Hello all,
After a largish amount of scrounging and a bit of fabrication, I got my forge fired up for the first time this morning after work. Took a little mucking around to get it set decently, but it's a hot little sucker.
Can't make any claims regarding it's ability to do things like welding, because I don't know what to look for in that, but it got about 12 inches of A36 to a nice bright yellow-orange in a few minutes, and I figure that's good enough for messing around until I know a little more about what I'm doing. Definately an upgrade from the propane hand torch!
Only modifications from Pete S.'s site were to add a steel back lined with kaowool and a 4" round pass-through near the bottom, and to use a
0-60 psi high pressure regulator instead of the 0-20 psi one. I figured I can always turn it down, so there wasn't too much reason to cap the upper end to 20 psi.A note for those who use this plan, though- it's a real pain (at least in my local hardware stores) to find a propane line that will go from a 9/16" LH regulator to a 1/4" brass pipe. I had to use three extra adapters to get everything connected- a 9/16" LH male -> throwaway tank female adaper, a 1/4" male -> throwaway tank male adaper, and a
1/4" pipe coupling. Those 1/4" adapters must have been more common on older stuff, because they were really hard to find- took four hardware stores and a propane dealership to get that far, and the last hardware store had them in dusty beat-up packages behind a bunch of other stuff.But there is (obviously) a question here- I have the burner coming into the forge body about halfway down it's length, and the flames come almost straight out the front from that point. Is there any passive way (like drilling a hole in the back near the top) to convince some of that heat to move towards the back as well? I'll keep playing with it to get it tuned up just right, but suggestions are very welcome.