Latticino

Sketch is unclear, some annotation would probably help.  Typically when you try to make a piece of equipment do everything, you end up with something that does nothing particularly well.

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here, but the gas forge option configuration looks to be incredibly inefficient (unless you are planning on injecting your propane into a solid fuel system for some kind of extra "boost".  Probably not a good or safe idea).  Size and materials of construction aren't well spelled out, but while a hard fire brick forge will be great for a solid fuel forge, it will be pretty awful for a gas forge. I've never built a foundry, but can't imagine it would be any better for that.  Your solid fuel forge will want a chimney for smoke control at the top.  This will be deadly in terms of energy for a gas forge/glass furnace...  If you go with a side draft hood it will need to be removed and the opening plugged somewhat when converting modes.

As far as glassblowing, speaking as a former professional glass blower who built equipment for several studios, I have no idea what you expect to use this piece of equipment for.  Are you expecting to make it into a sort of combined glass furnace and glory hole?  Gas fired annealer?  Slumping oven?  Glass equipment has different constraints from metal forges/foundries.  For one thing the furnace has to run 24/7, so safety equipment is a must.  From your sketch I expect you haven't got a clue regarding this.  Materials of construction should be able to withstand more constant contact with molten glass (rather than just periodic flux spatters), one of the most corrosive materials known.  You will most likely need a larger propane tank for running glass equipment as well (a couple of 20 gal barbeque tanks won't cut it at all).

The shells for the various types of forges/furnaces are not all that expensive, and it would probably be advisable to build one for each type of usage you are contemplating.  Burner assemblies aren't that much more (unless you are contemplating getting an industrial one, which given the level of your design abilities at this point I would recommend). You certainly might be able to share the burner assembly between different equipment, but again you are looking at compromises that will likely make each system inefficient.

Suggest you do some more research into forge, furnace, and foundry design.  There is a lot of good literature out there (for glass eqt. I recommend Henry Halem's and Dudley Giberson's books), but be careful what you glean from the internet (including this, I guess...)

Know that the OP is now offline and will not benefit.  Also am aware how ingenious and full of himself he came off in his first post.  Is description of his "exotic" handle was poor, but it did have an aspect that I think has been missed that made it fairly unique (mostly because it is a design that I think was pretty awful).  The wound handle is wrapped around a hollow core, like a spring.  Not sure if he understood that a 1/4" diameter wire spring would flex, which certainly wouldn't be good for a knife handle.

Nice score. She looks good to go to me. Just get a stump or build a stand and get hammering. 

Brazeal style hot cuts are designed to friction fit into the hardy hole (if that is what you mean by brazenly).  If you add a shoulder it becomes a more conventional hot cut.  With that type the shoulder needs to be very substantial to support all the weight of the hammer striking during the cutting operation.  There are a number of different ways to form this shoulder depending on the stock size you have and the tools you have to work with.  Anything from forge welding a collar, or upsetting the center section and necking down either side (as it appears you have tried to do), to arc welding a hardy post onto a shouldered cutting edge.  You can even fuller down two sides of a thick flat leaf spring to form a shoulder that fits into our hardy then put an edge on the opposite side (hot cut goes into the hardy hole on a diagonal).

You are doing a good job working with such heavy stock, but if you decide to keep on this way remember to let the steel soak for a while so that the inside gets hot as well as the surface.  Otherwise it is almost impossible to avoid the fish mouth syndrome.  This size stock forging typically responds better to blows with a heavy hammer.  A 2 lb. hammer will be kind of tough going unless you are very hot.  You may want to wait till you have a striker handy and can work with a heavier hammer.  Once the blade edge is thinned out further you will be able to clean things up with your 2 lb forging hammer.

Good luck.

You could possibly offset the stem over using light hammer blows at the joint, but it appears that there is a crack starting, so I would recommend starting over.  Typically I make leaves a lot thinner, drawing out the center further with a cross peen.  This is good work for a second leaf.  Try making a dozen or so and see how your work improves.  This is good practice for a lot of other blacksmithing processes.  One trick I sometimes use is after the basic shaping is complete laying the leaf lengthwise along a fairly sharp edge on the anvil and using half face blows to emphasize the stem projection into the body of the leaf (done on each half of the leaf with the stem extension resting right at the edge of the anvil).

If a politician dropped by my shop and started to talk to me I'd probably show them the business end of the hot steel

Take a look at Thomas Latane's work.  He does stake anvils, though not quite as elaborate as this one.  He also does the gothic chiseled style faces, though not in those locations, as far as I know (yet).  Hope he sees this image and it inspires him.  With the right team he surely could do this.

That is a superb stake anvil though.  Can see why it is in a castle.

