Opinions? I just finally finished building this forge. My question is do you think it will forge safely?

[Jacobspivey]

 

 

Opinions? I just finally finished building this forge. My question is do you think it will forge safely? Venturi style burners connected to 200 psi reinforced plastic tubing, all connections are brass barbed fittings with hose clamps except for the regulator hose which is threaded. Hose wrapped in heat resistant tape. Will the fittings or ambient air be too hot and soften the hose? During forging I will definitely not have the hose close to the forge. It is just coiled in the picture/video. 

[George N. M.]

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming.  Glad to have you.

I'm not expert on the construction of gas forges.  I'm more of a plug and play guy.  But as long as you have it someplace where you have adequate ventilation to avoid carbon monoxide and are not near anything you can set on fire and have the insulation adequately sealed to prevent airborne fibers being breathed it look good to me.  I would do something to minimize the "dragon's breath" (flames coming out of either end) by blocking with fire brick. (I have a modified Sandia forge with a chimney vent and doors and have no dragon's breath and I don't know why more folk don't design and build propane forges with this feature to avoid the flames coming out of the ends.)

If you put your general location in your profile we can generally give you better answers to your queries.  A surprising number of answers can vary depending where on this world you are, even within the USA can have differences.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Mikey98118]

1 hour ago, Jacobspivey said:

My question is do you think it will forge safely? Venturi style burners connected to 200 psi reinforced plastic tubing, all connections are brass barbed fittings with hose clamps except for the regulator hose which is threaded. Hose wrapped in heat resistant tape. Will the fittings or ambient air be too hot and soften the hose?

As to forging safely: Outside of your choice of fuel hose, the forge looks safe enough, thus far. You, will be making several more choices about external baffle walls, and how you run that forge; so safety remains an open question. Your hose has plastic tubing; that may be okay or not; depending on whether or not the plastic is compatible with propane; if it is the same type of tubing used in lab burners, it is probably okay. The heat resistant tape is a nice touch. Whether or not your hose clamps will be okay, or become a problem simply depends on type. Screw thread hose clamps are as safe as things get; I have seen other types cause lots of problems. The brass barbed hose fittings are standard and just fine; especially with screw thread hose clamps.

Bottom line is, go slow and check your hose and its connections frequently for the first few months. Safety is carried out with deliberation; not by habit. Have you done a soap test yet?

BTW, dump all that internal mass from inside your forge; the efficiency it gains you, by way of reduction in internal volume is likely to be offset by interference with the internal atmosphere's  circulation. Also, it is likely to encourage some of the flame to back up between the burner's body and the burner port (the opening in the forge that the burner is placed in).

Since you are obviously already thinking about efficiency, your next step is to read up on external baffle walls for forge openings; that is where you will find efficiency's next move. Have you coated your interior with Plistix yet?

I notic that you burner port is threaded pipe. So, once you have decided exactly where you want your burner to point...

You can use a simple pipe cap to control the amount of secondary air that enters your forge. Unless your burner has perfect combustion in a single primary flame envelope, some secondary air induction becomes necessary for complete combustion. Most burners fall into this category. However, any extra air induction reduces forge efficiency. Also, the same over abundance of room for incoming air, can help encourage some of flame to back up through that same avenue. By drilling and grinding an opening just large enough to pass the burner's mixing tube through,secondary air is completely cut off. Then individual small holes can be drilled in the cap, until you see no further improvement in burner performance.