Homemade propane forge questions???

hillbillychuck

hillbillychuck

Joined
Jan 24, 2001
Messages
137
Hey Y'all,

I got a few questions about a beehive forge that I have made. I made it by mixing together clay and wood ashes then I formed a dome shaped mound of this stuff over 2 small coffee cans sitting on a board. I poked a hole in the side for the propane torch to go in, then I let it dry for about 4 months(got sidetracked). When it was dry I pulled the coffee cans out with a pair of pliers and set it up on a board with the hole facing forward and firebricks under it and on the sides to keep it from rolling. The opening of the chamber is about 3-4 inches across and probably about 14-15 inches deep. I fired that mother off with the propane torch and stuck a piece of 1095 in there and it wouldnt get hot enough, so I filled in a portion of the chamber with wood ashes to reduce the space and it still won't get hot enough. The steel gets red right where the torch is and nowhere else. I tried it also with MAPP gas too, same thing. What am I doing wrong here???? Do I need to cover the front of the chamber up and just leave a slit to put the steel in or what? Thanks for any replies, I need all the help I can get :)

Chuck
 
Do a search on this subject. It has been done a number of times and you will find a wealth of info and a number of good designs to help you out.
 
If you are using a propane torch like you get to solder plumbing with,the kind that the head screws on the bottle....Your orge is way to big for thisYou will need to make a bigger ventury tube or a forced air burner to heat a forge this size..
The propane torches only work on the one brick forges as they are small enough thet the torch can heat the whole inner chamber.

Bruce
 
Thanks for the info y'all. I did a search and did find some good info.

Peter, I've been to Reils page and most of that looks a little complicated so far for this hillbilly. I was hoping for something I could do with the screw on bottles, guess I will have to get some of that soft firebrick. I got the kind of tip for the bottles that Wayne Goddard recommends and I have MAPP gas and propane. I have been using a Bernzomatic miniature cutting torch for edge quenching 1095 that uses either pane or MAPP and cans of oxygen, but the oxygen bottles only last for a few knives and they are expensive. I was hoping to rig up something that I could heat up my knives with that would be cheaper than the mini-cutter.

Bruce, I have already reduced the inside of the chamber greatly with wood ashes(filled up about 3/4 of it then tapered it downward towards the opening)and put some pieces of hard firebrick in there to reduce the amount of space that needs to be heated. I am going to try to drill out a piece of firebrick with a slit so that I can put the brick over the opening and just slide the steel in. Do you think this will help or is this a lost cause?? I only make knives so far that are 4 inches or less because of the limits of the mini cutter, and I was also hoping to be able to heat up a little bit larger blanks of steel.

Sorry for so many questions y'all. Thanks for helping!

Chuck
 
Been there Chuck. I built one one time before I built my own burners. I played with it until it worked. If you just have to use torches do this:
Go to Lowes (or anywhere) and get 3/4 steel pipe nipples. Drill at least 4 holes (one front, one back on both sides) in. your forge. If you don't have a steel forge get a section of stovepipe and an end cap while at Lowes. The holes need to be gig enough to allow you to screw the pipe nipples in.

Screw the pipe nipples in.

Lowes sells a torch with a wide nozzle for 14.95.

Buy 4 of them.

Put a stand on the pipe, layer it with kao-wool, use furnace cement to coat it.

Stick the torches in and you can do anything you want except weld.

Believe me it's easier building the burner. He is kinda full of crap if your read all his warnings about precise fitting of the ends etc etc. I think he just likes to grump. The first burner I built took 20 minutes to build. I used a feed tube for a welder for a jet. I used a muffler pipe reducer for the end that had to be so precise and I used a strip from a Coke can for the air control. Worked fine and would weld.

Make the burner but I prefer the Mini Mongo.
 
Greg, the setup I just described was taken from Larry's site and modified for multiple torches. I tried his design and found it just didn't get hot enough for most of the things I did. Larry and I exchanged several emails about the multi torch forge and I even made one with 8 torches for swords. It's just near impossible to get hot enough with the one torch in anything larger than a soup can forgge.
 
Ripper and Peter, thanks for the great info. Especially thanks for the detailed instructions there Peter. I will surely try that out. Again thanks everyone for all the help and good info.

