In this Instructables, I show how I made my mini propane forge. I know quite a few people have already done this and mine isn't really much different. But I was making my own so thought best film it!

It's very simple starter forge, and ideal for people just getting into knife making or blacksmithing. I have quite a few knife projects planned and needed a decent way to heat the blades up for heat treat.

For this project you will need;

Step 1: Bricks

I used these J23 Soft Fire Bricks. They are nice and easy to work with and light to move around. I needed 5 bricks in total, 4 for the main body of the forge, and 1 for the back to keep the heat in.

Stacked them up in the formation that would give me a small camber in the middle.

Step 2: Cut

The chamber area is quite small as it is. It might be fine if I was working with small bits, but my first knife project is going to be a large chef knife, and this would not fit in. So I measured a 1cm wide groove on the inside of each of the bricks to increase the size.

I used a regular woodworking saw, and carefully cut away the bricks along the lines. The soft fire bricks are super easy to cut through, though they are quite crumbly.

Step 3: Cement

I then took some Refractory Kiln Cement and put it on the bricks. I'm probably going to get ripped apart here, but I just wore some gloves and worked it onto the edges that were going to come into contact with each other. I put it all round and stacked the bricks together and lightly clamped them in place.

I left them to set for 24 hours and it was done.

I'm using a small Propane tank and a torch to heat it. I originally planned to drill a hole to poke the torch in but couldn't decide where I wanted that to go. In the end, I left it just loose at the end and it works just fine.

Step 4: Final Images

And that's it. In the end, I added some pieces of angle iron and welded them together to make it all a little firmer. I think this is totally optional but where I have my forge, I end up having to move it around a lot so I wanted the added security. I will have a few knife projects coming out in the next few weeks. So make sure to subscribe to my Instructables + YouTube Channel.

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