Thread: Forge Questions
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Old 04-06-2018, 02:51 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Now live in Las Cruces NM.
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For $650 you could build your own and have a lot of money leftover.

Just saying; and you can make the inside round except for a 3" wide floor. A round forge is more efficient as it heats more evenly with properly place burners. It helps to prevent having hot spots. That one they are showing at their web site looks like it just blows straight down, which may be OK for smithing, but for swords and knives you would need to move the part back and forth to heat treat with it. I also noticed that it doesn't have doors and has a large inside chamber, that forge is going to use up a lot of propane and is more of a blacksmith forge than a knife making one. Here is a link to a forge building how to video and only thing wrong with the one he's making is it doesn't have a back door for pass through. But it gives a good idea on how to build one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bnMj4TjKjk&t=158s

My brother and I made one that had two large burners angled to create a vortex blowing slightly to the rear. It was on the diagram my brother found that we were copying and worked really well. We learned to regulate it and could control the temperature very closely after he put a temp gauge on it and it helps immensely when heat treating.

But you know your budget and fabricating skill level. I will say we didn't know how to build a gas forge, but we knew the coke forge was a lot more work, took a lot more time and left us dirty when working with it for very long.

Be sure to use shaded safety glasses to look inside the forge, your eyes will thank you as the light is brighter than it seems and the intense infrared light can harm your eyes in the long term. I soon learned not to look directly at it when I'd retrieve a part I was forging, hard to hammer when all you see is spots before your eyes. We kept the forge area dim when doing knives, better to gauge the colors.

I know guys on TV or YouTube often don't wear safety glasses, but one hot popping spark will ruin your day and maybe alter your life, wear safety glasses or better, a tinted face shield as it protects your whole face.

Last edited by jimmontg; 04-06-2018 at 03:43 PM. Reason: addition
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