Chuck
 
Peter,
Thanks for the info. Soup can forge? :cool: You shouldn't tempt idle hands.
Regards, Greg
 
Hey y'all,

Here is a link to a website I am attempting to build. I just put a pic of the forge I am messing with on there. I looked a Larry Zoelers page and his heating chamber looks larger than mine, but I was messing with mine all morning and I still cant get it hot enough.

Hillbilly Handmade Tools

Chuck
 
Chuck, I looked at your forge and noticed two things. First, it is a thick momma and that's good from an insulation standpoint but it will take a long time to reach forging heat. Second, it looks like you are pointing straight into the forge. You want the hot gasses to swirl inside. That means you need to sort of bounce the heat off the floor or ceiling and angle slightly to the front.

One oother thing, you are using propane. Larry used mapp gas. It is quite a bit hotter but it is also dirty do you can't use it with your torch.

See if you can borrow a MAPP torch and try that. give it plenty of time to warm up. Good luck.
 
Something else to consider. Harbor freight sells a hand held propane burner thing for burning weeds, melting snow Etc. That is already engineered to work and gives MUCHO hot flame with a removable gas jet built in. I have one but am too lazy to hook it up. It will be VERY easy to unscrew the burner end from the handle add several for a large forge. Hookup to the pressure regulator from a barbeque a few bits of plumbing and some pipe and your in business. That way you can use 20lb propane tanks instead of buying half a dozen bottles of Mapp gas, way cheaper in the long run if you plan on doing more than a few blades.
 
I've been diggin around the www for along time looking for a good forge burner set up and I think this is the best out there. I haven't built it yet but will be soon, Lord willing.
 
Hi again everyone,

Wow!!!:D Y'all are really throwin' up some good stuff now! This is turning into a pretty good thread. Let me try to take all of these replies in order here.

Peter, Yep it is thick it weighs about 30 lbs! I have a MAPP gas tip that I tried this morning on the MAPP gas cylinder and the pane can too but it kept going out. Also that is why I have it pointed toward the center, because if I turn it too much one way or the other or if I stick it in too far it goes out. Think maybe my cans are getting too cold? It only got up to 37F here today and I was doing this outside. Even when I can get a pretty good twist to the flame for a while, it just goes off to the side and heats up a big glowing spot about the size of a silver dollar on the wall of the chamber. When the flame hits the steel it brings up one spot to glowing, but the rest of the steel just turns grey with a little thin band of oxide colors where the steel sticks out the door. Also I only have wood ashes in it to reduce the size of the chamber, do you think it would help to dump out the ashes and give the inside a good sloppin with some stove cement? Also how much is plenty of time? Today I fired it off several times but the longest was for about 20 min. Thanks for the help.

Robert, that is the coolest idea that I have heard yet. I have already been working up an order to Harbor Freight for some other things anyway, just gives me more incentive to go do a little shopping. Also, I have had my eye on one of those weed burners for some time and now that I know you can use em to make knives I will probably get several.:) In my stumbling beginners luck I did think to add a second hole in the hive for a second burner. I just havent opened it up yet, I was hoping to get it working with just one, but that doesn't look good.:( I just have to dump the ashes out and open up the second hole and I can put another burner in there, do you think that would help? Thanks again.

L6, That is a fairly simple looking thing on paper, but I do notice that there are several things on there that require welding, and I, uh, don't know how to weld.:o I mean I have read about it and understand the basic principle, but I haven't ever actually tried it, except for a week of arc welding practice in shop class a really long time ago. That is basically the reason I built the whole thing out of adobe, a good long stretch in the infantry gave me the ability to do some quality sloppin' around in red clay during a rainstorm, but not to many high tech vocational skills that I could actually use.:D Thanks for the plans, I have saved them and will examine them at length.

Sylvester, Thanks for the info. Couple of questions though; Who is Jay Hayes?, And, how can I contact him or view his 69.00 burner kits?

Thanks for all the good info guys.
 
http://www.flash.net/~dwwilson/forge/hayesad.html

He has forges & parts for the forge

Here is the burner that I`m thinking about
Minimongo.jpg
 
Sylvester, the plan Sylvester just posted is the one I said I built in 20 minutes. I have several now that I have built and consider the mini mongo the best burner design I've seen.
 
Well Peter it`s good to know that it works.
My problem is I can`t find any 1/4 or
1/8in black pipe.

20 min. to build, man your fast.
It`would take me a hour,but I`m
old & slow
 
Thanks for the link Sylvester, that is a great website. I think Jay Hayes looks like he has everything one might need to do this whole project right.

Chuck
 
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