Thread: DIY Gas powered Forge

Mate of mine made his own gas powered forge for making knives. Will see if I can get some details for you.
He made me a sweet little knife from a whiltshire file, gee its sharp.

Originally Posted by Vern

Mate of mine made his own gas powered forge for making knives. Will see if I can get some details for you.
He made me a sweet little knife from a whiltshire file, gee its sharp.

Vern.
My boy is into knives big time.He has been making them from Landy leaf springs.
He has made a few for his mates as 18th birthday presents.
Cheers
Andrew

Melting Furnace (home made) - SmokStak

Andrew, came across this. Hope it is of some help.

Cheers Greg

We do, its LPG powered also (Town gas, might be natural???). Hasn't been used in years and years - not enough heat.

Try and look at some of the knife or blacksmithing forums for forge ideas.
Roversmith link is the correct concept but what you want to do for a forge is turn it on its side and have the burner come in from the top or side.
When it comes to melting metal and propane fired forge you must have a well insulated furnace to keep the heat in and bring up a high enough temp. If you have say an "open" forge like the old days of blacksmithing using coal you will lose too much heat and take a very long time to bring your metal up to temp.
Propane burners are very easy to make. If you really want to get some heat (in the correctly designed furnace can melt cast iron) is the use of waste oil.

Get on Blacksmithing Forum | I Forge Iron & look for Corin's posts. There's not a lot he doesn't know about gas.
For knives, there's a local forum:
Australian Blade Forums

And lots of excellent information on both:
BritishBlades - Home
Bladesmith's Forum Board
And also BladeForums.com

There are plenty of other fora, but these are the ones I visit most frequently.

A solid fuel forge works perfectly well, I haven't noticed any great difference in the time taken to hear metal, however coke or charcoal seem hard to find in most of Oz. Gas has another advantage in that it's easier to see what's happening to the steel - useful when forge welding.

There's many more blacksmiths & hobbyists than you'd think, so there may well be a club near you - have a look in the relevant section of IFI.

If you are making sword or knife blades in the traditional way from wrought iron by repeated firing, hammering, laminating and or plaiting, then a coke or charcoal forge is essential. The carbon from the burning fuel is hammered in as the laminations/plaits are hammer welded together repeatedly and the wrought iron is turned into steel.

Here are some of his knives.That cannon he made on his lathe,its 35mm long,and fires ball bearings with his own homemade black powder.

Andrew