propane tank forge with one burner - good enough?

D

dperk

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May 16, 2006
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I'm planning on building my first forge out of a propane tank that I have (2" kaowool & hard brick floor). I was looking at the hybrid-burner 3/4" burner and thinking about putting one burner in the center at a tangent. Is one burner ok for a forge like this? I intend to make blades and not billets.

Those of you who have done this, do you quickly re-modify the setup to 2 burners, or is one ample?

Thanks!
-darren
 
I just got a Chileforge Tabasco 1 burner venturi forge a couple weeks ago, I've been quite happy with it so far. You could do smaller billets in it as well.
 
What is the volume of the interior? That will usually dictate what size or how many burners you need. A 3/4 is normally good for up to 350 ci for forge welding.
 
I've made a number of propane forges out of propane bottles. If your planing on using the standard size bottle your hybrid burner will be fine. If your not going to use this forge for making damascus I wouldn't bother with the hard fire brick for the bottom cause it takes longer to heat up. Just use the same insulation as on the walls and coat it good with what ever refractory cement your planing on using. The propane bottles make great vertical forges.
 
Yup, depends on the size of your forge chamber. I've made a few along the lines Ray mentioned. One burner's no problem. The hard firebrick will definitely take longer to heat up and consume more fuel. I used thinner ceramic kiln shelving for floors, but my next one I won't. I'm going to just do like Ray said. I'm expecting it will have a better heat vortex too without the flat floor. I'm going to have the burner come in at more of a tangent too.

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Excellent info guys! Thank you!

I hadn't thought about not using the brick, but that makes sense to me. Phil, I was planning on a setup just like what you have shown. I'm glad my idea of one burner is sufficient. I wanted to order it soon, and now I'm going to. :)
 
You may want to consider going with a vertical forge. The burner goes in at the bottom and heats the whole forge up evenly plus you save a lot more heat with smaller openings. Go with a 2 1/2" X 3" opening inline front and back. That way you can still work on longer blades. Either way you won't have any problem heating up the forge with the burner you plan on getting. I'll weld on a work rest on the front.
 
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