Could a blade passed back & forth under a weed burner replace a coffee can forge?

R

Rancho5

Joined
Feb 10, 2015
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I've seen the small coffee can forges and the small fire brick forges and how a single blade is grabbed with a pair of channel locks or vise grips and passed back and forth through the flame to get even heat, and I've looked at the 4 inch wide projectile flame that shoots out of my weed burner, and I'm wondering why can't I just pass a single blade through that flame instead? Some of those smaller forges only have a space as big as the space my flame thrower occupies anyway. In fact, the sound the smaller forges make sound like my weed burner. Lots of whooshing, swirling flame and air.

I've seen weed burner forges online but they look pretty complicated.

Thoughts?
 
Its what ive been useing for awhile now. But i find it easier to paint the blank with the torch instead of moving the blade back n forth.
 
Simple math: a 500k BTU weed burner for about an hour or a 30k BTU forge for about 15 hours, that how long a 20lb. tank of propane would last. Several bladesmiths have been known to use a weed burner in their forges. It's not unheard of.

However, with a forge you can stick a blade in to heat while you work on a second blade.
 
So what would a tiny forge do that a weed burner could not? Is it the flames swirling around that do it?
 
The insulating walls cause a favorable conservation of heat and also distribute it evenly. This lets a much smaller amount of flame/fuel heat up the workpiece vs an open flame torch.
 
I made my first knife from a Nicholson file. I annealed it in the coals of my wood stove, did my shaping/grinding/filing, then did the heat treat with a weed burner. It'll works fine for that, but I wouldn't try forging with it.

I tried forging a railroad spike with the weed burner, and I spent MINUTES waiting for it to heat so I could beat on it for a few seconds.
 
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