Atlas Graham Forge Newbie First Run

L

lanternnate

Joined
Nov 5, 2016
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I finally got a chance to try out my Graham Forge from Atlas Knife Company. This is my first gas forge, and I'm still very new to forging in general (only started this summer). My say so doesn't hold much clout, but I'll give it anyway and say I like it a lot. My first forge was a Whitlox Mini wood fired forge. It worked well, and I held onto it for odd shaped things, but tending the fire and dealing with heat variance was always tricky for me. I'm pretty hooked on this gas forge world now where it turns on quick and runs steady and smooth with no effort on my part. The time in the heat to get back to temp is also a lot less, so I spent more time hammering than I usually get to! My right arm will need to learn the new pace...

While I really don't have any other gas forge experience to compare to, my take is this Graham Forge from Atlas is a great forge. The thing is solid, but I also had no issue carrying it with the attached handle. It was really easy to get setup, and it runs very quiet. I'd recommend it to any other newbie looking for their first gas forge. Stacy did a much more in depth review than I can muster (that thread is how I found this forge and a big part of why I bought it). I did take some video though in case others want to see it in action. For context, this is in Vermont where it is 32 degrees outside and was a little windy today (couldn't keep the stick lighter lit). There was talk in the thread from Stacy about how low you can make it go, so in this video I'm running it just above where it would start to sputter. It can go MUCH hotter than this. I cranked it up after to actually forge that spike into a tomahawk as a gift for a friend. I haven't cranked it to full yet. Some day I'll crank it all the way and try my first forge weld (well I tried once with the wood forge and failed miserably).

[video=youtube;KjOmsBaXnVk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOmsBaXnVk[/video]
 
Was just looking at that forge earlier today.
 
The forge will show up as out of stock on the website because he isn't churning out lots of these right now, but if you drop him a note he'll put one together for you.

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Here is some video I took of making the tomahawk so my friend could see it being made. All of you that are much better at forging than me need not suffer through watching all of it ;), but I thought folks might want to see it running turned up a little higher. As you can see it has no problem getting the steel to a good workable temp, and it's still really quiet at that point. This still isn't anywhere near max on the regulator.
[video=youtube;PXChVr7UesM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXChVr7UesM[/video]
 
Just an observation, at 2:28 you can see the heat discoloration on the faceplate. It shows that even though the flame is swirling front to back to front, it's still swirling when it gets back to the front! Also, no giant dragon's breath shooting out of it. No matter what some tell you, dragon's breath is just wasted propane and warm arm hairs.

Thanks for the videos!
 
The lack of massive dragon's breath is very nice. Some videos I had seen of other brand forges online had me a bit worried I'd need longer tongs! Really not an issue with this forge. I'm not sure if this is exactly the correct setting, but what I've been doing is turning the regulator to where there is just a small amount of dragon's breath as I figure that way I know the chamber is fully burning but 'm not wasting propane. The steel gets plenty hot at that setting. I slit and drifted a railroad spike tomahawk yesterday with it and boy is that so much nicer with this new forge getting the piece well heated all the way through. One other thing I thought was worth pointing out is I haven't had any issues with my propane tank freezing up. I've read folks say with other burners/forges they needed a 40lb or even 100lb tank to prevent it from freezing. I ran it for 3 hours straight yesterday afternoon/evening in 20 degree weather, and the standard 20lb tank I have hooked up didn't freeze up once. The bucket of water I had for cooling my drift started to freeze, but not the propane tank :) My guess would be those other forges must need to draw more propane faster to hit their heat target.
 
This is with it turned up a little bit more than the first video for a better idea of time to forging temp. Bone cold to forge heat in windy Vermont weather in a little less than 5 minutes sure beats waiting on my wood fire to turn to charcoal and get hot :) [video=youtube;rT3Za_rMS74]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT3Za_rMS74[/video]
 
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