TIL a cheap propane forge can actually work if you tune the burners right

I picked up a no name single burner forge off Craigslist for 60 bucks a few months back. Figured it would be junk but I needed something to try heat treating small blades. Spent a weekend messing with the air gap and gas pressure after watching a guy on YouTube from Georgia who runs a one man shop. Finally got a clean even orange glow in there and managed to harden a 1084 knife blank on my third try. I was dead wrong thinking you had to drop 400 on a fancy model to get results. Has anyone else made a cheap setup work better than expected with just a little tweaking?

2 comments

2 Comments

val_wilson1d ago

Yeah that tracks with pretty much everything in life honestly. I've got a buddy who restores old motorcycles and he'll spend 200 bucks on a vintage carburetor rebuild kit and still fight with it for weeks. Meanwhile I grab a cheap Chinese copy off Amazon for 20 bucks, spend an afternoon with some files and patience, and it runs better than his. People get hung up on the price tag and forget that most of the time the difference is just marketing and a pretty box. Same with tools, same with cars, same with cooking gear. It's like folks think spending more money somehow buys them skill or something. You can polish a turd with enough effort, but you can also just learn how to work with what you've got and get the same result for a fraction of the cost.

barbara96718h ago

@val_wilson nailed it honestly. Most expensive stuff just makes people feel better about themselves, not work better.