Air from the side will be effective, though the abrupt elbow it takes will make it less effective than if it entered the "typical" forced draft burner fashion, due to the pressure loss associated with the rapid change in direction of air.  If your blower pushes enough static to overcome this, it should be fine.  You may want to replace your gas nozzle with a larger one to take advantage of the increased output your new burner can be capable of.  I believe that it is a misconception that a blown burner is intrinsically more gas efficient than a comparable naturally aspirated burner.  However, with the same gas pressure of propane available, and the ability to replace a gas nozzle so that more gas is available at that pressure, you can almost always get more heat from the blown burner.  You also get a bit of grace on the size of the forge doors and the outlet of the burner itself, as the burner pushes the flame out at increased overall pressure.

You also need to know how to properly tune and operate this type of burner.  It isn't all that hard, actually a bit easier than a NA burner as far as I'm concerned, but it is different.

Cross post with Thomas.  Totally agree with all he has said, but as I noted, with the same high pressure propane (typically modulated down a bit using your regulator) and a blower, the burner will be capable of burning hotter (especially if you increase the nozzle size at the same time).

Unabashedly functional. I really like this one. 

I have cut them on a wet tile saw (diamond blade) or with a diamond tooth wet band saw. 

Great description,  can almost see it, but How about a photo? 

If you are willing to pay for it, there appear to be several listed in your area on craigslist.  In the NYC area you will probably be paying a premium, but that is one of the benefits of living in an urban "paradise" .  If you are building on a budget, others have already given you good advice.

Like the resultant for quite a bit.  Your file/grind work on the edges to produce the sexy curves on the top and bottom of the hawk really sell this.  What did you do about heat treating?

Nice clean work.  Excellent design, with good proportions and detailing. I particularly like the upset corners and the rivets.  Could see these with taller candles, or possibly decorative rivet heads, but great just as is as well. 

Before doing a lot of work cutting and potentially burning out a diamond bit I would consider taking a torch to one and see how it fares.  May be the wheel is carborundum in some kind of matrix that would burn out at higher temperatures, or it wouldn't take thermal shock all that well.  Be sure to wear PPE when testing.

Good luck

The concentric tubes should be at the very end of your burner assembly, just before entry into the forge, not in the middle of the burner.  Typically this section is rather short, to give some backpressure creating the flame arrester without adding so much friction that less fuel/gas mixture gets out the business end.  As usual, Frosty is right and photos will help with diagnosis.

You were certainly correct that closing off the forge will choke off the ventauri burners, not allowing them to work properly.  Why didn't you just adjust the forge door opening?

Gas orifice size does make a difference in blown burner design as well, though not quite so critical as with naturally aspirated burners (ventauri).  The orifice size, location of same, flow direction, mixing length and configuration of the mixing chamber all make a difference in how well your air/gas mixture is combined, which has an effect on the efficiency of the combustion.  I have seen side entry work quite effectively.  Is your burner running rich or lean?  How far from the burner outlet is the flame showing?  How long is your burner assembly, and how many elbows does it have?  Does it burn well outside the forge?  What was the rating on the burner you took the blower from (BTUH)?  Lots of variables here, which is one of the reasons I used an industrial burner assembly on mine...

I still see myself as a beginner at blacksmithing, but I have around 30 years as a mechanical engineer in the construction world (BSME and PE certification).  I also have an MFA in Glass from a studio arts program and was a professional glass artist supporting myself from that craft for 10 years.  I have been responsible for building a lot of glass equipment and that transfers well over to forge building.

Also a voracious reader, go figure, but though I was intrigued by the SCA could get my head around all the Thees and Thous...

I'm more expert regarding gas forges, so take this for what it is worth.  As Thomas mentioned you might be better served by looking at some of the already worked out forge designs illustrated elsewhere on this site.  There is tons of great info in the section on solid fuel forges.  Not sure why your time searching is more valuable than mine writing, but I'm feeling generous today.

I've never used a coal forge that didn't have a firepot for concentrating the coke produced.  Looks to me like your configuration could use the liner recommended by Thomas to, at minimum, level the bottom of the forge and close up the holes left by the drum configuration (I'm a fan of rammable refractory, but it does cost...).  Personally I would probably include some level of Duck's nest at the air exit point.

Clearly you will need some kind of blower and connection to same from your Tee fitting.  The necked down size and gate valve are a bit overkill as regards flow metering, so hopefully you have a blower that will push around 140 CFM if you plan on getting a larger fire up to welding temps.

You also will probably want to put in some kind of grating at the floor of the forge to keep the fuel from dropping down the air blast pipe.  A clinker breaker is nice, but I've heard good things about a simple grid of 1/2" bar.

If you are going to use the forge inside, and possibly outside as well, you will probably need to make a hood to direct the heat, smoke and fumes away.  The side draft type work a treat and aren't that hard to build.

Finally you will need to make an ash dump gate for the bottom, so you can clean out the dirt leg and keep the air going the right way.

