Thread: Beginners Forge? Any Thoughts?

Hi Gang!

Well once again, I’m just wondering about whether or not a tool I’d found would be worthwhile to pick up. I’m not ready yet, but I am trying to figure things out for future reference.

While this is quite small I was wondering if it would work for forging razors.

I’m sure that to the members with much nicer/larger forges it may seem like a toy and perhaps it is. My father used to say ‘Ya never know till ya ask”!

I found it at a recommended site in the Forge Wiki:

*Atlas Mini Forge

I’m hoping that the Big Guns will offer some thoughts! Don’t worry, I have a thick skin and you will not hurt my feelings!

Lots of members make forges and get anvils,build grinders etc,but the proof of the pudding is posting up what they made
That forge looks like a neat thing.

I like the looks of the forge, I am partial to small forges for razors. I started off with a bigger forge then I moved to a smaller one. I have not ran my bigger forge in a long while.

Charlie

Agree with Pixel - that looks like a great idea for folks with little space or a tight budget. I've just finished a ten week blacksmithing course and have the forging bug in a bad way, but I also live somewhere where it would be impossible to set up a forge of my own at home. However, *that* would be portable enough to take out to my buddy's land. I'm interested to see if anyone here has had experience with it.

You don't need a lot of thermal mass to forge razor size blades. The same forge will work, if tune-able, for heat treatment.

what I might recommend is to find a blacksmith or knife smith using a gas forge and stop by for a visit to play and see what the options and variations are. The other thing this will do is firmly set the desire to forge in your mind. This will justify the long life of the tool more than thinking you might like to have one.

They are not difficult to make with a little help. Good luck.

My home built forge is smaller, and way less "fancy" and I can manage to make razors in it, so its a good bet that one will be fine!

Originally Posted by spazola

I like the looks of the forge, I am partial to small forges for razors. I started off with a bigger forge then I moved to a smaller one. I have not ran my bigger forge in a long while.

Charlie

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

You don't need a lot of thermal mass to forge razor size blades. The same forge will work, if tune-able, for heat treatment.

what I might recommend is to find a blacksmith or knife smith using a gas forge and stop by for a visit to play and see what the options and variations are. The other thing this will do is firmly set the desire to forge in your mind. This will justify the long life of the tool more than thinking you might like to have one.

They are not difficult to make with a little help. Good luck.

My thanks to both of you!!!

One thing that I was wondering about is the angle of the flame! They refer to it as 'Turbo' in that the flame 'swirls' instead of just coming straight out!

Is this a helpful/useful thing or advertising 'hype'!!

Swirling flame is good. More even heat in the forge.

I picked up a 3 burner from Gas Forge & Blacksmith Forge – Farrier Equipment | Majestic Forge and can tell you that the 3 burner just gets too hot & I had to run just two burners to maintain 1500-1600F. I can send you pics from my phone of what it looks like working if you pm me your phone number. I run mine with a pipe inside so that the flame will not actually touch the blades I am working with. I'll post some pics here on the forum next time I have it up and running. What I can say about majestic forge is that the forge is well made, they answer the phone, and ship quick. Be prepared for around $50 for shipping though...

PM coming!