Hello, Looking For A Forge

DanF

DanF

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Apr 17, 2017
Messages
1,321
Hello to all, new here, been dabbling with knifemaking for about ten years as I had time between work and life. Did not have a lot of time to warrant buying the good stuff, but I just retired and I'm going to try to make up for lost time now.
I've gone from a railroad track anvil to just purchasing a 152# Peter Wright london pattern anvil, am getting ready to pull the trigger on a KMG grinder and am looking for a gas forge that will be sufficient as my skills and ambitions grow. Hoping I can get some input from you experienced folk as so far, I have only used a diy charcoal fired contraption I threw together.
I'm interested in something that will allow me to worke my blades, weld and temper after completion. I have a budget of about $600 set aside for the forge.
Thanks for your input.
 
There are two answers:
1) Buy a good forge from a place like NC Forge company, Atlas, or Mankle. I like the NC Lowboy and NC Knifemaker, because they can be used for wide projects as well as knives. Your $600 budget will buy one of these and few tongs. (The swing arm forge mount is nice, BTW.)
If just doing knives, the Atlas Graham is a good portable forge.

2) Build your forge.
For $600 you can build the Mac-Daddy of forges. Two inches of Hi-Z wool, satanite, ITC-100, etc.. You can add a two stage blown burner with PID control ( my plans are in the stickys), all sorts of whistles and bells, a good size chamber, HT muffle, ... and still have enough left to buy a 100 pound propane tank, a half dozen Tom-tongs. With PID control, it will be far better for HT than a commercial forge.
 
Thanks for your thoughts, I'll spend the next few days going through the threads to see if I think I can do a reasonably do a good job on a diy forge (the savings and extra tools would be great!).
Another question please; would I benefit from the variable speed grinder enough to make the extra $$ worth it over the three speed?
Thanks again
 
I never heard of anyone who regretted getting VS. It is by far the way to go if you plan on doing serious knifemaking.
 
Then VS it will be!
Thanks,
 
After reading many threads for building a forge, I believe that would be a good solution for me for a permanent forge in my shop. But, for right now I'm ordering the Atlas mini (I would have preferred the Graham but they seem to be out of stock), due to it's portability and it will give me time to familiarize myself with the gas forges and their abilities and can better determine what I want in that "macdaddy" forge I will put together later this year.
 
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