I have been seriously considering a Chile Habanero forge.  Reading on several forums, I ran across a knife maker's forum where one poster said they were too hot for knife making because the 1900 F could change and/or distort properties of 1075, 5160 etc. He also said he couldn't choke down it for cooler operation

Anyone else ever heard of this?

I am primarily use those steel in my shop

I've been trying to get an understanding of the same thing. I read another post somewhere and a user of the same forge changed out the valve tips to achieve lower temps. I reached out to Chile to ask if this is a supported configuration and works, but haven't heard back yet. I read someone else talk about choking it down to run cooler, but never any reply on how to accomplish that. 

I know you can turn the burners off individually. I wondered if you turned on one of the rear burners only and used the front of the forge for lower temp operations? 

I have one ordered. If I go through with it, then I will experiment and see, but it could be 10+ weeks.

I've never heard of choking a burner down to make it cooler. I've always just turned the regulator down!  Is this not an option with a chile forge?

(Been forging with propane for a couple of decades now.)

The Chile Forge burners only come in 1" size. Why would anyone run two large burners in a knife forge? Consider a smaller model.

Thomas,

 You are right that turning down the gas pressure is the primary way to cool down burner performance. But, yes partially chocking one of these burners will lower flame temperature somewhat; It's just not a very good way to go about things.

Choking a burner; isn't that modifying the temp by messing up the burn and so wasteful of fuel and may have a side effect of increasing CO production?  My first NA gas forge had a built in choking system which I would adjust to get the best burn---modifying gas pressure and choke to get the temps in the forge.  I could also run it reducing for blade work which is why I'm a bit overboard on ventilation to this day.  

With my new Frosty T  burners; they are tuned so the burn runs about the same over the pressure range I usually use. I reduce temps by turning down the gas pressure at the regulator.

Yes, I agree. It wasn't a recommendation; just a review of the known facts. It seems better to "play it straight" and let people make willful decisions, in the hope that afterward they can find their way back to the right path, if they at least don't feel pushed by somebody's druthers

I had to go look at the site again. Seems they like 2x the burner necessary to melt your work. As for not just turning the reg down for lower heat. 

I discovered I had to tell new guys they don't want to mash the treadle on Pat's Little Giant to the floor all the time. Is full throttle the only setting beginners know about? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Perhaps they think that if they don't have the control to use it at low speeds; they will magically gain it at high speeds?

I've noticed students who seemed to think that if they don't have hammer control with a 2 pound hammer then they will have it with a sledge.  They tend to get moved to the anvil missing it's heel and provided with a dead soft hammer to use...

On 10/7/2020 at 7:39 PM, Frosty said:

Seems they like 2x the burner necessary to melt your work. As for not just turning the reg down for lower heat. 

Remembering That this product to appeal to businesses that want to crank out serious amounts of work...

I've never heard of a forge running, "too hot". All that you have to do is turn down the regulator. Once you heat up steel in a forge you are already changing the properties of it and that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

I reached out to Chile about this and they told me that they don't recommend using their forges to HT, apparently lower temps will damage the burners somehow? 

In any case, that answered my question about them. I still plan on going through with it, because I like the burner design and specs on it compared to my Knifemaker, but it is a bit disappointing to hear considering I read otherwise on a few other posts. 

Mine won't arrive until December, so we'll see how it compares then. 

Normally, I would recommend a Hybrid.com burner in a Knife maker's forge; they aren't quite as good, but have the great advantage of a variety of sizes. Unfortunately, they seems to be shut down for now?