- Joined
- Feb 16, 2010
- Messages
- 3,666
Let me preface this by stating that I'm not trying to sell my burners here. I just wanted to relate the experience of developing a product and the support that BFC has given me over the years to get to this point.
As many of you know, I began manufacturing forges for sale a couple years ago. I was constantly trying to make improvements to the forge to get it up to the quality of more well-known forges. The basis of the forge was the 2BF, or two brick forge. A simple design, made more solid and reusable. After two years with the assistance of the BladeForums community, I've developed a strong forge design that exists in over 100 shops, and at least one college in Canada. My son, Graham, and I build them. He does most of the brick work and cutting, a local source does the CNC plasma cutting, and I do the welding and tapping.
Last stack of forges that my son, Graham, helped me build
It was still using a modified propane torch that only produced around 6000 BTU, about 1/4 of the recommended 450BTU/inch for forge welding. I was given a burner by one of the burner manufacturer to test with the Atlas Mini Forge. It worked great, but was big and complex. I've always tried to keep my forge under the $250 mark, and adding an $85 burner would move it way beyond that price. I tested a "foundry burner" on eBay that was much simpler, hoping that it's relative simplicity would be easier to reproduce. I tried and tried, but just couldn't get the burner to work. I couldn't sell them with the forge and expect people to make them work if I couldn't get them to work.
I went over to a machinist friend's shop and was discussing it with him. He showed me the burner on his furnace and it was so much simpler than a side-arm burner. Just a gas intake tube and an orifice for the gas about ¼" away. No choke, no flare, just a very simple design. I hastily put together something from the design in my head and tried lighting it. Voila! It just worked. No tuning, other than how far to insert it in the forge. I took it to a friends house and we used it on the forge I gave him two years ago. It was the first forge I ever built. It had none of the forge improvements I've made over the last two years. We stuck the burner in and lit it and proceeded to forge weld our first piece of cable damascus. I took a box of the burners up to a hammer-in and we ran them hard for the weekend. I managed to melt my thermocouple trying to determine the temp of the Atlas using the new burner! The only problem I've had with them was a buyer from eBay who couldn't get it to light. It turned out that he had an empty propane tank.
Sidearm on top, First prototype 30k on left, eBay foundry middle, 250k prototype on right
I've been asked to make a bigger burner by a vendor, something around 100k BTU. I scaled up the design and tested it, and it seems to work. Sam currently has it and I'm waiting for him to give thumbs up/down, but I'm expecting him to approve it. I've also built a 250K BTU burner, but I don't have a forge big enough to even begin to test it with.
Here's the final result, a great, cheap, efficient 30k BTU burner. Stainless steel, brass, and a bit of an old school design capable of 30,000 BTU and proven to be capable of forge welding in a simple 2BF. Competitors will hate me for this, but it sells for less than 1/3 what theirs sell for. My cost to build is less than the cheapest propane torch you can buy, and I've priced them accordingly.
As many of you know, I began manufacturing forges for sale a couple years ago. I was constantly trying to make improvements to the forge to get it up to the quality of more well-known forges. The basis of the forge was the 2BF, or two brick forge. A simple design, made more solid and reusable. After two years with the assistance of the BladeForums community, I've developed a strong forge design that exists in over 100 shops, and at least one college in Canada. My son, Graham, and I build them. He does most of the brick work and cutting, a local source does the CNC plasma cutting, and I do the welding and tapping.
Last stack of forges that my son, Graham, helped me build
It was still using a modified propane torch that only produced around 6000 BTU, about 1/4 of the recommended 450BTU/inch for forge welding. I was given a burner by one of the burner manufacturer to test with the Atlas Mini Forge. It worked great, but was big and complex. I've always tried to keep my forge under the $250 mark, and adding an $85 burner would move it way beyond that price. I tested a "foundry burner" on eBay that was much simpler, hoping that it's relative simplicity would be easier to reproduce. I tried and tried, but just couldn't get the burner to work. I couldn't sell them with the forge and expect people to make them work if I couldn't get them to work.
I went over to a machinist friend's shop and was discussing it with him. He showed me the burner on his furnace and it was so much simpler than a side-arm burner. Just a gas intake tube and an orifice for the gas about ¼" away. No choke, no flare, just a very simple design. I hastily put together something from the design in my head and tried lighting it. Voila! It just worked. No tuning, other than how far to insert it in the forge. I took it to a friends house and we used it on the forge I gave him two years ago. It was the first forge I ever built. It had none of the forge improvements I've made over the last two years. We stuck the burner in and lit it and proceeded to forge weld our first piece of cable damascus. I took a box of the burners up to a hammer-in and we ran them hard for the weekend. I managed to melt my thermocouple trying to determine the temp of the Atlas using the new burner! The only problem I've had with them was a buyer from eBay who couldn't get it to light. It turned out that he had an empty propane tank.
Sidearm on top, First prototype 30k on left, eBay foundry middle, 250k prototype on right
I've been asked to make a bigger burner by a vendor, something around 100k BTU. I scaled up the design and tested it, and it seems to work. Sam currently has it and I'm waiting for him to give thumbs up/down, but I'm expecting him to approve it. I've also built a 250K BTU burner, but I don't have a forge big enough to even begin to test it with.
Here's the final result, a great, cheap, efficient 30k BTU burner. Stainless steel, brass, and a bit of an old school design capable of 30,000 BTU and proven to be capable of forge welding in a simple 2BF. Competitors will hate me for this, but it sells for less than 1/3 what theirs sell for. My cost to build is less than the cheapest propane torch you can buy, and I've priced them accordingly.
