Hi,

  I am looking into making or buying a gas forge mainly for knives. About how much does the fuel cost to run the forge on a regular day of forging? I heard coal forges are cheaper to run.

  Thanks

Haven't read the gas forge section of Iforge have you? I'm feeling too curmudgenly PO'd over being Forbidden on a detailed reply to a question to answer this one again. Do some basic research will you, or convince me YOUR time is more valuable than mine.

Frosty The Lucky.

Can't seem to get a reply out to you without it being Forbidden.  Bottom line is it depends in how much you use it and where you get you bottles refilled. 

How much gas will my vehicle use in a day?   Kind of hard to answer this without knowing what kind of truck, how heavily is it loaded and how far it gets driven.  We need the equivalent answers from you for a gas forge.

Me using my forge at a demo, no forge welding,  what I would call "light duty"--- well I budget US$2 an hour for propane.  I have no idea what propane costs in your country!  (remember www stands for World Wide Web!).  I tend to make a "trinket" while the forge is warming up and sell them off to cover propane.  I also get my bottles refilled as it's cheaper than the swap dealies.

Edited July 29, 201510 yr by ThomasPowers

Thomas,

Probably better quality propane too. I cut up a lot of propane cylinders and saw a lot of difference in how much tarry mess was on their bottoms. When you're locked into a bottle exchange,  the providers can sell you anything they want. I prefer to use propane that I know is good quality.

The amount of tar in a bottle can be an indication of age as well as quality of the propane. A substantial % of the tar is Mercaptan the odorant introduced to propane so we can smell it. Perhaps I should say a lot of the tar is the result of adding mercaptan oil as an odorant? It's been so long since I got the explanation I could have it pretty wrong outside of mercaptan = stink & goo in tank.

Liquid laundry bleach and water will cut and remove the odor and much of the tar. 1 cup in a 40lb. tank filled with water is plenty.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty,

Your advice about cleaning the cylinder is good; I should have been more specific in my description, because I assumed the very same thing; what an eye opener it was to find that some (not all) old cylinders where pretty clean, while some (not all) fairly new cylinders were filthy. The worst mess I ever saw was at the bottom of a Blue Rhino cylinder...how did this come to pass? because of the D.O.T. requirement for amti-overflow valves to be installed in propane cylinders, there were fairly recent examples available, and my propane dealer was more than happy to give me all the reject cylinders I wanted.

That should read "anti."

A 20# propane tank cost me $13 to fill

Advice from a beginner:

My friend's 2-burner forge burns almost an entire 20# tank in 2 hours, which is about as long as I can swing a 4# hammer. So - $13 per day.

My 2-burner forge burns 1/3 of that, and my forge seems to heat about as well as his. So - about $4.50 per day

 

How much gas depends on what size the forge is, and how well it's built.

On December 26, 2015 at 5:54 AM, Harry Marinakis said:

A 20# propane tank cost me $13 to fill

Advice from a beginner:

My friend's 2-burner forge burns almost an entire 20# tank in 2 hours, which is about as long as I can swing a 4# hammer. So - $13 per day.

My 2-burner forge burns 1/3 of that, and my forge seems to heat about as well as his. So - about $4.50 per day

 

Feel like describing how your two burner forge is different than his?

The only major differences that I can see are that (a) my forge is better insulated, and (b) I have an adjustable gas regulator.

*Massive* differences and the data you posted shows how doing it right is cheaper than doing it cheap!

Mine is better insulated and adjustable isn't a useful description for making comparisons.

Frosty The Lucky.

Happy (almost) New Year

Mr. Carver, I have not seen what you wish to compare to or compare with.

I would like to buy a box of apples, with Cherry pits, How much fuel will I use?

Neil

14 hours ago, Frosty said:

Mine is better insulated and adjustable isn't a useful description for making comparisons.

Frosty The Lucky.

What would be, then? is this better?

Both propane forges are about the same size -  approx. 15" x 6" x 6"

His is home-made and mine is a modified farrier's forge.

He has only one 5"x5" opening and I have two 4"x4" openings.

He has about 1" of kaowool and I have 2"

He has a charcoal grill regulator and I have an adjustable reg 0-15 PSI

His forge burns 10# of propane per hour and mine burns about 3# per hour, for the same subjective heating results (I worked on the same leaf spring in his forge and mine).

 

The aspects of a gas forge that have real affects is a meaningful description. Comparing one unseen undescribed forge to another unseen undescribed forge is antithetical meaningful.

Size has two aspects: Volume and Shape. EG. 6" x 6" x 15" = 540 cu/in. OR,  424 cu/in. depending if it's square or round. Seeing as you listed two lateral dimensions I'd assume sq and so 540 sq/in.

You're running 2x the blanker liner. and significantly more opening.

A 0-15 reg is better than a BBQ reg.

You're getting 3 1/3 x the mileage.

If I had to guess I'd say his burners were grossly out of tune. OR he's running a bunch of really low efficiency ones say trying to forge using the BBQ burner.

I'm not trying to be dismissive but you're asking a question in an almost unanswerable manner. Perhaps take a look through the gas forge posts at ones talking about efficiency in heat time and fuel use. Then compare the burners where you can. Hopefully you'll start to see similarities in how they operate and the problems. some basic types have inherent problems, the T I've been making for a while now doesn't do well with outside breezes and back pressure. Other versions of Ejector types do quite well say the Sidearm but this is largely because they use a smaller jet dia. under higher psi. so the fuel air mix is traveling faster and so is stronger due to basic momentum.

These things fall into the category of "simple in principle but complex in execution."

Frosty The Lucky.