a little hotter. I can get small pieced up to a yellow heat with a little time and if I partially cover the ends with some small pieces of fire brick. I would like to be able to get that hot a little quicker and would like to try and be able to reach a welding heat. Would getting a different torch head make a difference? Any suggestions on a torch head I could try? Due to space limitations I will have to keep using the 1lb sized MAPP containers and I don't have the ability to fabricate anything myself, if it in…

I thought I would share a few pictures of my vertical gas forge. I use this primarily for welding stacked billets for damascus (patternwelding) The design is based loosly on those shown on Don Foggs website. The beauty of this style of gas forge is the gases get a full burn in the forge (not out of the door as with many horizontal forges). This means that they run HOT In this design of forge the workpiece is held 'mid air', not sat on the forge floor. so workpieces are usually welded to a piece of re-bar or similar as a handle. This way your billet is not sat in a pool of melted old flux / refractory etc. The construction is very straight forward, old gas cylinder…

I have a two burner forge built by a fairly well-known blacksmith apparently like the one he uses. It's a piece of 12" round pipe with top-mount burners. I'll post pictures this evening. When lit one of the burners (the one at the "back of the forge") was running green, the other nicely blue. It also tended to huff. One time it huffed, flashed back and exposed a leak in one of the pipe fitting joints. I took it apart and discovered that because of the geometry of the welded-in burners the pipe fittings had to be overtightened to align properly causing stripped threads and leaks. I rebuilt it (welding the fittings which were too close together to thread together), n…

No need for input here.

Hi all. I am in the process of building my smithy. I have decided on buying an gas forge instead of a coal forge, due to my neighbors - less smoke/odor. Does anyone have a recommendation about brands and types of forges? I have NO experience with gas forges. Any and every bit of advice is greatly appreciated! Also, on another note, is there a practical difference between a cast anvil and a forged anvil? Especially for a beginner? Thank you all very much. Looking forward to the pointers!

I read something the other day about borax damaging the ceramic/insulating material in gas forges....Any truth to this or just rumor? Thanks a bunch

Well finally got my forge fired up, had a few minor issues with uneven fire burning ( Got onto Dale quicksmart and was appropriately told turn the air down...problem solved) Found the firepot (brakedrum) was to shallow as I had lined the bottom with clay and was using a curved grate, whenever I pushed a piece into the fire it went to the grate and pushed the coke out the way....solution take out clay and use flat grate...result started playing with trackpins just round to square and back again drawing out (trying to develop good hammer technique) Thanks Dale Russell for again my lessons on Sunday covering upsetting, punching, forge welding, leaf making and the help and ad…

Hello, I got my gas forge put together and I'm having a problem with keeping the flame stable. It "huffs", but when it is stable it is a nice neutral flame. it looks nice then, but it goes to a orange flame that is soft and bellowy (is that a word?), then it reignites to a nice blue neutral flame back in the opening of the burner. It is a 8" Reid burner with a #58 orfice and I'm running it at 15 psi with an adjustable regulator. I've tried to change the pressure, but I'm not seeing any change, other than in the sound of it. What am I doing wrong. I've got it out in front of the shop with a little breeze, could that be a problem. I've checked it for leaks and such …

Hello everybody The Problem: I made my own gas forge out of an old water tank, its 16" dia by about 24" long. lined it with two layers of 1" kao wool and some 3/8"- 1/2" refractory i had on hand and two 3/4" burners venturi style. it started up fine and couldn't get to forge welding heat(or so i think). I've already tore it apart and rebuilding it, i was going to add two more burners and after reading on placement of the burners, i dropped them down about 4" from top dead center (seemed like a nice round number). (they seemed to work fine but while I'm redoing everything might as well drop them down.) reline the inside with 4 layers of 1" kao wool and i ordered so…