valthinos Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 (edited) I've been messin around with the idea of building a forge for a while now and I have finnaly done it. She started out as a garden sprayer, and a propane weed burner. I used a mixture of beach sand and Plaster of Paris for the lining (read an instructable for a soup can forge and got the idea there). It seems to work well, need to figure out if im gonna do a blower on it or not. I heated up some old logging cable I had layin around and in just a few minutes it got glowing good. My anvil is an old I beam chunk i found at a junk yard. I wasn't looking to put alot of money into one so i repourpsed alot of stuff. xxxx i evan got a 5gal propane tank full for free!!!! Anyways thought i wood share with everyone looking for some feedback Positive or negative. Thanks Guys, Valthinos Edited November 11, 2014 by Moderator54 Please review TOS regarding language Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Let me put this bluntly:Sand and Plaster of Paris is not a good refractory for forge temps. Do you know if that instructable was written by someone with blacksmithing experience? I was checking out you-tube videos on smelting last night and the first one that came up on my search was a person who didn't know the difference between smelting and melting and so his video had buptkiss to do with smelting and the comments were the same!Let me phrase this a different way "I saved $15 by using a non-insulative refractory and so will be spending $100 *more* on gas using my forge! What, I'm throwing away money???"What do you plan to do with this forge? Most weed burners are quite oxidizing and I didn't see a retrofitted choke so not a good choice for bladesmithing, (or anything that requires a nice surface or higher carbon alloys). I use burners built from plumbing parts that I can adjust the atmosphere in the forge from reducing to oxidizing, the piece parts probably cost less than a weed burner; but assembly is much trickier.I don't understand the blower comment; adding a blower to the weedburner makes it worse and will cool down the forge! Do you mean building a blown burner? Fairly simple and can give you one with much more control of atmosphere and output if done right.Finally the I beam: what your hammer "sees" when working hot steel is mainly the amount of steel directly under the hammer. With an I beam that is mostly air. You want a solid chunk to make an anvil from. I generally suggest a chunk of fork lift tine oriented vertically; of just a big solid hunk of scrap steel.If you are near the El Paso Texas, USA, area you are welcome to stop by sometime and we'll go over building a good set up on the cheap. Building one when you don't have the background to evaluate suggestions can be less than satisfactory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valthinos Posted November 11, 2014 Author Share Posted November 11, 2014 Thanks for the input Thomas, Ive got no idea if the writer of that instructible has blacksmithing experience. I myself dont have any experience. I started out just cutting knifes out of old bandsaw blades that my dad brought home from the mill. As the years went on and we made the knifes together i decided I wanted to take it a step further and get into blacksmithing.I plan to use the forge for making knifes, what do you mean by "most weed burners are quite oxidizing"? Do they put to much air into the mixture? The blower coment was indeed about making it a blown burner. For the I beam I figured that any strong solid metal surface would do, ill look in to finding a new anvil. Sadly im not near you I live in Bandon, Oregon. Im definatly gonna be doin more research, guess I just got a little to excited and ahead of myself. Thanks again Valthinos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel S Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Instructables is a neat site, but there are a lot of really good threads on making gas forges on this one. I've just completed my first and really like it. I would recommend you read: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> You will likely spend a little money to build a forge, but not that much. I would also read Frosty's replies on gas forge threads, he gives a lot of useful information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 BSB is great trading material too; I make most of my pattern welded billets from BSB and pallet strapping---generally smaller than the big saws 8-14" wide...Forges can be oxidizing, neutral or reducing. Weed burners tend to be oxidizing as that's the easiest/cheapest to do to get a hot flame. As they already have too much O2 adding a blower does not improve things and actually will cool things down. Many forge burners have a way to adjust the amount of air that gets added to the propane so you can adjust how the forge burns. For knifemaking you generally want a neutral to reducing forge atmosphere. NOTE reducing means there is more Carbon Monoxide use with LOTS of ventilation!!!! And like with all gas forges make sure that the exhaust is not getting fed back into the air intake as that will spike the CO too!A solid chunk of metal will be a lot quieter too! No bragging points in driving yourself deaf!Check around for an ABANA affiliate; fastest way to accelerate the learning curve is to spend time with other smiths! Hmm abana.org affiliate map looks lonely out your way...Putting your general location in your profile, (SW Oregon), will help for location specific questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valthinos Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 Okay, Thank you Daniel. lookin at Frosty's plans couldn't i just cut the shroud off the weed burner and then put it into the "T" that Frosty's plans use? Same concept right and if I need less propane I could just thread the rod and put a reducer on it? Or am I just gonna have to start all over with the burner? Thanks, Valthinos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Burner design is pretty stringent in it's requirements; *ANY* change from a known good design may not work without days of fiddling and tweaking or as Tolkien said "Short cuts make long delays" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valthinos Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 Okay, thank you Thomas, im gonna start putting money away and build a Frosty style burner. Thanks for the help again. Oh other than kaowool what elese makes agood liner? Ive been looking through the formus and the search page, but all I can't seem to find anything other then kaowool for lining, is there something eles I could use? Only reason Im trying not to use it is no one localy sells it and I don't have a way to purchase items online. Thanks Valthinos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Check for ceramic supply stores as it's sometimes used in kiln building. Also places that do maintenance on boilers, (used by schools and large buildings for heating), they often use kaowool as patching material and may have scraps that they will sell or give to you. Lots of folks in the blacksmithing world will work offline with you; get the phone numbers from the web and call! inswool is another variant that works. I've bought a load of refractory stuff from Wayne Coe, he sells at conferences and he posted this here: Wayne Coe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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