forge concept...what do you think

2ballcain357 · January 16, 2015

ok, all...I have had some down time the last couple of days and decided to build a computer model of a gas forge I am wanting to build. this will be my 3rd forge build and second gas forge build.

I have taken all information that I have been able to find on IFI and other sources and this is what I have come up with.

Dimensions are diameter O.D.of 14" and length of 16". once all ceramic blanket is in place and coated that should give me an I.D. of approx. 10". I will build up the floor to create a flat bottom lined with kiln bricks. front and rear door that will fully open to allow easy installation of the "guts" and for the future make things easier to repair. the doors have small flaps that are easily opened and closed. the Burners I have already made and use on a current forge.. they were built from Dave Hammer's video on youtube and I have proven that they work very well.. so no problem there. I should have roughly 600 to 650 cubic inches of work space which will require both burners to run at a combined pressure of about 10 psi. the blanket on the doors will be held in place with nichrom 80 wire. I have also designed a "plug" system ,I guess you could call it, that will allow me to shut off half of the forge if not needed. this is not shown in the 3D pics.

I was hoping some of you could give me some advice as to if I am heading in the right direction or maybe some things that I might be able to add that will help further down the road.

I Make a little bit of everything with the exception of knifes and swords....don't really have interest in those. I do some scroll work on gates and hand rails and that is the main reason for making a larger forge.

any advice or thoughts would be great...I have pretty tough skin so lay it on

thanks in advance.

patrick · January 16, 2015

Looks good but I suggest replacing the hinged doors with sliding doors. The hinged style require you to hold them open with one hand while reaching into the forge with the other.

Chinobi · January 17, 2015

you might want to consider constructing your doors with a lip that is flush with the face of the insulation so it will be protected on the edges and restrained from fraying. that will also negate the need for the insulation to be recessed on the inside.

thats an awesome model too, looks like it will be a monster :)

george m. · January 17, 2015

I suggest that you consider a pivoted door rather than hinged or sliding doors. Put a pivot on the upper left of the end and rotate the door up and down. There is less fussiness than a sliding door and you can easily adjust the tension so that the door either moves easily or has enough resistance to stay exactly where you want it to stay. You can either have a permanent handle attached to the door or a detachable handle that fits into a receptacle on the door.

VaughnT · January 17, 2015

I would humbly suggest not using the cylinder unless you just happened to have an old beat up piece laying around. The best/easiest design I've seen in a long time uses nothing but sheet metal and offers a lot more flexibility in design because of it.

Also, the chamber length of 16" seems a bit longish to me. I do a lot of general forging and have never needed that much chamber, and I'm currently using a three-burner 18" Majestic monstrosity. Even for scrolls, I keep two burners shut off and only use the first third of the forge chamber.

WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith · January 18, 2015

Check out my tutorial at the Forge Supplies page on my web-site for information on how I like to build a gas forge..

2ballcain357 · January 20, 2015

George that is a great idea..I LIKE IT!. I will have to do some re thinking now. Thank you all for your kind suggestions.

I am using an old piece of pipe and that is the only reason it is a cylinder.... If before I build, I can come up with some sheet steel the geometry will be changing.

Wayne what is your web address? Would like to see the video

Again thank you fellows

2ballcain357 · January 20, 2015

Vaughn, I forgot to mention thank you for the chamber length advice... I think I will slim it down to about 10" to 12"...if I go to 12" I can cut the fire blanket in half and keep it at an even dimension. And waste less

VaughnT · February 9, 2015

2b, glad I could help. I was in the beginning stage of building my own when I was given the Majestic, so I've got a lot of unused ideas bouncing around.

You can save some of the heat by doing a good job with the insulation. The forge I posted before is a perfect example of what good insulation looks like - kaowool, cement, then IR reflective paint. The floor is a hard fire brick for durability, but it's on top of a bit of blanket insulation. This helps to keep the heat in.

I've seen folks make moveable walls so they can shrink down their chamber unless they need it. I don't know how well this works, though. Sounds like a plausible idea.

