The first forge I built was simple, and not quite as practical as I would have wished. Composed of stacked fire bricks and a propane weed burning torch, the system was simple to assemble. Now an important factor to take into consideration when building a gas forge is the heat dissipation. The hot gases are escaping and so is your heat. The main problem this configuration had was the high thermal conductivity of the bricks. The flame simply couldn’t compete with the heat loss. Nevertheless, the iron could be brought to forging temperatures.

A second issue with this design was the complete lack of pressure control on the propane line. As such, the fuel usage was rather steep for the result. It was a fun backyard experiment and it proved to be more of a learning experience in forge design than the gateway to blacksmithing I had envisioned.