Lighting a forge

[C Craft]

The forge is getting re-worked again, I am actually going to fire this thing soon.:55: Or at least that is what I keep telling myself, it has been a long time coming!:34:

This forge started life like this. Since I have a bad back everything in my shop is on wheels. This was my grinder/forge cart. It has kept evolving.

It has been transformed into this, and I re-named it the War Wagon, from the John Wayne, movie by that name! :biggrin: What, I am a die hard shoot em up, my hero, John Wayne fan. Those were movies worth seeing, those Hollywood guns can shoot for a week before you have to reload. .

So here are the air chamber W/choke plate I originally designed for these burners.

So when I decided to go with a blower on this forge I had to rotate the bell reducer and here are the pieces I just finished fabricating to bring the air supplies to the burners.

Just ignore the junk scattered under the forge as the top has been become a catch-all while I am working on it. Also the pipe wrench will come out of there as well. Needed it in there while I rotated the bell reducers to the other direction. :what!: :biggrin:


I am going to hang a blower on this bad boy, before the day I christen it! So as stated I have been busy fabricating the pick-up pipes for the air supply, and that brings every thing up to date.

Now this is where the the question/s come into play. If you notice on the blue tape on the pieces I have fabricated is.

I am thinking of drilling and installing a couple of those igniter's for a grill at this point. I remember someone saying that they had one set up on their forge. I can't remember for sure but it may have been Bruce Bump! Anyways, I know from experience on my gas grill they don't last long! Also if I do what I am presently thinking about the actual igniter would have to screw in the pipe and so far I haven't been able to find one that is set up to screw in, most are like this one.

Not set up to thread in!!!!

I am wondering if that is because the grill is outside and exposed to the weather or are they just not worth anything????????

Does anyone use an igniter like this to light their grill????

If so how does it work???

Since I now can't get to the choke plate of the burner to light the burners I have to come up with another train of a thought! I have heard horror stories of someone reaching inside the chamber to light a burner. IE, burned arm hair, singed eyebrows and one case where the guy said it sent him across the room and when his ears quit ringing he realized he no longer had eyebrow or mustache! :what!::cursing: So that kind of makes me leary of that way of lighting the burners!

So how do you light your forge and do you have any suggestions on this one???

 

[C Craft]

So this has me to thinking this might work on the forge. It is a simple drawing for an igniter for a potato gun.

I can weld a thread piece into the tube where the air flow goes into the burner, inset a long bodied automobile plug and the automobile plug should be able to handle the heat and the threads seal off the gas!!

Anyone care to comment on this idea for an igniter?????

 

[Bruce Bump]

It wasn't me that has a pyro electric starter on my forge. I,m thinking it couldn't handle the heat and would be reliable.
I shoot some wd40 on a paper towel inside and set a match to it

 

[C Craft]

Thanks, Bruce for clearing that one up. Hmmmmm, :les: WD40, that would work!

I still remember someone talking about using a grill starter to supply the spark to start their forge. Just can't remember who, I'd like to talk to them and ask how well it worked and how it is holding up!

 

[Lagrange]

Interesting stuff...my curious mind is always trying to pick up information that I might need down the road.

 

[EdCaffreyMS]

Personally, I light my forges with one of the "trigger" equipped propane torches. Bruce is 100% correct, that igniter/lighter will work once or twice.....before its burnt out by the forge.

I hate being a nasayer, but I cringed when I saw the pictures. I can't count the number of phone calls and emails I've gotten from follks who have tried to build a temp controlled forge, only to have major issues with them.

The rule of thumb with forges is: K.I.S.S..... The more you overtake the plumbing...they easier it is to stop up the drain.

I understand that building something like that is a labor of love, and its no fun when someone like me comes along and doesn't approve, but I've gotta be honest.....its just a heartache in the making. The part that frightens me the most is the "gas" line right on the forge body...that's a receipe for a bomb!

Some folks believe that building one of these forges has some kind of advantage....it doesn't. Based on all the calls and emails I've received, asking for help/advice, I believe you're gona spend more time fixing, or trying to figure out how to fix problems, then you will using the forge.

Sorry I can't be more positive.

