Need help picking a forge

E

Eric1109

Joined
Dec 30, 2015
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Hi. I am starting out in knife making. I have outfitted my shop with necessary tools except for a forge. For some reason I am having a hard time in deciding what to buy. I have narrowed it down to three makes and models
1. diamondback Ironworks, 3 burner metalsmith forge
2. majestic forges, 3 burner farrier delux
3. mighty forge (canadian), 3 burner mighty inferno.

I know I want a 3 burner with front and side openings. Not sure if independant burner controls are really necessary. I plan on doing some forge welding. Is there one that stands out from the rest or are they more less the same.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you
 
What exactly do you plan to do with a gas forge? Knives, or decorative iron work? If your primary use will be knives, the 3 forges you mentioned are a waste of time and money. Not to mention you could build any one of them for under a couple hundred at the outside. A simple dragon's breath forge, blown or venturi will work perfect for knives, be cheaper to operate, easy to build and repair, and cost very little to build in the first place. A gas forge is not rocket surgery or brain science.

If your playing on doing a lot of decorative iron work, then I can see the advantages of the designs shown, but again you can build any one of them for a fraction of the cost. Even if you don't have a welder you could pay someone to weld it up and come out way cheaper. Though I don't think anyone who wants to blacksmith should not know how to at least arc weld.

Also for decorative ironwork it's hard to beat coal, it's very cheap, gets extremely hot, and you can spot heat easily and het odd shaped objects.

For me the only reason I'd consider one of the forges you listed would be for pure high volume production.
 
Thank you for the comments. Yes I do plan on doing other things with it not just for blade work. As for welding,yes I weld. I guess ill search around for info on forges. Tx
 
Take a look at chile forge. They are out of Texas. I have their two burner forge and it has been really good, gets Up to forge welding temp in no time. Plus Stacy Starr and her husband are great people.
 
http://www.hightemptools.com/burners.html A good source of burners, centaur forge and a few other blacksmith suppliers have the blowers if you go blown. I like the blown design because I can ramp the heat up or down and it's a bit more efficient than the venturi style. The venturi style is simpler, but works by gas pressure causing a vacuum to suck air in. You can get high temp ceramic fiber from Ebay and other places, invest in a roll and you can build several forges and have plenty left over for repairs from flux damage. Look on Youtube and the net, there's lots of designs out there for forges, my first gas forge was a freon tank forge, https://www.abana.org/ronreil/minifor1.shtml I finally ate up the metal lining after several years of damascus flux eating away and multiple relinings. The designs you showed would work and be handy, but my feeling is they would be wildly inefficient, a gas forge works by radiant heat, big openings let a lot of the heat out. Also square corners in a gas forge make for hot and cool spots, the round forge works lots better because you get unrestricted circulation of the burning propane.

Depending on your area and if your in town or not, check out http://whitloxhomestead.com I haven't used this forge, but it looks interesting, and if you have access to wood scraps it'd be pretty much free to operate. Don't know if it'd get hot enough to forge weld, but it should, and it'd be plenty hot enough for bending and forming operations.
 
The NC whisper group of forges also are useful multi-purpose forges. I use a Whisper Lowboy a lot. The side door makes larger or curved objects possible that would not fit through an end port only forge.

That said, you will not need a forge for a good while when first learning to make knives. Many top rated makers never owned a forge.

HT can be farmed out in the beginning, and will help keep the knife quality higher.

I would highly suggest you put the forge cost into the best VFD controlled grinder you can afford. The money will be much better spent there. If you already have a good 2X72 grinder, switch it to VS with a new motor and a VFD. Again, it will do far more to make better knives than a forge, which only helps shape a knife.
 
Do NOT buy a Majestic forge.

I've got the exact same model you're contemplating and it's about as bad a design as you could ask for. Not even two years into it and I'm already replacing the insulation. The entire bottom is just a hard fire brick, which is horrible insulation. Real gas hog and generally not great to work out of.

You certainly don't need a large forge to make knives.

I highly recommend you make your own forge just so you can make it to the specs you want. You'll probably branch out into forging other things, so having a wide chamber is better than having a long chamber. You can't fit a 6" scroll for your mom's plant hanger into a chamber that's 5" wide.

As for out-sourcing the heat treatment.... I highly recommend it. Making knives is a really fun thing, but making good knives is even funner! :D

Being new to the sport, you don't have the tools or knowledge to do a solid heat treat, which means you'll always be wondering if you really maximized the potential of the alloy. It might be great, or it might snap. Since it costs so little to send the blade to a professional, do it. No shame in it at all, and it gives you a lot of peace of mind knowing that the blade is now as good as it could possibly be.

And if you do start selling or giving away knives, there's real comfort in knowing they won't break when they're using it. That's really embarrassing!
 
The early Chile forge that I have works like a charm and the newer ones have wider doors and an update burner design.
 
Unfortunately I'll second the DON"T get a majestic forge. I have the 2 burner, it is an inefficient design and mine will not get to welding temp. I'm looking to upgrade mine.
 
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