This afternoon, I worked on two bracelets and a hammer eye drift, probably made a dozen small doo-dads, and never once needed more than the first 8" of the 18" that I have. The biggest thing I would suggest is that you need to have the face able to fully open. A small window is great for holding the heat in, and it's probably what you'll use 99% of the time. But then you'll have someone ask you to make a 10" scroll for their plant hanger.....

As for getting sheet metal, one old beat up washing machine or water heater will give you more than enough to make a doghouse-style forge like I posted earlier.

Frosty · February 9, 2015

Are your current burners configured to operate of a single T like the drawing? I've never seen NA burners set up that way.

Wayne's website URL is part of his signature.

Frosty The Lucky.

WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith · February 9, 2015

Sorry, somehow I missed your request for my web-address. I have had some folks say that the links don't show up on their mobile phones. I will be sure and include it in future posts. It is www. WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith.com.

I also now have an attachment for building a Ribbon Burner and will soon be adding another attachment about how I incorporated the Ribbon Burner into my new forge.

Thank you.

2ballcain357 · February 23, 2015

Sorry, for the delay in replying to you all. Wayne, I checked out your site and have to say I am interested in ribbon burners now. thank you for sharing the information.

Frosty, yep just a single T and so far it has worked great. the final design turned out a little different than the concept pics form the OP. I ended up just keeping it as simple as I can and l left room for future modifications as I know I will think of something.

I have attached some pics of what I came up with and the first project I ran through it. at the moment I do not have a hard floor in the forge so I just used a scrap piece of fire blanket. the burners are running great, however I did have to run tandem tanks to keep them from frosting up. I couldnt see spending the money for a manifold so I built one...a lot cheaper.

any how, thank you all again for all of your ideas and advice.

Jiffy · March 4, 2015

Sorry, for the delay in replying to you all. Wayne, I checked out your site and have to say I am interested in ribbon burners now. thank you for sharing the information.
Frosty, yep just a single T and so far it has worked great. the final design turned out a little different than the concept pics form the OP. I ended up just keeping it as simple as I can and l left room for future modifications as I know I will think of something.
I have attached some pics of what I came up with and the first project I ran through it. at the moment I do not have a hard floor in the forge so I just used a scrap piece of fire blanket. the burners are running great, however I did have to run tandem tanks to keep them from frosting up. I couldnt see spending the money for a manifold so I built one...a lot cheaper.
any how, thank you all again for all of your ideas and advice.

The issue with the manifold you have is only if something is dropped and hits the regulator or the pipe running to the regulator. The leverage you have could shear both fittings off at the cylinder valves (assuming you used schedule 80 screwed fitting and 3000 lb couplings, which it does not look like, if not any of the threaded sections could let go with the reduced wall thickness.) This could potentially result in unrestricted flow from both cylinders into the shop... if the forge is lit, god help you and your family. Best of luck with that. The correct way to manifold them would have been far cheaper and safer.

Use a RegO 1450E (simple tee piece 1/4 mnpt x 1/4 inv Flare) and and two copper pigtails. Mount the regulator on a fixed location. copper pigtails (heavy walled and designed for Propane at cylinder pressure).These connect to each cylinder. The flexibility of the copper will make your life much easier. Cost would be well under $20.

As an added bonus, instead of about 14 connections at full cylinder pressure which could possibly leak you will have reduced it down to only 5. Much less risk. Much safer.

Just my two cents for what they are worth.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Jiffy

Jiffy · March 4, 2015

My apologies if the above creads a bit negative, it is not intended to be, I was just a bit shocked when I saw the manifold. I could have worded it better no doubt.

Frosty · March 5, 2015

Welcome aboard Jiffy guy, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance.

Naw, your warning is FAR FROM negative. That set up has me bouncing on my chair looking at it. It's WAY too dangerous the way it's set up. Warning folk about something that can hurt or cost them everything is a good thing and you weren't nasty about it. I thought you were about as tactful as a person familiar with plumbing gas could be. Just think what an OSHA inspector or an insurance agent would've said/done.

