Business question - My first forge for sale at TWO online retailers!!!

As Scott said, yes, I now have them fitting in a flat rate box. There were several little changes, all of which I truly believe make the forge a better product. I read the following statement in the product manual for a solar powered security light:
"Due to continuing product improvement, the actual product may vary from the photo shown."
Some improvements come from hard thinking, some by accident, but they are all improvements.

Phil, you will find this funny: I sent five forges to Scott and he has received four of them. The fifth is sitting in a post office in Honolulu!
 
Battle Creek Knives said:
Zaph1, let me make a suggestion for tweaks after viewing the forge.. if you haven't thought about it already..

lose the handle, and where the base comes into the bottom of forge make a channel bracket that can simply be bolted together by customer, this will also allow the base to sit on top of the forge for packaging..

great dealio man, now I'm off to copying it.. can you give me some 360 shots.?? :D J/K
Click to expand...

What does everybody have against the handle? It's the signature part of the forge in my opinion. It's the only forge I can find that has a handle, and I can't understand why you would want anything big and heavy without one. As for the base, I flipped it over so the flat part is on the bottom. The channel sticks up and makes a great place to set your tongs and packs better in a box.
 
Zaph, Just noticed this! Awesome job on that buddy!!:thumbup:

I've been reluctant about getting into forging because I don't have the space. That little unit would be a very cool way for me to start small and give it a try. I think it's awesome......handle included;)
 
Charles, I like the handle too! That's interesting about a stray at a Honolulu PO. Scott, I'll drop you a line. I might be coming into a few spare bucks in the way of a small grant in the next week or two.

I could probably put one to use for demonstrating small projects. I'm starting up another round of high school forge classes. We've used up the ton of coke I had shipped in four years ago. This time I'll be teaching intro BS with propane forges. I only have two ready (almost) to go. I'll also be participating in a round of monthly weekend arts festivals along with some of my 11th grade applied arts students. That little puppy could be useful for that too.

I have a few questions about the forge.

  1. Does it heat up steel pretty fast? What would you say it's temperature range is? For instance, about how long would a 12"x1"x.25" bar take to heat? Would it heat the whole 12" length?
  2. Is the interior coated with something like ITC 100? Would the interior be accessible enough for the end user to restore it or apply one?
  3. What would you imagine the forge's duty cycle to be? In other words, can the puppy run all day long? And, how many days doing such before you think an overhaul would be needed? And what would that likely entail? New brick? New door steel? New burner or burner tip?
  4. Obviously its size, portability and fuel economy are its strong points. What would be some of its limitations and weak points (if you will)?

Thanks for your time. My hat's off to you Charles! That package is killer!!!

All the best, Phil
 
Phil et al;

I'll let Charles answer your questions. I went from never having owned a forge to buying five! My knowledge is limited.

Thanks!
 
Phil, I might be able to answer a few questions, although maybe not with the expertise you need.

1. Pretty decent heat rate IF you let it soak first. With the back flap off, it gets 4-6" orange, not the entire length. After all, this is just a $20 torch, not a commercial forge burner. However, it is designed to accommodate a larger 1" burner that would get the entire piece orange.
2. The interior is smooth drilled insulating firebrick coated with Rutland 2700 degree mortar. I mix it to a paint-like consistency and paint it on the inside. I don't factory coat the insides with ITC-100, but it shouldn't be hard to do.
3. We ran the forge for about six hours at the KD Hammer-in in Mankato last summer and had no problems. It used about 2-3 lbs. of propane in that time. This version is about 5 revisions better than that one. I don't know the full duty cycle, but my first torch has a couple dozen hours and shows no sign of wear yet, except for a little discoloring.
3b. Two screws hold each end plate on. Remove the plates and take out the bricks. They are in there tight, but will come out with a little wiggling. However, the refractory cement is very easy to replace. Just mix up a couple spoonfuls and paint it in when/if it starts to wear.
3c. I used to paint the end plates with high-temp paint. It tended to burn off and get ugly, and was really a waste of time/money. The back plates barely get warm. If the front plate does start to wear out, you could switch the front and back plates.
3d. I could assemble some pre-drilled bricks and package them as a relining kit. However, I really expect the cement lining to greatly extend the lifespan of the bricks.
4. It's a small burner and forge, too small to forge weld. It's 2.5" diameter chamber limits the size of project you can use it for. You would have trouble forging a large Kukri in it, I know I did and it was a pain. It's meant to be a small forge for knifemaking, not the main workhorse of a mastersmith. It's designed for making 10"-12" OAL blades, not horseshoes or battle axes. I'll have to build a second line of slightly larger forges for that.

Phil, if you were to build a forge one size bigger, what dimensions would you want?

Phil Dwyer said:
Charles, I like the handle too! That's interesting about a stray at a Honolulu PO. Scott, I'll drop you a line. I might be coming into a few spare bucks in the way of a small grant in the next week or two.

I could probably put one to use for demonstrating small projects. I'm starting up another round of high school forge classes. We've used up the ton of coke I had shipped in four years ago. This time I'll be teaching intro BS with propane forges. I only have two ready (almost) to go. I'll also be participating in a round of monthly weekend arts festivals along with some of my 11th grade applied arts students. That little puppy could be useful for that too.

I have a few questions about the forge.

  1. Does it heat up steel pretty fast? What would you say it's temperature range is? For instance, about how long would a 12"x1"x.25" bar take to heat? Would it heat the whole 12" length?
  2. Is the interior coated with something like ITC 100? Would the interior be accessible enough for the end user to restore it or apply one?
  3. What would you imagine the forge's duty cycle to be? In other words, can the puppy run all day long? And, how many days doing such before you think an overhaul would be needed? And what would that likely entail? New brick? New door steel? New burner or burner tip?
  4. Obviously its size, portability and fuel economy are its strong points. What would be some of its limitations and weak points (if you will)?

Thanks for your time. My hat's off to you Charles! That package is killer!!!

All the best, Phil
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for taking the time to post all that Charles! It all sounds good. I just get a kick out of the little Atlas forge! I'm really interested in it for it's small size. If I were you, I'm not sure I'd branch out too quickly with another model. Then again, you'd probably come up with a good one!

I'm probably going to start doing little Saturday intro bladesmith/blacksmithing workshops for grumps (parents of kids at our school, etc). I suspect some of them may be interested in your Atlas forge, assuming we could find them an affordable anvil solution to go with it. Got any ideas on that score? A solid junk of steel that could fit in a flat rate box and then be cast in concrete in a bucket, or some such? Then all we'd need would be a pair or two of tongs, a hammer or two, and a couple of files and folks could be off and running.
 
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I got one for Christmas. Cool deal! And I LIKE the handle.
 
zaph1 said:
What does everybody have against the handle? It's the signature part of the forge in my opinion. It's the only forge I can find that has a handle, and I can't understand why you would want anything big and heavy without one. As for the base, I flipped it over so the flat part is on the bottom. The channel sticks up and makes a great place to set your tongs and packs better in a box.
Click to expand...

nothing against the handle at all, I was just suggesting from the pics what you could do to help get it in a flat rate box (when you originally posted thread).. I take it you've gotten alot of handle hating feedback :)

@phil, do you think that box being sent to Honolulu is some sort of omen?? :D
 
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