JF#1 Burner?

I've looked at those before, but never pursued it further because it did not appear to cater to my needs.

It seems to be made with precision, and I have no doubt it's many steps above a burner made with plumbing parts.

The drawback for me is that it appears that the nozzle flare is a permanent feature of the burner.
I don't own one, nor have I consulted with the builder, so I'm not 100% certain, but that is how it appears.

I can think of several instances where a removable/replaceable nozzle is not only desirable, but needed.
 
I came close to buying one of these, the guy that makes them is super nice, but I wasn't ready for one at the time and when I went back and looked at them the price had gone up to very close to Rex Price's
T- Rex burners. I figured if they were close enough I'd spend the extra and buy the T-Rex. But instead, with the help of all the fine folks on here and especially Ed Caffrey, I built a blown forge from local materials, it may not perform as well as a T-Rex, BUT, I have about the same money in my forge except the blower, I went with the right blower that is designed to handle the back pressure, and it does everything I need it to do including Damascus! If I build another forge, just for Damascus, I would consider buying a burner, and it would be The T-REX!!! Check out their website, it is freakin phenomenal!!! Rex (.....without the 'T')
 
Mc, you're right about that T-Rex burner! I've been running one for the past few days and its phenomenal. 3 PSI with a Satinite/ ITC-100 coated forge and it reaches 1500 in about 4 minutes and holds it beautifully... and that's with the slide only 1/4" open, if you let it burn wide open you can reach 2100 in a small forge in about 10 minutes or less... its a thing of beauty.
 
Mc, you're right about that T-Rex burner! I've been running one for the past few days and its phenomenal. 3 PSI with a Satinite/ ITC-100 coated forge and it reaches 1500 in about 4 minutes and holds it beautifully... and that's with the slide only 1/4" open, if you let it burn wide open you can reach 2100 in a small forge in about 10 minutes or less... its a thing of beauty.

I've studied that burner for a long time, just didn't have the confidence to build my on forge at the time, if you check out Jesus Hernandez's site, you'll see he uses it for making Tama Hagane as well as general forging and the man is AWESOME! Proud that he is a fellow Alabamian! Rex
 
While some might not agree, I believe that the experience gained by building your own forge and burner(s), will not only net you savings, but will also provide you with valuable experience, and understanding of how and why your equipment works, which will translate into having a better understanding of what you're doing when you actually put the hammer to the steel.

While I'm sure that many of the commercially available burners work fine, I also think that if your "starting out" there is much valuable experience to be gained by building your own forge and burner(s). That's not a blanket statement! Everyone's situation/circumstances are different, and each individual must do what suits them best.....all I'm saying is that if a person is not careful, he/she can spend a lot of money on something.....and get less benefit than if they had spent less money, and more time/effort.
 
While some might not agree, I believe that the experience gained by building your own forge and burner(s), will not only net you savings, but will also provide you with valuable experience, and understanding of how and why your equipment works, which will translate into having a better understanding of what you're doing when you actually put the hammer to the steel.

While I'm sure that many of the commercially available burners work fine, I also think that if your "starting out" there is much valuable experience to be gained by building your own forge and burner(s). That's not a blanket statement! Everyone's situation/circumstances are different, and each individual must do what suits them best.....all I'm saying is that if a person is not careful, he/she can spend a lot of money on something.....and get less benefit than if they had spent less money, and more time/effort.


What Ed is talking about here is the intangible experiences gained from building your forge yourself, the intangible for me was confidence. The confidence in myself to take on building equipment that I need, sure I could have saved up and bought just about whatever forge I wanted, wasting a lot of money in the process. But, bulding it myself, I was able to get it much sooner and learned about all the different variables that makes a forge run right. As well as tuning it to the point of getting the efficency to where I want it. Now that I have built my 1st forge, I'm planning on building other items I want to add to the shop, like a horizontal grinder. Before I started making knives I never "made" anything, this skill has opened up my world so much more than I ever thought about. So much so, that my first thought about most things now is, "Can I build it?" And I have to say Thank You again to Ed and several others on here that helped me wrap my mind around all of this, it took some doing, and I enjoyed the process once I got it all figured out. Like Ed said everyone's situation is different, but don't let the lack of experience hold you back, ask questions, research everything you want to learn and go for it! REX
 
HI I'm Monte .I rebuilt my forge a few weeks ago and saw the JF#1 burners and decided I'd retire my water pipe fitting burners for some nice new precision stainless steel burners I'm glad I did They work great.Nice burn easy to adjust if required. I didn't have a problem with the flares being attached.But I can see where that might give someone a problem .I've been welding Damascus with them and am really pleased with the results
 
Monte,
If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for it? I was really impressed with it until I found the T Rex burner (no relations), I feel like that is the best commercial burner on the market to date. But the JF#1 is a very close second, and the guy that makes them has a lot of experience with high temps. If I remember correctly, he does a lot of art glass work, seriously talented guy, and very nice. Depending on the price, if it is close to the price of the T-Rex, the T-Rex is a no brainer! Do you have a pyrometer set up on your forge? Really necessary to know the actual temps and kinda fun to know how hot your running! Either way if your happy with it and it's doing what you want it to do, that's all that matters! Rex...(without the 'T')
 
I bought 2 of them as well but have yet to put them in the forge. The build quality is bar none, thick stainless steel, nice flare, good welds, the things are great.I paid 204.85 shipped for both of them, I will mount them up some time in the next few weeks and get some temp readings for ya. I don't know yet if performance will be up there with the T Rex burners but if its anywhere near they will represent one of the best values going.
 
