First forge firing

[Dan Pierson]

Finally successfully fired up the forge I won at IG's Hammer In a couple of months ago. The blower it came with couldn't handle the back pressure from the way I've closed off the end so I got a replacement from Blacksmith's Depot. It arrived Monday -- a little grinding down of the iron pipe coupling to fit it's smaller outlet and it dropped right on.

I'm pretty sure that I am not tuning correctly. It's running at 3 lbs of propane in the pictures with the gate valve wide open and the intake on the blower mostly closed. I gather that using that is gentler on the blower than using the gate valve. As you can see there's a lot of yellow flame coming out. I suspect that there should be less and it should be bluer?

Also, the forge lining kept sticking to the hot blade and pulling up, almost like taffy. Any idea what that was? I was resting the blade directly on the bottom of the forge.

The last picture is my very first Knife Shaped Object from the new forge, made of thoroughly abused Mace and Aldo 1084. It needs to have the tang drawn and some straightening but it may be salvageable. What do you all think?

BTW: My new lighter hammer, a Nathan Robertson 1 3/4 lb Czech style was a real pleasure to use.

 

[69_knives]

You should be able to have a lot of control over the flame size and intensity. Hard to tell though without knowing the size of the burner orifice. My burner orifice is #60 and it takes 8 or more PSI to blow flames out like that.

Controlling the air with the gate valve will give you a lot of control over the flame type, size and heat intensity.

nice work on the KSO, I have tong envy now too.

slowly close the gate valve until you have a nice soft blue flame and go from there to create the atmosphere you desire.

 

[JTknives]

It looks like your getting a lot of flame out of the frount. that just wastes propane, i turn mine down till i have just a little yellow coming out the frount.