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Was dead set against gas forges till I tried a friend's setup
I swore by my solid fuel forge for years, thought gas was for people who didnt wanna put in the work. Then last month my buddy let me run a batch of 15 knives through his 2 burner Devil Forge at his shop in Ohio. I gotta admit, the temp control was way more consistent than I expected, no more babysitting the fire. It cut my heat treating time almost in half for each blade. Now I'm looking at used ones on Craigslist, but I still feel kinda guilty about it. Anyone else make the switch and regret it or not?
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piperbailey28d ago
15 knives in one batch with a 2 burner? That sounds like you were rushing things to me. I've seen guys crank through blades on propane and still end up with warps from uneven heat because they pushed the workload. Maybe your buddy just has a good handle on his specific setup, not that gas is automatically better.
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betty_wells28d ago
Read a post from a bladesmith on BladeForums who said switching to gas made him feel like he was cheating at first, but then he realized he was just working smarter, not harder. His heat treat failures actually went down over time.
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