 

[J. Doyle]

My thoughts echo Ed's. I don't have ANYWHERE NEAR the experience with forges as Ed or Bruce, but I looked at the pictures and thought your setup is WAY too complicated. Too many parts, too many angles, too much plumbing, PID, fancy ignitors (that won't work, as mentioned) etc. You're asking for problems with it.

You should see my forge, or Ed's........super simple, light easy with a propane torch, first time every time, no singed hair or eyebrows and parts you could count on one hand even if you had a table saw accident back in shop class.

Don't over engineer a forge.

 

[C Craft]

Thanks guys advice noted!

The setup is not nearly as complicated as it looks I just have it set-up where I can run both burners or one at a time if need be or I desire. Gas really don't care what direction it goes and the pressure that it arrives at the burner is dependent on the pressure set at the HP regulator.

I have heard it said, before I ever started this, that it won't work but, you know what they say about us hard heads. When you can't be told something you have to learn it the hard way. So if it don't work it's on my back!! The gas solenoid can be removed! If I can't make it work then I will be a convert to the, it won't work side but I'll never know till I try!:les:

Now back to the question about igniters the more I re-search this one the more I am deciding I really don't want one.



So got to figure out where I can get one of these!:biggrin:

How do you light your forge????

 

[KenH]

My question to folks who know - does trying to temperature control a forge ever work very well? I tried it once with a venturi forge using solenoid valves and PID, that didn't work so good. I could control temp better by playing with gas valve and we all know how well that worked!
I'd "heard" (read) a blown forge could be PID controlled to some extent by controlling speed of blower. Is this true? OR - is it by far simplest to use a forge as a forge with no attempt at temperature control other than gas valve, then get (buy or build) an oven for temperature control?

Ken H>

 

[EdCaffreyMS]

does trying to temperature control a forge ever work very well?

In a situation where the overall setup is realtivley simple (single burner), and thermal mass stays relatively constant, such as in the case of a salt tank, yes, a temp controlled setup works reasonable well.

In the case of a forge being used to forge steel, No. PIDs and thermal couples simply cannot keep up with the fluctuation in temps due to introducing and removing additional thermal mass......put a bar of steel or a billet into the forge, and the forge tries to compensate for the rapid temp drop.....then on the ramp up, it overshoots the set point, and when the thermal mass (bar or billet) is removed, the burner immedately shuts off, and the temp in the forge drops to quickly for the electronics to keep up, meaning that in a forging situation, the forge is always fighting against itself.

In the beginning, most were attempting to build PID controlled forges for heat treating purposes, then it turned into a "quick-n-easy" way to obtain/maintain "welding temp"...which most quickly learned didn't work either (the issue of thermal mass magnifies with damascus sized billets). Personally, I believe these PID controlled forges came about because of the "instant gratification" attitude.....but its just simpler, less costly, and less time consuming to just learn how to use a simple forge.

So far I know of only once major accident with a PID controlled forge, and thank God that person lived to tell the story. I'm not trying to be a butthead about the subject, but the caring part of me, makes me plead for folks to just steer clear of PID controlled forges, because in my opinon, its not "IF" and accident will happen, its "WHEN".

I'll leave it alone now. and get back to the actual subject of this thread.....lighting a forge. I really don't think there is a completely safe way to light a forge....but I've settled on the propane torch with the "trigger" control. OH! I already said that. :biggrin:

 

[Rudy Joly]

I think you already mentioned the K.I.S.S principle.
The long neck lighters for grills work about as good as anything. Some times the striker from my torches. Always done from the side of the forge opening so you don't ignite your paw. **Probably most important is to turn on your air BEFORE turning on the gas.....unless you like a big flame coming out of your blower or worse.**

Rudy

 

[Fred Rowe]

I agree with you Ed it is a matter of satisfaction or gratification in building a complex forge with Pid controls. I built this one ten years ago; its blown, uses well head gas, has high low control and I'm pleased to say it holds temperatures within two degrees. It is set up "fail safe" if the power should go off, everything shuts down, the gas solenoid closes. The forge cannot be lit without the blower fan running. I like the fact that it does adjust to the temp change when a colder thermal mass is introduced into the forge body. I find it saves time on the re-heat of billets. The high end gas is activated and the temp rises quickly, then it shuts off when the set point is reached. I light my forges with a piece of kaowool on a long wire, sprayed with WD40.
I built this forge with a good friend, doing the precision welding, along with the fact that he is an excellent fabricator and a joy to work with. I've also built the basic forges and they are fine, but then I'm a muscle car guy from the 60's and building a big blown forge with all the bells and whistles was, for me, the only way to go.

