propane bottle forge

hardheart

hardheart

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
Messages
8,968



Forced air is coming from a compressor @ 30psi, just to test until I get a blower setup. The actual airflow is pretty low, moving through a quick couple, 3/4" valve, street elbow, and dropping to 1/2" out the tee. The flare is a 3/4x1/2 bell reducer, you can see how hot it gets in the shot of the interior after ~10 minutes. I'm wondering if I should get something in stainless to put in there instead. I may need to go with larger fittings for air all around when I switch from the compressor to a blower, but the gas tube screws in with 3/4" threads, so it'll carry over, which is good because of all the soldering it took to build it.

Still need to order up the satanite/ITC, so no using it for maybe another week, but me and a buddy did heat up this piece of mild steel a few times to see how things went. We also melted a brass fitting, so that should mean it's getting to at least 1650 F. I'm guessing that it'll reach temp much quicker once the doors are built and the ceramic blanket is coated. There's kitty litter and some scrap pieces of the ceramic in the floor.
 
well, youtube was being funky, so I used another host. If anything looks terribly wrong, I'd appreciate a heads up. Forgot to mention, the doorways are about 4 L x 3 H. Can I just coat the inside of a hinged back door with satanite, or should I put a piece of ceramic on it as well? I'm not sure what's the best way to secure the ceramic wool to it, other than just tying it with wire.
 
Thanks for sharing. I wanted to try a burner setup like you have with compressed air to see if I could dial my forges in easier than the setups that I have now. I was planning to put a cap where my gate valve goes on the 1 1/2" pipe and put a 1/4" NPT quick connect and a regulator going into the cap. You can see my burner setups on my site.:D
 
We found that the flame seems to perform better with the gas feeding in well into the 1/2" pipe. When the gas tip was in the tee, the flame wasn't very robust and would blow out with more than 20 psi. The copper tubing runs about 2" into the pipe past the tee. I guess it has something to do with the turbulence the air makes when it changes direction and moves into the smaller pipe diameter.

The compressed air would be fine if I had a bigger compressor. The 3 gallon tank drains too fast, you can hear the thing running constantly in the videos.
 
This is my burner setup.
forge4.jpg

forge3.jpg

I would take the gate valve off and put the cap in its place. The air and gas would be mixing in the horizontal pipe going into the forge.:D
 
yep, those are the pics I showed my friend before we started. It's a bit risky to do that though, he gets a wild hair and just HAS to build something cool when he sees it.

You air flow is probably a whole lot smoother than in mine, so I would guess your gas feed would be ok in that position. I don't know if it really makes all that much difference to the fuel/air mixing if the air comes through the smaller quick couple or through a blower anyway, so it working one way or the other might not change at all by the time it reaches the elbow.
 
hardheart im thinking about building something alot like yours. can you send me a list of parts and supplies and how you mounted the burner in the tank? im giong to use one of my 35lbs propane tanks for the forge and the other tank is going to stay intact and keep it full of propane.
 
I got the wool from ebay. Ordered the satanite and itc from Darren Ellis. A little bit of kitty litter on the floor. The burner uses quite a few copper fittings soldered together, IG's is simpler and does the exact same thing. If you still want to make it easily removable, I'd just suggest using a tee instead of an elbow, and weld the pipe into a cap/plug to screw on the tee. The mount is a short section of pipe with an ID just big enough for the nozzle to fit through, with 3 nuts welded to the outside with bolts used to hold the pipe in place. Cut the hole at an angle to run the pipe tangent to the curve of the body, and place the pipe in far enough to account for the thickness of the insulation.

Used a small shop vac from Lowe's instead of the compressor the other day. Tough to meter the air with the ball valve, but makes a nice flame. Cut down the hose attachment to a diameter big enough to fit into a pvc fitting screwed into the valve.
 
i decided to go with the style burner that IG uses and and just thinking about welding the black pipe to the body of the propane tank. im also going to use a T like you suggested. im doing it all in metal. also for the blower im going to use a squirrel cage fan. i found a couple of small ones in my grandpas garage. i can mount a flange onto the pipe before the gate valve and weld a plate onto there with a hole big enough for the air to flow from the blower. since my buddy wants to get into the art but make swords and axes and such im going to make him one that is alot longer but not until it comes time to harden the blade. im also going to have to figure out how to mount a heater into the forge with a thermometer for the tempering. thermometer needs to be at the other end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top