Square bodied vs. Round bodied: You will rarely see a professional smith using a square or rectangular bodied forge. Although they work, they just don't work as well as the round body designs. Why? Two reasons. In a round body the heat rolls in the chamber leaving no cold spots or temperature differences in the corners. This allows for more even heating of the work piece and less fuel needed to attain it. Secondly, the square design in-itself requires the burner to be mounted perpendicular to the work blowing the flame directly on the steel being heated. This can cause problems with excessive scaling and pitting of the work piece even with experienced smiths. Although ok for general work, the square design is especially bad for forging knife blades or detailed projects requiring multiple heats and careful attention to detail. The same logic applies to round bodies that have the burner mounted pointing straight down i.e. no rolling flame, and increased scaling.

The design you see here has the burner mounted from the side at a slight angle causing the flame to hit the opposite side (not the work piece being heated) and roll in the chamber. This effectively corrects the above-mentioned flaws in other forge design options. The superior insulation in these forges translates to far less fuel usage to attain desired heat ranges, essentially the forge pays for itself in fuel savings.

Extra thick full 1/4" wall steel forge body

Flux resistant fire brick floor

2" thick ceramic fiber insulation (rigidized, sealed and coated with cement)

Fire brick pass through doors

Runs 5-6 hours at orange heat on 5 gallons of propane

Chamber size: 9" long x 4" wide x 4 1/2" tall

68 lbs. of quality