ljohnson

Sorry to hear about J.W.. Drinking lots of milk can help but it won't make you immune to zinc fumes. There are lots of respirators available that are approved for protection against zinc oxide fumes. No offense meant but you guys are really going off on a tangent to what the original subject(propane forge temperatures) of the post was. thanks anyway

Im welding an old high carbon 1/4" thick file to a 1/4" piece of mild. The first few welds took fine and Im wire brushing and grinding the faces between welds so they're plenty clean. Also sprinkling borax between layers before welding so thats not the issue either. P.S. lets keep the preachy safety B.S. to a minimum. Im 21 and have been forging since i was 10. I don't know much but im not a complete fool.

I bought it brand new and from day 1 it has never gotten up to welding temperature.

I added a blower to one side and when i fired up the forge to see if it worked it looked like that side wasn't even firing. Also just filled the propane tank and the pressure on the regulator is sporadically jumping around from 12# to 15+# with flames leaping out about 1ft futher than usual, frost forming on the hose and sloooow bleed time afer shut off. Is this indicative of a bad regulator or an overfilled tank? thanks

Im running it at about 12+ lbs, and have exhaust fans and make-up air.

Don't worry about the CO levels. I keep 2 fans running in the shop, one pulls in fresh air from outside and the other is set up right above the forging area to draw away fumes and exhaust. Still a good idea to get a CO detector though. Thanks

my basement/shop is basically a concrete box with a steel form deck and concrete ceiling. I have a joke that the acetylene could explode down there and you would'nt hear it upstairs.

i've been working on a pattern welded steel project but my Whisper Mama forge just barely gets hot enought to forge weld. I'm working from my basement shop in a residential area so coal is not an option and am at about 5600' elevation so that might affect the heat output too. Any suggestion for boosting the temperature?