Binesman

Tongs atwnt an issue both my uncle and i worked many years for a tillage tool company as furnace men.  We had to build shape and maintain our own tongs.  The tongs in the image whete ones my son made himself with supervision and assistance.  And they work great for flat stock.  Its more thomgs will fall while he learns to handle tongs.

Wood stand got it.  Thats easier then concrete for me any day.  Is there anything i should do to treat the wood to prevent fires?  Im sure forge temperature material is going to be dropped on it.

Sorry forgot to put my area im in greeley colorado

My son and i have recently started smithing together.  We are currently using a 3" cube of steel for an anvil.  I have not been able to find a decent real anvil in my area and will be buying a chunk of steal from a local waterjet company instead.  I have several questions in this regard.  

1.  What is the minimum/maximum i want in height/width/length?  I was thinking a 12 Long by 6 wide by 4 high would be suitable.   (side note i will be buying a36 steel to help protect against flying sparks from mistriking on hardened steel)

2.  My plan is to have it be 2" longer on the top and have that be only 1" thick to have them cut a hardy pritchet hole.  Will that be solid enough to handle drifting or should i have that piece thicker?

3.  Mounting it.  My current plan is to set and cure a block of concrete then set the steel on top of it and pour another 2" of cement so the metal would be 1/2 in and 1/2 out of cement.  Will this work?  Is there a better method?

who is this wayne you speak of?  And to answer your question...well I don't know.  I guess it makes a lot more sense to just build a better forge, and hook up a proper burner to the one I have.  Then my son and I can both play at the same time.

Thank you Frosty and yes the end result it will be to replace us with a commercial Forge. However I want my son to spend a month or two working on this one so that I can be sure it's not a "fad" for him. It also allows me the time to put the money up to purchase him the forge. However from spending this much on fuel it could be a problem putting the money aside to buy him a forge. So I think I will make one of your famous tea burners for what I have. My question is this currently the hole diameter for the burner is two and a half inches if I colar it and use screws to hold the tea burner in place is that okay or do I need to seal up that two and a half inch diameter to the diameter of the tea burner?

I dontknow enough to say if it was a lot or not.  There was scale yes.

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

I thought you were using a soldering torch at least the pic LOOKS like a soldering torch which will work if mounted properly.

A weed burner on the other hand is designed to light weeds on fire NOT heat things. Sure you can use them to thaw frozen parts but they are entirely inappropriate as a forge burner. Even if they could bring the forge to decent working temperature the atmosphere would be severely oxidizing. 

A weed burner without the needle valve or a regulator is a serious fuel hog. They're intended to make a BIG flame to light a large area on fire, not a hot flame. Even if you turn the fire down they don't get very hot.

Frosty The Lucky.

No it is a weed burner that I had lying around. However it seems to be getting hot enough. We used half inch rebar for the tongs and half inch bar stock for the knife. It got the metal to a nice glowing Orange yellow. That is forging temperature isn't it?

Nope no regulator atm.  20lb tank hooked directly to a weed burner stuck in the side of a pot.  Yep it is ghetto but works.  Since it works ill waste the money to get a regulator.  Because in a month or so i intend to purchase a majestic forge.  Just needed something in the mean time to make sure its something my son wanted to do.

Thomaspowers 

Im not sure the issue is 100% refractory i think i realy need to get a pressure regulator and that will help alot.  I could be dead wrong on that however.

Thank you all again for the support.  And yea he learned first hand today "mid project redesign" as his steak knife turned in to something more akin to a dagger.  But for his first time "mine as well"  i think he did great.  I also see what you all mean about rhis set up being inefficient as we whent through 2 20 galon tanks today to make tongs and a knife.  And yes i know the knife is very rough and still needs all the finish work but im still xxxx proud of him.

Thankyou all for your support and help.  My initial plan was actualy a coal forge but my hoa wont allow it.   I did remove the long tube and it seems to be burning better.  I have a layer of furnace cement in and my son and i sat down today and made a set of tongs together (hes not allowed to hold the hot metal yet just swimg the hammer)  later on today hes going to attempt to make his mom a steak knife.

I appreciate the quick responses and the knowledgable advice.  Money wise there isnt a lot tied up in this project i already had most of the studf lying around.  Think i spent 30 for the gallon of water glass that u still have 1/2 of, and 20 on the furnace cement thats coming.  As for the if i thought it needed more air i couldnt tell you.  The photo you see is from its first burning never tried it without the additional length.  Ill invest some time reading the posts you suggested and see what knowledge i can take from them.  For the time being until i can get some cash set aside to build/buy a proper forge do you believe this will work for my son as he realy wants to start swinging a hammer.  Also do you believe it would be better to not add the furnace cement or will it add a little life span to this?

And please dont take this questions as ignoring your advice.  Im hearing you 100% and truely do appreciate the time you're taking to assist me.  Im just working on a limited budget and trying to get my son something that will work for a month or so without exploding.

Its not completed yet.  This was a test burn to make sure it would work.  The liner currently is a perlite waterglass cement.  Im going to be coating that in a 2700f rated refractory cement.  Ill remove the stainless steel pupe and place the burner directly.  It was on there because i was told that it needed additional length for the gas/oxygen to mix.  Im assuming that is not correct? I will get more pictures tomorrow. However the way it is put together is pretty simple. It's a stainless steel pot filled with perlite with a hole cut in the end and a two and a half inch hole cut in the side for the burner. The burner is just a propane torch from Harbor Freight.

I'm aware that there are a number of issues with the air to propane mix. I built this forge on a very tight budget because my son wanted to get into metal working. It seems to work just fine as far as getting to temperature and the flame has a nice roll to it in the cylinder. The one major concern I have is you'll notice the burner arm is getting red hot. Is this a major issue or is it okay to run like this?