I bought 2 of them as well but have yet to put them in the forge. The build quality is bar none, thick stainless steel, nice flare, good welds, the things are great.I paid 204.85 shipped for both of them, I will mount them up some time in the next few weeks and get some temp readings for ya. I don't know yet if performance will be up there with the T Rex burners but if its anywhere near they will represent one of the best values going.

Are you building a 2 burner forge? Also, do you have a PSI gauge? If you do a 2 burner and if you don't mind, would you do an experiment with one burner to see the time to specific temps you can get? Record the time to around 500 degrees, 1000, 1500, etc., and at the PSI it's running at, then do the same with both burners running, I was planning on doing this until every plan I had for a PSI gauge fell through, seems I have some sort of funky regulator. Every gauge I bought would not fit, I will eventually get one to work, just too many other things to do/buy, while I'm satisfied with the performance of my blown forge, I'll wait until I get to work on another forge to address the issue.

I just checked the T-Rex Burner it's $150.00 plus $12.75 for shipping for the 1st one, $4.50 for the second. So 2 of them would be $317.25 shipped. If you get good performance and decent efficiency the JF 1 should be a pretty good deal.

Looking forward to seeing what kind of numbers you come up with, REX
 
Last edited:
Hi Rex , They cost 95.00 ea +Shipping . I don't have a pyrometer on my gas forge . I don' have the T Rex but I have his bigger brothers the hybrid 1" forge or foundry model on my forge that I use for cans. They are indeed well made and perform exceptionally. And from the short time I've had the JF#1 I'd say there neck in neck .The price the fact that they are stainless steel makes them more desirable in my opinion
 
Hi Rex , They cost 95.00 ea +Shipping . I don't have a pyrometer on my gas forge . I don' have the T Rex but I have his bigger brothers the hybrid 1" forge or foundry model on my forge that I use for cans. They are indeed well made and perform exceptionally. And from the short time I've had the JF#1 I'd say there neck in neck .The price the fact that they are stainless steel makes them more desirable in my opinion

Not to dismiss your opinion, but that is why we need imperical proof, if you had a Pyrometer and PSI gauge, we could get the data needed to KNOW how fast it would get to XXXX temp in XX:XX time, Using XX pounds of propane, the efficency is a big point with me, because if it saves gas it saves noney and THAT is justificaton to spend the money. I totally agree that Rex price's burners are exceptional, even down to his 'Pocket Rocket'. But for the way I forge, I would need the imperical data to justify spending the money to buy anything I can't build.

I do believe he has some data he collected on his web site, and at this point with his reputation I'm inclined to take it at face value. I'm planning on building another forge, either a vertical forge or possbly another horizontal forge and changing my horizontal to a vertical. The 1" would be a massive overkill for basic forging but depending on performance, if it can be tuned to do basic forging and then re-tuned for can or damascus, then it maybe worthwhile.

The JF#1 looked like a well built burner when I could have gotten it for $65, but now I would have to see if it would out-perform my blown gas fonrge that I built, the reason I did'nt jump on it back then, some 2+ years ago, is because I didn't have the confidence to build a forge, through the fine folks here, especially Ed Caffrey, basically walked me through it, held my hand and we got it done! I was terrified of building what could have possibly been a bomb. But with these guys help, I built a very serviceable forge! I'm not sure when I'll get into building my next forge, but it should be better than the last one I built...hopefully! REX
 
Ill post some results after I get the forge up and running but it will be a few weeks. I would point out that alot of the results will be based on my forge itself and how well it works so you really wont get any true science on just the burners.
 
Ill post some results after I get the forge up and running but it will be a few weeks. I would point out that alot of the results will be based on my forge itself and how well it works so you really wont get any true science on just the burners.

That is a great and valid point, BUT we have to start somewhere, and this looks like the best place to start. Looking forward to seeing how the numbers look, when you post your results include the size of your forge, type of insulation, refractory, etc, all of that will help getting a baseline. Thanks Bud, Rex
 
hey guys. i just bought on of these burners and i love it. i bought anther forge off ebay and it was junk. they really helped me out . nice forum. i am just now starting to do some blacksmith work.
 
yea watch out for those Lithuanian forges on line. all i have heard is bad reports about the liner blowing out. not having all the parts ect. be careful
 
No real testing yet but I did plumb everything up and test it, this is by far the very best forge I have built yet. I only used a single layer of Kao wool , and about 3/16 layer of Santanite. without doing real testing I will say that the burners are the very best I have ever seen in person. I will never use my blown forge again and thats after just a test fire. Ill gather data in the comeing weeks but my forging is limited to weekends due to day job and my gitty desire to strike something out so it will take a bit to get a good range of data. WOW though the burners work great!
 
Back
Top