Mikey98118

Just remember that, once you plugged those two holes directly in the flame path, the flames now will revolve around the inside of the forge, and corkscrew their way out of one or both ends of the forge; this is good. However, you must remember to leave some room for exhuast gases to exit out at least one end of your forge. This is why we recommend that people use firebricks to create baffle walls about one inch away from the opening. I also recomend using Plistix 900 to create a flame face on the forge's inner surfaces. It pays for itself in increased efficiency, while increasing the life of the ceramic wool insulation; and win win kind of deal No, it isn't necessary to do every little improvement right away; but, keep them in mind.

Actually, I think they should upgrade their forge design, and sell them in the $400 to $500 range. That is where the market is short of good choices. I only know of one forge in that price range, that is even acceptable.

The ad is from TrueGether. And Mister Volcano only started selling through Amazon.com in recent months; they never were an exclusive source.

Sorry, Lee. I did not pay attention. What I did was into Mister Volcano in the Google search engine, and the site that popped up was different; but they do seem to still be selling the two burner forges for $135.

Oh, now he's getting pretty salty with the Frosty

Good morning Frosty. I posted to you earlier, but must have forget to hit send. Anyway, have you looked at Ron Riel's web pages lately? It will put a smile in your day. Now, if only the rest of us could get our ducks in a row

I assume this question is for me. Any firebrick will do. You don't need insulating firebrick for internal baffle walls, anymore than with external baffle walls. As to red brick; I don't know of any red firebrick.

Morning Frosty. Speaking of time, I looked up Ron Reil's web pages yesterday, for the first time in years. What a change! In a mere twenty -five years (where do they go?) he has transitioned from a very sick fifty something, into a keen and happy old man. You should have a look; it will make you smile. Now, if we could just get our own ducks in a row...

Okay, it is silica; you're good to go.

Or, employ a shaped brick as a movable internal baffle wall, and turn off one burner, so that you don't need to turn the remaining one down too low and end up with overheating problems again. One of your early decisions with a two burner forge, is how to use only what you need of that forge to heat small items. This will also greatly ease the problem with your propane cylinder freezing up, and cut your fuel bill in two Use a cutoff disk to deeply score the brick, and then employ your new chisel to fracture the brick along its scored lines. You can then use the disk to do some finish grinding on its outline, if desired. So, why use brick? They're cheap, and thick enough not to be easily kncked over, if place on a flat internal floor. Nor is a perfect fit necessary, or even desirable. The brick is used as a movable internal baffle; not as a wall. s

I looked up their site, and got nowhere about trying to determine which product you are using. If the product is colloidal silica, fine; if it is something else, that will change how it must be handled.

Understand that you don't need to let the ceramic wool insulation dry, before turning on the burners, which will dry out the wool, and then set the rigidizer once the insulation reaches orange heat. You would be ahead of the game to coat the inside of your forge with Plistix 900; afterward, your forge will probably reach yellow heat. look up baffle walls on this thread. Also, if you can close those two exhaust ports, so that the burner flames must swirl around inside the forge, before exiting out of one or both ends, your forge will become far more efficient.

And neither do I. In fact you have a very bad burner problem, which is shown by the bluing of your burner's mixing tubes!!! The flames are obviously burning back into them. Well, after dropping a bomb like that, I should probably add that the burner design looks pretty good; probably with some tinkering you will to get a proper outcome. So, begin by turning the gas presssure up, to see if the flames will move forward to the end of the burner; yes it is possible to turn the gas down low enough to allow burn-back in any burner; it this is your problem, the solution is quite simple.

I'm being blunt about this, because your window of opportunity is probably going to be quite short.

Your best bet is to see if there are any Mister Volcano forges still being sold. Otherwise, I suggest that you spend that money building a coffee-can forge. You're in luck. I just checked and they are still for sale through Amazon.com. However, they have announced that they are through once their stock runs out. While you are trying to make up your mind, I suggest that you read through the Mister Volcano thread, here on IFI. You won't find that kind of information available from any of their second and third rate competitors.

I think that you will always need to walk a narrow path with those burners; not that you can't learn to live with them, but all the advice we give must be looked over carefully. For instance the advice to install baffle walls against the rear exhaust opening, and about one inch away from the front opening, will need to be taken with a large dose of caution. You may need to move the front baffle wall a little further away than we recommend. You may even need to move the back wall a little away from the rear exhaust opening. Why? To keep from building up back pressure, which will interfere with the burners. How much back pressure a burner can deal with depends on how strong the burner is. So, why not just forget all about baffle walls? The reason that will not work is; those walls help maintain internal heat levels in the forge. No baffle walls means that the burners have to be turned up higher to do the same job; this will contribute to overheating the burners...and on and on. You have a dance to learn.

I will hope along with you. I assume that you have now cleared away all refractory from the burner openings. Has that helped?

I do know, and it looks like a case of "monkey see, monkey do." a circle of smaller holes outside a central flame hole is employed on many older air/propane torch heads to induce secondary air and fuel into a row of little flames around the center flame; narrowing it for torch use. However, the burner head is constructed to provide sufficient secondary air/fuel mix to feed those holes. I don't believe these burners can, so the secondary holes probably don't adequately serve their purpose. I suspect that he would be better served to run his burners with their flame retention nozzles taken off, and replaced by simple pipe couplings (to preserve the ends of the mixing tubes from oxidative loss).

