Coffee can/weed burner rig

One

Banned
Here’s my cute little weed burner rig.

The refractory is 1 inch high density thermal blanket saturated with cone 10 porcelain slip

The aromatic cedar splints make for a nice rich fire.

For forging…
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AND,… heat treating with the muffle insert…
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neat rig Tai. Think I saw or heard one like it in your Hammerjamin' vid.

Would the weed burner heat a lager cavity if you wanted it to? I am wondering if it maybe would even work a little better with a bigger volume so that a lot of the heated gas doesn't blow out the front/top?

The wood splint for atmosphere control is a good idea, for sure.

take care,
Kevin
 
Kevin, yes it will work on a larger scale, but uses more gas. For general forging that size seems just about right. It's mostly excess fuel from the splints blowing out. It's so rich that it actually coats the blades with soot.

The splint in the side in the muffle pic is to shield the muffle itself, but a wood chunk also goes inside the muffle at the back, to shield the blade.
 
Tia here's my weed burner. it works well and heat welds small pieces. I like yours but i'm going bigger will let you now how it works.
 

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Thanks for putting the pics up, Tai. After I emailed you about it I went ahead and built a wood/charcoal forge instead, but I've come to realize forging is much like grilling for me. As much as I love doing each with charcoal sometimes the convenience of gas is real nice. I've got both bases covered with the grill, now I just need a gas forge to add to the collection.

I don't get home until around 6:00 most days, and I've got to get the boys ready for bed at 8:30 so it's tough to do any forging in that time frame. It would be nice to be able to turn the forge on and start hammering in a few minutes.
 
I developed this system just for something quick and easy for my students to set up, but like it so much it's all I use outside of my larger charcoal set up. I have a couple more expensive stainless steel burners and an electric furnace that I don't even use anymore...

You can create reducing atmosphere inside the muffle by putting a piece of wood in at in the back. I also use a splint in the outer chamber to shield the muffle itself. The muffle is a little extra long and sticks out the back to make room for the wood chunk inside. If done right, all you get is a little patina, but no scale or decarb.

The refractory is so efficient that the cans never get hot. It's also such a nice light weight refractory that it heats up and cools down in seconds. So, you can turn it down between heats to save gas, although it's very efficient even with out doing that. It's nice to be able to bump the heat up or down so easy in general. It’s almost as “responsive” as a solid fuel forge.

I can forge about any size blade in it, but it is limited in size for heat treating. 4-5 inches
is about it for HT... good for EDCs though.

You can get another inch or so out of it if you pump the blade, but I don't like doing that too much. I just want to let it sit and soak.

Here's a few pieces that were forged and heat treaed with the weed burner rig.

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Just little tabs, and the lining. The lining runs through all the cans, but is only about 1/2 inch thick on the smaller cans. The main chamber lining is 1 about inch.
 
neat rig Tai. Think I saw or heard one like it in your Hammerjamin' vid.

Would the weed burner heat a lager cavity if you wanted it to? I am wondering if it maybe would even work a little better with a bigger volume so that a lot of the heated gas doesn't blow out the front/top?

The wood splint for atmosphere control is a good idea, for sure.

take care,
Kevin

Kevin, I made my first propane forge from a 7 gallon propane bottle and used a weed burner. My mind keeps shrinking with age but I seem to recall it working just fine in the larger forge and using very little gas.

Ita, Is this the same forge we used when we did Hammerjamin?
 
Well, I finally ordered all the parts to put together my new forge. Hopefully I'll be burning some steel soon.

BTW, for anybody that's considering buying a weed burner Amazon has the "Weed Dragon" torch on sale right now for $53. This one has a much higher rating than the other ones on there.
 
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