Coffee Can Forge

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The picture above is of a small gas forge that I built using a 2 pound Maxwell House coffee can for the forge body.   It is lined with 2 inches of 8# Durablanket that has been coated with Unifax QF-180.  I used some 1" x 1/8" flat bar to make the legs for the forge body, but you can use whatever you have on hand in your shop. The legs are fasten to the forge body using 10-32 machine screws.   The burner used in this forge is the new Micro Side Arm Burner that I recently designed. I make a lot of candle holders and this little forge is great to heat up candle pans and dish them out, I would say that the largest stock that you could effectively heat up to forging temperatures would be 3/8" round stock.  The original idea for building this forge came Donnie Fulwood's web site that had drawings of a the Bean Can Forge built by Ed Halligan.

The picture above is of the coffee can forge  with the micro side arm burner running at 25 psi after about 15 minutes.   Inside of the forge the temperature was 2000 º F I measured the temperature inside the forge using an Omega HH300 Series Digital Thermometer.  I have also built the coffee can forges and used a micro tube burner and I have also used the Bernz O Matic model # JTH7 torch like I used in the mini forge  for the burner and I am very happy with the performance of both of them.   I used a conduit hub to hold the burner assembly in place in the first coffee can forge that I built, but now I am just using a couple of conduit lock rings and pipe nipple of the appropriate length and diameter for the burner that I am making.    It is the same set up that I used for the burner holder on the simple gas forge. 
Thermadyne has recently introduce a new line of torchs called Turbo Torch that show a lot of promise for a good source for a ready to go burner for the coffee can forges.  I will be getting some of them in the future and trying them out, I will post the information about the turbo torches as I try them out.