Vertical forge build questions

[Jim McGuinn]

I picked up a water pressure tank from a friend of mine that the bladder was leaking. Thinking of making a vertical forge with it. Also have one of those propane burners like you use to deep fry turkeys in where it has the stand with the burner then you set a big pot on top. Thinking of drilling out the orifice and hooking up a blower to it. Anybody tried this?

 

[Atlas Knife Company]

Not the proper kind of burner for a forge. First, they're normally around 50k BTU, and you need closer to 100k BTU. Second, how would you get the heat inside the forge? Stick with a traditional burner, such as a Graham 100k. It costs about the same as a turkey fryer burner and is designed to work with a forge.

 

[Salem Straub]

Yeah, that burner won't work so hot for a forge. The closest thing to that I've seen used as a burner would be a propane weed-burning torch- and that with moderate success. It is so easy and cheap to build a nice hot controllable blown burner for a vertical forge that I can't believe people resort to trying to make other things work, and putting up with the results.

There is a lot of info on this forum about making blown burners, in the stickies and if you search.