Plans for a new forge

[ES Blade 0]

I'm going to make a gas forge and I was wondering what way I should go about that. I want one that can work with 20" to 1' knives. Also I don't have any pork money for the folk in D.C. So $150 is max for me. Have any suggestions?

[sethhoward 0]

Here is an easy one. Pretty inexpensive too. I used one like it for years before I built my Fogg style vertical.

 

http://www.jamesriser.com/Machinery/GasForge/PropaneForge.html

 

 

Seth

[Doug Lester 404]

It's going to depend on a lot of things one of which would be your ability to scrounge material. A blown burner is generally less expensive to build than a venturi burner, if you can get a cheap blower. A venturi burner doesn't need a blower but you will need to have the ability to drill and tap for set screws, metal nipples, and mig tips. Of course this will also depend on what you have on hand around the shop. The body can be out of a lot of different things. Heavy walled pipe with about an 8" inside diameter is the classic thing to use for the body but I have one that I used a large mailbox for. The other that I use is cast from Cast-O-Lite refractory. One that I no longer have was made from insulating brick that was mortored and wired together the coated on the inside with a refractory. You could even use chimney flu. The ceramic insulating matting and a refractory coating isn't all that much. The expensive part is generally the gas connections that you will need. I suggest that you go to www.elliscustomknifeworks.com or www.zoellerforge.com and check out the items that they have as well as examples of forges that others have built.

 

With the requirement that you be able to work with up to a 20" blade you would probably be better off with two forges. One would be a long body forge with two burners for primarily heat treating. The second would be a shorter, like 8-9" deep, forge with a pass through port on the back side. This would be used primarily for forging. Because of the short body and the pass through ability you could use it to forge any length of blade. You can only work about 4-6" of steel at a time so that's all you need to heat at one time`. However, if you keep your knives on the shorter side, like maybe an inch or so longer than the depth of the pass through forge, you could still use the shorter forge for heat treating.

 

 

Doug Lester

[ES Blade 0]

Thanks y'all.