ErnieB

Mike! Be very careful with these cheap Gas forges, as 99% of them are not finished off properly, if they are using a Ceramic Fibre as the liner, they all need to be sealed with Liquid Glass, this gets very hard with the more heat the get, the Fibre is very bad, if it get into your lungs, one other thing they cost a arm and a leg to run on the gas use age, you need a Air Forced Gas Forge, they only use one fifth of the gas, and get a lot hotter for using less gas! You need one with a door at both front and back, as Open forges wastes gas heavily, unless you wish to heat your workshop up with it, but once you start striking metal, you will get warm very quickly, as the billets of metal start to lose heat, that heat goes in to the air around it, mine heats up a billet of 50mm x 50mm x 100mm long, in about 4 minutes to welding temp, you need a gas needle valve somewhere on the gas feed line, you set this and leave it alone, when you are starting it up, just turn on fully at the value on the bottle, but always have your air blower on first, then light it with a gas touch. You will see the inside change colour to yellow/white hot in about two minutes, then placing you metal in! Then get productive, but never strike metal when it as get cold, as it will crack it, reheat every few minutes, it make your life much easier! But one other thing make are bye a forge to the size you will need to fit the projects you have in mind, the larger your gas usage will be, there is no point in heating something up that you won’t gain any benefit from! Hope this as helped all you budding metal knocker’s out there, but remember to ware your safety glasses, as sparks fly, in this game!

I'm starting in a new direction with artistic ability, I'm in my seventies now, so it's time to start blacksmithing to keep me fit, I've been making stage props, for the Film and TV productions, then I started doing work for the Asian Wedding planners, a growing business, in the UK. I've made steel decorative Mandaps of all sizes, upto 8m w x 7m d and 3m high, for those of you that don't have a clue what a Mandap is, it a stage prop that they get married underneath, all singing and dancing, with lights and highly detailed, they like to try and out do each other, so they become more complex to produce, but them days are over. Now it time for myself, so I made myself a Airforced Gas Forge, got myself a nice Anvil, that had been in store for over twenty years, it was old when they got it, they redleaded it, before being stored, very little used, got it at a very good price, theres no makers name on it or to how heavy it is, but it very heavy. I've tried to see if I can find it on the internet, the shape is very unusual, could'nt find anything like it, every thing it there, hardy hole and prix hole, horn at one end, but the other flat horn is very short, it does'nt look like it been shortened, if someone did, they did a very good job, as you cannot see any cut marks, just sand casting surface. So the new year beings in a hour or so, so my new venture beings. I'll post some photo's of the gas forge and the anvil, also some of the things I've made in my past, when I've worked out to how to up load them on this forum.