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Beginner's Place seemed appropriate for this. So I'm in the process of planning out my next forge. I'm not completely new at this game, I'm already made a small charcoal forge (which ended up failing) and a venturi gas forge (which works). All my tool and equipment before were mostly cheap tools or improvised, so now I'm slowly working at buying/making proper bladesmithing gear. The next on the chopping block is my forge. Now my other isn't bad, it's actually a pretty nice little forge, was even able to do some forge welding with it. The problem is that it isn't the most well-put together forges and internal temp isn't quite as high as I would like. I don't have anything put together yet, just some concepts drawn up on Paint. Beware, the photos are pretty high quality. The body I'm making is from a steel tube I got from a buddy. A little overkill but its free. The rest of the dimensions are in the pictures and the burners I'm planning on making forced air this time around. I feel like I've got the main concepts down, but there are some questions I have that I can't seem to find after hours of searching. -1 burner should be enough in this case to maintain forge welding temperatures, correct? I saw somewhere to make it one burner for every 350 cu/in, this one comes up to 340 (3" radius & 12 long chamber)(the image above in incorrect with the volume, that was before I planned on trimming the size of the tube down) -Do I need the flair at the end of the burner for a forced air burner? Is so what size would I need from a 1" pipe or does it not really matter? -for the fuel jet I was planning on using a brass plug with a hole drilled in it. It's a 1" pipe, and I've seen people mention using a #57 drill bit for the hole. Does this sound right? If not what size should work for this size burner? So yeah. If anyone's willing to give me some direction with this, help's always appreciated. Also if anyone sees anything wrong with the design and is willing to point it out, I'm not the kind to disregard bad advice. And before I forget, I intend on using this forge mainly for making small and large knives and to do some forge welding, therefor its important for me to make a forge than can hold forge forge welding temps. EDIT: Yeah, so as it turns out Photobucket charges users a premium for third party hosting. Anyone looking to share their images just use cubeupload instead.

I've recently learned from fellow bladesmiths on this forum that forced air burners are more economical than their venturi counterpart. After tearing my hair out about thinking that I'd have to buy new burners, I also learned that you can possibly put a blower onto a venturi via the large orifice on the T-pipe that the burner sucks air through. Does anyone know which blower is best, how to attach it, and if this is really possible? If it helps to have the info, I'm using two side arm burners from Zoeller Forge. Would I need a blower for each burner, or is one for the front burner enough? I heard of a smith using a big shop vac motor as a blower, but I also know that a small hair dryer works for a coal forge. Any thoughts on that? I know this is kind of scattered, so thanks for the help in advance.