Building A Forge!

Rain City

Crew Member
I'm geeking out pretty hard right now. After running my Carpentry/Construction Management company for the past 12 years I FINALLY got into a shop to store all my crap and do the odd woodworking project for my clients. For years though I've really wanted to get back into metal fabrication which I did a lot of I high school but haven't touched since. So this boxing day I went and bought a welder, drill press, grinder, vice, chop saw and all sorts of odds and ends. I built a few things like a stand for the chop saw...
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And a rack for stock.
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My first real project was some brackets for a client. Resized_20180129_161240.jpeg

I was going to copper plate them but it was too expensive so paint had to do.Resized_20180201_170800.jpeg

I was feeling pretty confident after that so now I'm on to trying to build a forge. I've ordered an anvil that is coming in a week and hope to be making knives as soon as it arrives. Yes I ******* love Forged In Fire and YES that is what inspired this. I'm fine with it.
 
Step one on the forge. Cut and welded 3/16" plate to fit the fire brick with minimal cuts. Resized_20180220_195515.jpeg

Step two, which really should have been prior to welding the box (I got excited). Cut out the ends and drilled holes for the burners.Resized_20180224_104716.jpeg Resized_20180223_182554.jpeg

Next step which was probably overkill was to cut and weld some sleeves to hold the burners in.Resized_20180224_120219.jpeg

To be continued...
 
So this morning I assembled the burners. I pretty well got all of this part from YouTube. Tomorrow I'll cut the bricks and load it up. Might get started on the legs too. I'm losing my **** right now because I've tested the burners but only with a small bbq regulator, a little lackluster to say the least. For the life of me I can't find a 20lb regulator anywhere. I'll have to wait until Monday now and try a real Propane store when they're open. Resized_20180222_162443.jpeg Resized_20180224_125543.jpeg
 
still waiting for the sharpness test on a chinook will i get a "it will cut"
100% I will be doing that lol. Into a clean bag or something though, always weirds me out how they waste all that good meat.
 
Aluminum jig molds? Maybe some new butterfly molds? Can get a good knife in many places and can sharpen all to shaving sharp, cant make some nice aluminum molds.

HM
 
Fun! I have only ever used charcoal for this kind of thing - pretty primitive compared to what you're rigging up!

The last hot work I did was literally a hairdryer with a zip tie to keep it switched on, pointed at a barbecue full of charcoal briquettes.

Your setup looks a little more...civilized. The results will probably be better also.
 
The Details

So the burners are made of a 3/8" coupling with a square brass plug drilled and tapped to accept a mig tip.Resized_20180225_083219.jpeg

That tip is then supported inside of the
1-1/2" x 3/4" reducer by 4 allen head cap screws. I enjoyed this part, it felt really fabricatey.Resized_20180225_083246.jpeg
 
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The whole design of the forge was based on using full bricks and limiting cuts and waste. Seems silly now that the bricks were the cheapest part but oh well.Resized_20180225_084434.jpeg

Now I thought LONG and hard about this. How do I get the bricks in there without a removable lid? So you can see here how the top bricks are supported by the sides with a filler on each end. Both fillers come out of the cut bottom brick.Resized_20180225_085640.jpeg

Now the magic... I flipped the forge on it's back, loaded the top bricks and then the sides. Needed to trim a few by 1/16" because they're not very evenly made. Then I flip the whole thing over and slide in the bottom bricks. I did it this way so it was also easy to replace the bottom, apparently they wear out. Resized_20180225_091303.jpeg
 
Rain - this is a great thread. Look forward to seeing what you come up with! You are definitely a skilled fabricator.
Do you not put bricks in the inside vertical walls?
 
I am not a gas fitter maybe you are? but how did you test it for leaks before you fired it up?
Each burner has a shutoff. Another at the quick-connect. And one at each bottle. Plus I paid top dollar for a really good Regulator and added a gauge. It was easy enough to isolate areas and test for leaks. Plus I gave all the fittings the old once-over with a torch while it was running. I think she's ok. o_O
 
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