 

[C Craft]

Fred, that baby is worth howling about! I have seen your hotrod before, and I must say it makes mine look simple!

It is kind of like comparing a dragster to a Saturday night bomber at the local track!

Look I knew going into this thing that the consensus says it won't work! And I am not sure till I test it if I got built into what I need to take a shot at making it work! But if I never tried I would always be thinking in the back of my mind, "well I wish I had at least tried it"! I know there are a lot of people that have a lot more time and experience in forging than I!

However I did not enter into this blindfolded, I took the idea and approached a mechanical engineer on another forum, with this idea a long time ago and he says, he has got one and it will work. Time will tell but I will have tried it and know it either doesn't work or that it is beyond my limited experience to make it work!

For me it ain't got anything to do with instant gratification, it has to do with making something that works the way I want it too and need it too! Maybe it is re-inventing the wheel but that is what we been doing since the inception of the wheel to begin with, or we would all still have stone tires. :les:

If it don't work I pull the plumbing apart and I still have a propane forge with two burners that can be ran together or independently, and a PID that gives me constant readings ont the temp in the forge, and I go back to all manually handling the control of the forge! You see the pictures that show this forge in the beginning was how I used it originally. However I learned that it needed to be mounted to the table the hard way. I was rolling out of the garage one day to use it and it hit something causing the cart to rock. The forge went off of the top and hit the concrete driveway. It broke the lining inside of the forge and messed up some of the original plumbing. So while doing a re-build I figured why not kick it up to the next level. That leaves me more time to forge and less time spent in the controlling of the forge!

I appreciate the heads up that it could be dangerous but I had the idea that there is a inherent danger from the beginning and I never approach anything concerning gas and or electricity half-heartedly! Unlike some I have spoken to over the years I don't need the roof to fall in on me before I get it!

Honestly I was looking for a safe way to light a forge.

You see the one story of lighting a forge was not really about lighting a forge.:55: And since I am coming clean it was not some one else it was me!!

When the wife and I first got married and after I got out of the Army we rented an apartment in an old off grade house here in Florida that had been subdivided into three apartments. The old house had no insulation in the wall and in the winter time when the wind howled outside it howled inside as well.
The unit that we rented had an old propane heater in the kitchen that was very temperamental about lighting! We had a night where the actual temp had dropped to 18* with wind chill that morning it was around 0*. I got up and was going to fix breakfast went into the kitchen and turned all the burners on the stove on and reached for a match lit the floor heater and sat the box on the counter behind me.

That particular heater when lit you had to give it a minute to warm before you slowly cracked the gas wide open! It was cold and I was in a hurry and turned the gas up too fast and it blew the flame out. I shut off the gas valve but, instead of waiting for the gas to clear I reached grabbed a match, turned the gas back on and stuck the match to the heater. There was too much gas build up and when it lit, it ignited the propane hanging in the cold air at the heater. Read up on propane hanging in the air when it is cold, it is bad juju if you don't already know that!

The heater blew me off of my feet singed one of my eyebrows off and half of my mustache. Now I knew better I just got in a hurry and careless because of the hurry. Since then I respect gas a whole lot more. The situation now is laughable :s12137: but at the time, I nearly dirtied my britches.

This is why I was asking how to you light your forge!!

 

[KenH]

Nice looking setup there Fred - I'll bet your forge never fully shuts the gas off but varies the fan speed/air flow to control temperature? I'd expect with all those burners you use high to ramp up temperature, then switch to low for maintaining temp? Just guessing on how it works, but I KNOW it sure looks nice! I see two PID controlled forges? Impressive!

Ken H>

 

[Fred Rowe]

Fred, that baby is worth howling about! I have seen your hotrod before, and I must say it makes mine look simple!