2ballcain: Dude, you GOTTA clean that up! I don't want to dog pile on ya but that's a fire or explosion waiting to happen. And it won't wait long.

Short version would be to loose all the iron between the tanks. Just the couplers and enough to reach ONE plumbing T. Sub the regulator and hose to the T. Lose the rest of the iron pipe to the last T on the burners and sub the hose to THAT T.

Strap the tanks together and something that can't be knocked over.

You have everything you need in the pic and way more than is safe.

Frosty The Lucky.

2ballcain357 · March 6, 2015

Jiffy, first off no worries I apreciate the words of advice and thank you and frosty for the caution to my current set up. I will revise this set up to increase safty, but I do have a question or two.

first would one of you or anyone have the time to take a pic or two of your set up and post to this thread?

and beside something falling on to the pipe.... What are other problem areas with this set up? It is 3/8 sch 40 iron pipe.. I used it because I have a very large supply of sch 40 black iron and glv pipe... Is this pipe not suitable for the pressure directly from the tank as I currently have?I have used this size iron pipe in other applications to carry liquids and gas at varying pressures and have yet to have a problem. All fittings are properly attached and Have been checked with the trusty bottle of soapy water and gas detector.

I may be new to blacksmithing but I am not new at learning, especially from others. I appreciate any comments. The fact two folks out of 821 views of this thread took the time to voice concerns is more than enough for me to step back an re-evaluate this. I really don't feel like blowing myself up anytime soon ha ha. Until I resolve this I think I will hop back to the coal forge.

thank you both again.

2ballcain357 · March 6, 2015

And beside the manifold issue.....any thoughts on the forge itself?

Frosty · March 6, 2015

I'm always happy to help where I can. Your forge looks good from here, the sliding bricks for doors will last longer than most other door types.

My manifold is 1/4" pipe of no specialness, the PSI after the reg isn't likely to be more than 20+/-psi so the chances it isn't enough is really slim. After the manifold I'm using 1/8" copper tubing and flare fittings. I think this pic shows my fuel plumbing as well as any I have. This is during the final build stage of it's second incarnation so it's all clean and pretty fresh paint.

Just to the right of the visegrip is the nipple I subbed to the gas hose, the final nipple is about 1" rather than the one shown. The copper tubing helps keep the burners in place as they're just sitting on top of the lid. The copper tubing is also more fire proof than a person needs, if you let them get hot enough to fail you ain't paying enough attention to do anything dangerous.

My next rebuild will see a more compact mount for the manifold, this one is a little vulnerable to bumps and to reach the individual 1/4 turn ball valves you have to reach more over the forge than I like. I've never had worse than a leaf get sucked into a burner and cause a little fluffy yellow fire on top but I prefer things to be as clean and workable as possible especially around fire.

This incarnation of lid is firebrick clamped in place by the angle iron frame and has been history for two incarnations. Now the lid is stiffened and ITC-100 washed Kaowool with a sheet steel top shell.

About what I can see of yours. I really like how you have the fuel routed past the steel shelled side away from doors. As you can see by how I build my burners I'm not sure how yours work. They look similar to a Mike Porter burner but looks can be deceiving, what are you using for jets, how are they mounted, etc?

They certainly don't need 3/8" pipe supply lines. My supply is 6' of 3/8" braided steel propane rated hose and I can run all 4 burners wide open without them starving. I'm also running a 100lb. tank I got for VERY reasonable at a yard sale and yes, the inspection is current.

If you manifold your tanks together close and use a hose from there to the forge they'll be easier to secure. I like putting 20lb. tanks running in multiples in milk crates. The crates can be secured together very easily with a little angle iron and U bolts or just U bolted together then you'd have to kick it on purpose to move it. If it does get bumped it's attached by a rubber hose, so what? I move my tank while it's running without worry, especially at out door demos where breezes can blow the forge exhaust the wrong direction or spectators can't see or they get too close or. . .

That's probably more than enough to think about for now. I'll be around, ask away if you have any questions.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty · March 6, 2015