ohdougles

3 minutes ago, Latticino said:

Unfortunately the whole heat treatment thing may be out the door if you just used mild steel from a hardware store.  

True. There's a steel mill right by where I work so I'm going pick up the 304 stainless

8 minutes ago, Elliry said:

I'm not far from you. If you like you can use my forge to heat treat, and while your over maybe we can build you a proper burner. Let me know if you're interested, I'll be in the shop tonight and tomorrow night.

I messaged you. Thanks!

Thank you guys a ton for your feedback, it sucks because those are the answers I didn't want to hear haha. I didn't want to abandon this forge after reading the other posts regarding first forges, but it's not like i have a choice haha. I'll most likely do the in ground one. Also I did start reading burners101 it's kind of confusing to me, but I'm sure I'll catch on. Thanks again. 

6 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Note Weldable steel from a big box store WON'T HARDEN correctly for a knife.   You can get good knife steel for FREE and if you  read this site you will find many recommendations  for it.

(Automotive coil springs and leaf springs for instance)  Research saves you time; so by NOT doing it you are throwing your time, (and MONEY), away!

A jabod forge burning real chunk charcoal---which you can make yourself for free.  Is probably your fastest and cheapest route between you and Christmas Presents!   Remember you need to PRACTICE to get things right so I hope you factored that into your critical path.  (Otherwise it's like not playing the piano and yet promising to play a concerto for Christmas---very unlikely to have a worthy gift!)

That's a very good tip, because I've made knives in the past using weldable steel (this is before i knew how to heat treat them properly not with a bernzomatic torch and channel locks) and i didn't run into many problems other than when it came to sharpening, it was like i couldn't not get a proper edge on it even using a lansky sharpening set. And yes research is key. Hopefully next year my family can get real knives haha.

Hello all,

I know I'm probably like the hundredth post about building my first forge, but here I am following suit.

Firstly, it was my first time using a mig welder and didn't know that you use it as any other welder, whoops

Secondly, I haven't done the most research because I'm on a time crunch for Christmas, but i have done some thanks a lot to your site and Youtube.

Thirdly, I'm very close to being broke so hopefully any major adjustments aren't needed.

Fourthly, I'm grateful for any and all responses and advice.

Alright so,

My forge doesn't get hot enough, like not even to where the metal gets a little glowing, just turns them black and kinda blue after 30 minutes. It will get kind of red hot if i hold a piece of steel outside the opening. If i close the opening with that loose fire brick it will snuff the burner out, but i will still get flames that will shoot out of the air holes in the burner (not safe). 

It's a propane burner from Harbor Freight, I don't have a regulator on it, and i never adjusted any tip or anything like that. They are hard fire bricks from Menards 9 x 4.5 x 1.25. I already had to use some J. B. Weld on the top and sides where a ton of flames were escaping. I also don't have a bottom plate only a bar welded in the middle to hold the bricks in place. I think the problem I had is i tried a few too many different methods and combined them and threw out the hard and/or expensive parts. 

I'm just trying to heat treat knives that I cut from pieces of weldable steel, yeah i know i cheated. I've seen the posts where everyone suggests those kaowool blankets so that'll be my next step, but should i put them inside or outside or both? 

tl;dr - I don't know what I'm doing, please help me, I'm broke, too far along, and Christmas is in 13 days.