Wayne Coe

I have to disagree with that . Better save money for stuff you will need than have a bunch of unused tools and empty pockets Not if running to the store for that part when the trip is 30 miles!

Josh, I don't know how many times I have told someone something close to that about building a forge.

Alan, McMaster Carr has a thermocouple with a sectioned ceramic shield that I think you can make any length you need. With these if the end burns out you just cut back to clean metal, twist the ends back together and TIG it. The reading actually comes from the very tip. I believe that the metal shields are Inconel not just stainless steel.

Check out the Build a Gas Forge and other attachments on the Forge Supplies page of my web site. Let me know if I can help you. Wayne

I don't understand. What would you do in a kiln that you could not do in a properly built gas forge? When you say kiln do you mean a heat treat oven? With a properly constructed forge and a Pyrometer you can do most anything you need to do with metal. Let me know if I can help you. Wayne

A good belt grinder for $300.00? That does not exist! Check out the DVDs page and Grinders page at www.WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith.com. Depending on your scrap pile, if you are willing to settle for a single speed grinder and if you can find a good used motor you MIGHT be able to do that, then in a few month you are going to want to upgrade to a variable speed grinder and respend money for another motor and a VFD. Let me know if I can help you. Wayne.

Does the VFD have a NEMA 4X enclosure? From Timgum's thread above, and he seems to know what he is talking about, you need to put the drive in another room, enclose it in an enclosure (keep in mind that the drive has a fan to help cool the drive. This will draw the metal grindings into the drive and quickly short out the drive. If it is not to late I would try to return the drive for a credithate to be so negative about your purchase and hope that you get every thing worked out. Let me know if I an help you

Or you could just use refrigerator magnets. I would like to see the burners more off to the side with the flame going across the top of the forge but that would entail rebuilding the entire forge at this time. The fire brick is a heat sink. I would remove it at cast the floor with Kast-0-Lite castable refractory the full width of the floor, from where it starts curving on each side. Let me know if I can help you. Wayne

Those are Frosty T Burners. They are a good burner the black pipe looks about right, I think that Frosty suggests a 9" pipe. I prefer for the burners to come in at a tangent so that the flame comes in across the tip and swirls around inside the forge for a more even heat and less hot spot. Two 3/4" burners is a lot for a 20# Propane tank forge. Your picture does not show enough of the forge to determine what is inside and if anything (floor or feet) prevent rotating the forge to get the flame coming in at a tangent. At this early stage in your forge build you could always cut the mounting tubes off and relocating them to a tangent. Check out the Build a Gas Forge attachment on the Forge Supplies page of www.WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith.com. Let me know if I can help you. I prefer contact by e-mail.

Save a lot of money and get the Moe's Grinder DVD at www.WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith.com on the DVDs page and build your own. You can see the video on the Grinders page. Let me know if I can help you.

It looks like the burner is not centered so the flame may be restricted. The end of the burner should be back in the casting about 1/4". Let me know if I can help you again.

So Glenn, since you just started making knives and your profile does not indicate Bladesmithing or Blacksmithing I assume that you do not forge but are doing stock removal. If you forged you could make the .25 stock any thickness you want. .23 is not all that much thinner than .25. As you do the stock removal to make a blade you will quickly get down to the thickness that you want. You could find some timber bandsaw blades, they are not 5160 but are probably either L6 or 15N20, good blade material. Let me know if I can help you.

Oh, and BTW, when he indicated that he wanted money from advertisers and I asked him "How much", he would never tell me. I guess that I was just supposed to guess how much would be appropriate. Like I go to Wal-Mart and guess how much a product should be.

It seems that the owner there is scared to death that someone might make a dollar and he wouldn't get part of it. Over the years I have sold his products for him but when I retired from going to conferences and no longer was available to sell his products (for which I never charged a fee) he seemed to forget all of that. I was not violating his rules but that did not seem to matter. I am sorry that it has come to that. I felt that I had much to offer and wish that I could continue to help folks there. Maybe they will follow me here, the other forms that I watch and on FaceBook. Let me know when I can help you.