It is kind of like comparing a dragster to a Saturday night bomber at the local track!

Look I knew going into this thing that the consensus says it won't work! And I am not sure till I test it if I got built into what I need to take a shot at making it work! But if I never tried I would always be thinking in the back of my mind, "well I wish I had at least tried it"! I know there are a lot of people that have a lot more time and experience in forging than I!

However I did not enter into this blindfolded, I took the idea and approached a mechanical engineer on another forum, with this idea a long time ago and he says, he has got one and it will work. Time will tell but I will have tried it and know it either doesn't work or that it is beyond my limited experience to make it work!

For me it ain't got anything to do with instant gratification, it has to do with making something that works the way I want it too and need it too! Maybe it is re-inventing the wheel but that is what we been doing since the inception of the wheel to begin with, or we would all still have stone tires. :les:

If it don't work I pull the plumbing apart and I still have a propane forge with two burners that can be ran together or independently, and a PID that gives me constant readings ont the temp in the forge, and I go back to all manually handling the control of the forge! You see the pictures that show this forge in the beginning was how I used it originally. However I learned that it needed to be mounted to the table the hard way. I was rolling out of the garage one day to use it and it hit something causing the cart to rock. The forge went off of the top and hit the concrete driveway. It broke the lining inside of the forge and messed up some of the original plumbing. So while doing a re-build I figured why not kick it up to the next level. That leaves me more time to forge and less time spent in the controlling of the forge!

I appreciate the heads up that it could be dangerous but I had the idea that there is a inherent danger from the beginning and I never approach anything concerning gas and or electricity half-heartedly! Unlike some I have spoken to over the years I don't need the roof to fall in on me before I get it!

Honestly I was looking for a safe way to light a forge.

You see the one story of lighting a forge was not really about lighting a forge.:55: And since I am coming clean it was not some one else it was me!!

When the wife and I first got married and after I got out of the Army we rented an apartment in an old off grade house here in Florida that had been subdivided into three apartments. The old house had no insulation in the wall and in the winter time when the wind howled outside it howled inside as well.
The unit that we rented had an old propane heater in the kitchen that was very temperamental about lighting! We had a night where the actual temp had dropped to 18* with wind chill that morning it was around 0*. I got up and was going to fix breakfast went into the kitchen and turned all the burners on the stove on and reached for a match lit the floor heater and sat the box on the counter behind me.

That particular heater when lit you had to give it a minute to warm before you slowly cracked the gas wide open! It was cold and I was in a hurry and turned the gas up too fast and it blew the flame out. I shut off the gas valve but, instead of waiting for the gas to clear I reached grabbed a match, turned the gas back on and stuck the match to the heater. There was too much gas build up and when it lit, it ignited the propane hanging in the cold air at the heater. Read up on propane hanging in the air when it is cold, it is bad juju if you don't already know that!

The heater blew me off of my feet singed one of my eyebrows off and half of my mustache. Now I knew better I just got in a hurry and careless because of the hurry. Since then I respect gas a whole lot more. The situation now is laughable :s12137: but at the time, I nearly dirtied my britches.

This is why I was asking how to you light your forge!!

We think a lot alike. I read some post from Stacy Apelt on BF about a dual control forge with a high and low separate controls. I first considered a pilot light, but what Stacy said made a lot more sense. The forge is always lit using the low end controls I can make the forge run just below set temp, with the high side injecting fuel to bring temps to set point. I think knife makers have something in them that makes them search out solutions and carry those solutions as far as they can. I admire your tenacity. Keep us posted, Fred

Nice looking setup there Fred - I'll bet your forge never fully shuts the gas off but varies the fan speed/air flow to control temperature? I'd expect with all those burners you use high to ramp up temperature, then switch to low for maintaining temp? Just guessing on how it works, but I KNOW it sure looks nice! I see two PID controlled forges? Impressive!