Excellent point, and I agree completely.  Sorry I didn't get into more detail on the potential failure modes of using an isolation valve for flow control.  Needless to say, for safety it a very good idea to have both.  I just was noting that using the isolation valve for flow control was also a bad idea because it doesn't work well as a metering valve. 

Note that for complete disclosure there is also a phenomena called wire-drawing that occurs when an isolation valve is used for a long period for flow control and the small opening left results in high velocity fluid flow at the resulting orifice, which is not designed for same.  With the solids and condensates that Frosty mentioned rushing through this orifice at high velocity the seat gets eroded, leading to lack of ability to provide positive closure.  I'm not that familiar with the mechanism that Frosty is referencing for abrasion on the valve seat, but this wire drawing is a common result of misuse of isolation valves, especially in steam systems where use of the wrong type of metering valve is more common). 

Also, I don't know about your neighborhood, but around here code compliance requires both an isolation valve and flow control (pressure regulator), for gas piping installations.

You can adjust the quantity of propane with a conventional valve, but it is very difficult.  The valve opens too quickly to be accurate, a very small change in handle position makes a great change in flow rate..  That is why regulators, with multiple turns to open slowly (called control valve authority), exist.  Spend a few extra bucks to get an actual regulator with a pressure gage.  Trust us, it is worth it.

The ABANA periodical, Anvil's Ring, lists a number of blacksmithing classes.  Google works also...

Yummm, anvil porn for sure.  That thing looks almost naked without a couple of edge chips and face scratches.  I'd gladly bid on it as well if you were only closer.

No worries, just didn't want anyone getting hurt. 

As a former professional glass artist I have to add a couple of cautions regarding this.  Please note that I am following Frosty's typical instructions regarding terminology (i.e. getting it right aids in communication).  There are many different types of glass, and each has a rather different coefficient of thermal expansion.  If you don't get one that has a similar coefficient to that of the material you are attempting to marry to the glass you are asking for trouble.  This trouble can range from a minor crack in the glass to more "explosive" reactions, to some extent depending on whether the glass is encapsulated by the metal or surrounds it. Even composites that appear to be stable can react badly to exposure to varying thermal extremes down the road, or to what appear to be minor scratches (check Prince Rupert Drops out for fun).

The marbles that Frosty has mentioned could be either lampworked style borosilicate glass (like Pyrex, which is a lot more forgiving) or bottle type soda lime silicate glass(beer bottles, off hand blown glass...), which is not.  Either type needs to be annealed, not tempered, to be safe for ongoing use.  Checking the final product with a polariscope until you get your annealing sequence down is pretty critical (http://www.glassalchemy.com/building-a-polariscope).  Note that annealing glass is more similar to spheroidal annealing of steel that just throwing it into a barrel of vermiculite.  Controlling temperature at a slow rate as the glass cools down from around 915 deg. F to around 200 deg. F is critical for success.

I have found that glass/copper mixes tend to be a lot more stress free than glass/steel mixes.  Not sure if it is just the flexibility of the annealed copper, or a more close thermal expansion coefficient between the two.  Of course most of my experience is with soda lime silica glass, so YMMV.  I believe that there are a couple of other glassblowers/smiths participating on this site as well and hope that they chime in with their experience.

Needless to say there are certainly methods that can be used to echo Chihuly's organic glass forms in steel, just not glassblowing methods (though I have seen steel vessels "inflated" using compressed air to interesting effect).  Chihuly's floppy forms take advantage of differing thicknesses of glass deforming differently under the influence of heat, centrifugal force and gravity (or is that centripetal?...).  More organic manipulation of metal is certainly possible using the first two properties, but somewhat direct manipulation of the material is needed to mirror the others.

As others have said, and I believe I mentioned in one of your earlier posts (unless the forbidden bug got me that time), compressors are not blowers, or appropriate for either solid fuel forges or gas forges.  The blowers we are looking for have relatively high volumes of air moved at relatively low pressures.  Compressors do the opposite and a small one like that isn't likely to be rated for continuous duty in any event.

The type of bellows you are showing is very likely not to be appropriate either.  If you have seen any "real" blacksmith bellows, they are usually considerably larger and "double action" (pumping air on both the upstroke and downstroke). 

Depending on what kind of solid fuel you plan on using I would be surprised if those will work, and they will almost definitely not work for a blown gas forge.

I strongly suggest you take a class in knife forging if you plan on going that route.  There are several craft schools in your area as well as some smiths that teach knife making.  Getting some direct instruction will cut short your path to making a successful knife by a considerable margin.  If nothing else, you should look into going to Ashokan for the fall knifemakers gathering: http://ashokancenter.org/events/sept-18-20-new-england-bladesmiths-guild-seminar/

As far as a source for knife making steel, you are close enough to go to Aldo:  http://newjerseysteelbaron.com/