[TheForge] Gas Forge Recommendation

[Dann]

Mike and Darell,

Ok.. I will not mess with my Whisper Momma.   It works fine for what 
it was intended.  Quickly heated iron.  Cheap to run.

BEsides my other coal forges,   I also have a classic big blower gas 
forge that I bought for $200,  a dozen or so years ago.  I used my 
skid loader to move it..   My daddy would have said that  " It takes 
two men and a boy to move!".  it is .. HEAVY !
  It was originally designed to  / used to  to heat  quantities 
of  plow shears for reshaping. The retiring blacksmith told  me 
that  it ate propane like a horse.. Demand was so great that it would 
freeze up the  LP barrel if  tried a small "pig" tank.  He said that 
I would need to hook it to a 200 gallon or larger LP tank, or twin 
off  6 or more 100 pound LP bottles.

  It looks like it has huge thermal mass,  already.  I saw something 
that looked like a fraternal twin of  my  big gas forged used at UMBA 
demonstration once.. but  that weekend it was being used to heat long 
sand filled pipe.  That one was being fed from a single 100 pound LP 
bottle, so it must not have been the same.  But perhaps.. it had been 
modified. AS someone   had crafted a temporary detachable hood with kao wool.

Fuel consumption is what so impresses me with the little, 
venturi   gas forges.  A single 100 pound  bottle of LP and   My 
Whisper Momma usually  works faithfully for me about a 
month.   Before I got the whisper momma,   I finally bought a 200 
gallon LP  tank and had it filled for the other  "gas hog" 
forge,  just never quite got it hooked up.  So,  now I have the 
incentive to  actually hook it up.

Dann

At 12:16 AM 7/23/2005, you wrote:


>-------------- Original message --------------
>
> > Dan,
> > I think you may be wasting your time making balls for the Whisper Mama.
> > What makes the balls work is to have the flame coming up through the balls
> > so the balls absorb the heat.
> > With the Whisper Mama, the top layer of balls will get hot but the ones
> > below that layer will be insulated from the flame.
> >
> > Darrell
>So far as using thermal mass efficiently, your point is well made. 
>Unfortunately, over a period of time the entire mass will heat 
>pretty close to flame temperature through conduction, at which point 
>it is likely to start destroying the ceramic fiber insulation.
>Mike P.
> >
>
> >
> > >> >
>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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