Ken H>

The two switches you see on the panel red and blue, the blue one turns the main solenoid on with the fan, the red one controls the high side the high end is controlled through the pid, it turns the high gas/air off and on as needed to maintain the set temp. The "T" handles sticking out of the alum. panel, the one on the left controls the low end gas, the one on the right controls the high end gas. The two round black knobs are rheostats to control the low and high ends. After operating the forge for a while I closed off the two end burners and run the three in the center. I very fortunate to have well head gas to run this big boy on. I don't know how efficient it is but it heats quickly and holds set point dead on.

Regards

 

[Bill Hubbell]

I just crumple up a little ball of newspaper, light it, toss it in the forge, and turn on the gas valves. That way I don't have to reach into the forge at all with a torch.- and the gas never has a chance to build up before lighting. It usually blows a little half-burned paper out onto the concrete floor, where I step on it- a little messy, I guess, but my shop's far from immaculate anyway. To each his own, I guess. One thing I wish I would have included when I built it is an idle feature- maybe someday.

 

[KenH]

Oh, I meant to comment on that well head gas - not many folks get a chance to use that stuff. Got to be a story behind that - tell us how you get well head gas? You live close to the gas well? "IF" you've secretly tapped into a gas line coming from a well head, you don't have to mention that part {g}

Ken H>

 

[Fred Rowe]

Oh, I meant to comment on that well head gas - not many folks get a chance to use that stuff. Got to be a story behind that - tell us how you get well head gas? You live close to the gas well? "IF" you've secretly tapped into a gas line coming from a well head, you don't have to mention that part {g}

Ken H>

My wife and I purchased this acreage in 75 and moved onto the property in 80. We lived in a 36 x 8 foot Niagara trailer [1958 model] for a year while we got some lodging together.

Gas drillers came through in 1990 and drill along the entire ridge. They drilled 6 wells on our place, 1 deep well [5200 ft] and 5 shallow wells [1300 ft]
Three of those panned out, the deep one and two shallow ones. The gas from the deep well produces gas which has more btu's for some reason. The three remaining wells are all hooked into the gas lines that service this property. There are 4 residences on this 60 acres, each one has access to the gas; that was part of the deal I struck with the drillers.
We all heat our homes this way and I operate my shop using the well head gas.

Well head gas has all the different gases in it along with different impurities. We have bleeders at different locations on the lines to blow the water off. We installed almost a mile of 1 1/4 inch black plastic pipe under ground in order to get the gas to the houses.
Needless to say its a Godsend. We live in northern Appalachia, a pretty poor region of SE Ohio; the gas has helped a lot of families to get through the winters.

Before they drilled these wells; we contacted Columbia gas, who has a 10" line running in an easement close behind our house, they wouldn't give us a tap for any amount of money.

Fred

 

[C Craft]

Wow, you really do have your own well, so to speak! Years ago they did an oil exploration on the 360 acres my mother-in-law owned. They used miles of seismic cable and a vibrator that looked like a big land scraper with a huge hydraulic ram under it. This an update version, of the same machine. They must have had 15 -20 of those machines. They would string the cable and travel along the cable put the ram down and vibrate the he!! out of the ground for about 5 minutes at a time. Pick up the ram move up the cable a little farther and do it again.

That thing under the truck is a big ram capable of lifting the truck when it comes down to the ground and vibrates at an amazing rate of speed. They done that for three days up and down the property. The ones they used had a plate about twice as big as this one. They would leave neat square compacted holes in the ground probably 5' X 5'. I will say this they said when they left they would leave everything like they found it. They back filled all of those holes and any tracks left by the machine. The only place you could tell they even had been there was they went into a cypress swamp back behind us. I kind of figured they would stick one of them machines in there but those things had so much power they never even bogged one down in there.
Never heard what they found as my wife Grandmother had sold the mineral rights to the property years before for a little of nothing, when her mind got bad.
Really don't matter my mother-in-law done the same thing and sold the 360 acres for a little of nothing when her mind got bad! :taz: I had planned on being buried there but what the hay!!!

 

[KenH]

Thanks for the update Fred - I have been away from computer for a day. Mardi Gras is going on and my wife is in one of the krewes (A Mardi Gras Krewe is a club that has the parades with many floats), so I have to spend a day involved with that once a yr. Not really my idea of fun, but it does keep clean socks for me {g}

In South Louisiana there are folks who have done the same thing you've done. A good source of free gas.

Later