I would suggest, instead, that you drill and thread two other holes, and employ three longer screws through them, to hold them against the burners mixing tubes; this allows you to move the burners to different depths within the forge, and also to keep those burners centered in the forge's burner openings

So, I looked up Vevor's heating equipment on the Net; they have a lot of similar equipment; most of which use the same flame retention nozzle design, and improper positioning as yours. Also, most, if not all of, of their burners have flame retention nozzles that are welded in place on their mixing tubes (one of the forges have different burners, which are placed where their flame retention nozzles, if any, don't show). Even their stainless steel burners have flame retention nozzles that will oxidize away in a few months; this will happen more rapidly on the the mild steel burners, like yours. Why? Because flame retention nozzles always oxidize away; this is why most flame retention nozzles are held in place with screws; they are meant to be replaceable.

To start with, your burners look to be positioned in the wrong place; the manufacturer may have intended this, or not. But the result is that the flames are also positioned in the wrong place. So, begin by pushing the burners deeper into the forge. How far? Start with the end of the burner flame retention nozzles (which are also the forward end of those burners) just the inner face of the refractory, so that the flames are fully burning inside the forge (but the flame retention nozzles are not). Then gradually move them up, to no more than 1" inside the refractory's inner surface. Buzzkill has it right, that those burners are burning back into their mixing tubes; the question is why that is happening. Changing the burner positions should bring immediate relief from some of your problems; perhaps not all of them, but the rest can be dealt with as they present themselves. Do this simple thing, and get back to us with the results.

It is not strictly true that larger forges aren't as fuel efficient as small forges; no, not strictly true. But what is strictly true is that the larger the forge, the more difficult maintaining efficiency becomes. This has little to do with the need to heat a larger interior. It has everything to do with the increased area of internal surfaces, which are leaching energy away through conduction. So, to maintain high temperatures on those surfaces, thicker and better insulation, and thicker layers of more expensive re-emission coatings must be added, to further slow conduction losses. But, we all know that conduction losses are minor, as compared to the heat being lost out the exhaust port, right? That's true, but irrelevant. What is relevant is that conduction losses, help to cool down internal surfaces; this is precisely what you do not want! The hotter the internal surfaces get the higher up the incandescent scale those surfaces go. A modern gas forge works primarily as a radiant oven, and only secondarily from the flame. At red heat, most of the energy transferred into work pieces are by conduction from the forge atmosphere. At yellow heat, about one-third of its energy is transferred by light waves. At white heat over half the energy transferred is radiant. How is this possible? Most the the light is infrared; not visible. So, a fuel efficient large gas forge needs more than larger burners. It needs far more attention paid to conservation of its heat; this should not be surprising. After all, the sole purpose of a forge is heat conservation. Otherwise, we would jut use hand torches

So, why do we see five-gallon size forges at hammer ins, and in videos? Because what is going on is usually a group event; not a single artisan hammering away on a single item. Larger forges also look more impressive in videos.

Springtime is forge building time, and therefore it is question time for lots of you. The second most important question (which usually isn't asked until way too late) is how to build a fuel efficient forge. Fortunately, its answers go hand in hand with the first question on everyone's mind: how to build a very hot forge. Here is a typical question posted in the past: "...not all forges are created equal, accuracy of burner construction, alignment of orifices, alignment of mixing tubes in refractory shell, elevation about sea level and many other variables can have an effect on this rate of consumption; BUT I'm just after a kind-of ball park "Yes, that's about right." or "No, that's way off. you should look for issues with your construction that might be causing poor efficiency." Tat's a pretty good summation. The point about elevation is overstated, unless we are thinking about Colorado; then it might be true. Nevertheless, it isn't vary relevant these days, because burners that can induce way more than sufficient air at sea level, will still induce enough air at any elevation where people can breath. So, if elevation is a problem these days, your burner is a dog...There are lots of "good enough" burners sold now. You still need to learn how to see the good enough burners from the dogs, but that isn't hard. Next comes the question of how large a forge should your first one be? May I suggest that you consider a three-gallon forge as LARGE, and a five-gallon forge as HUGE! If you are wise, your first gas forge will be coffee-can size. You will save quite a bit on the cost of materials, and a whole lot more on fuel bills. However, fuel savings isn't the only advantage to a small gas forge. When you stand before it, the heat and glare in your face, and the heating up of your shop will be quite minor too. Even after you build larger forges, you will continue to employ your smallest gas forge, whenever you can; its is simply a more comfortable tool; and so kind to your wallet

Spring time is forge building time; so this seems to be the right moment to bring up one solution to The Very First Choice to Make (there are other answers, but this one is kinda easy). The most common container used for forge shells is a used five-gallon propane cylinder; it works pretty well, and is "the well worn path." Great; so why not take it? 'Cause we all want something special to come from all that work and worry, right? Trouble is that what this give you is a tube forge, which is a design that is already out of date. So, how can you have your cake, and eat it too? By choosing the used propane cylinder as your forge shell, but changing its internal arrangements. Instead of creating the standard tunnel forge, you want to raise the level of the forge's floor more than usual, to create a "D" internally. "D" shaped forges give the maximum usable space, for the minimum cubic area to heat, with excellent internal swirl of the heated gases. Choosing a used gas cylinder, makes an end run around building a "D" shaped shell; it has all the advantages of the oval forge I prefer, sans the hassle of building an oval shell, or repurposing an oval steel object ($$$) for the purpose. You will want to aim the burner down, and across the floor toward its far corner, from about two o clock height.