The Armour Archive

Im debating on what would be a good general forge for doing casting/ knife work/ armoring. Ive been looking at majestic forges due to the high boxes they have compaired to others ive seen. any suggestions would be greatly appriciated.

You are talking about three very different processes there.
If you can use a coal forge in your area you might try that, it is the most nostalgic and quietest option.
However it is also dirty and generally large and immobile, although you can find small farriers or rivet forges from time to time. Also a coal forge requires significant upkeep during operation to remove clinkers and maintain the fire correctly, the plus side is you can shape the fire to the task at hand and certain operations are much more easily accomplished if it is your only heat source (i.e. welding and spot heating).

I have a gas forge, because it is portable and more convenient.

My recommendation would be to decide what you want to do most and research building a forge for that task.
For knife making you want a small heated space with an efficient fire box design that can be opened on both ends for longer pieces.
The best designs I have seen have a tubular fire box with the burner inlet coming in high in the orifice of the chamber, so the gas swirls around the space.

For armouring the bell nozzle design built by Eric Thing seems like a good idea.
http://anvilfire.com/iForge/

Casting I have no opinion about as I haven't done any in a long time, and what I have done has used specialized kilns.

All that being said, if you lack for time or fabricating facilities and just want to buy something I would recommend buying something from these guys http://www.chileforge.com/index.html.
When I next fab up a forge I am going to use one of their diablo burners, might even grab one to build a heat treating kiln with as well.
It's a little pricier than some other options out there but looks really nice and I have heard only good things about them.
Also check out http://zoellerforge.com/index.html there is some good info there about building forges.

Happy Hammering.
Thaddeus

im certainly thinking gas. coal is a pain.
majestic makes a forge like the one Eric uses ( on ebay, not on his site) and id thought about it simply due to its the cheapest option and would work for armor/knife making easy enough ( forge welding might be a pain but according to him it gets hot enough with a single burner) for casting id thought using fire bricks to make walls around the burner and leave an outlet would get hot enough for brass/bronze.
the downside to a single nozzle forge like that is while it may be versitile it also is going to be as in efficient as possible and more likely to be bad at everything and marginal at its intended purpose.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Forge-Freestand ... 2ebd90e16e

http://majesticforge.com/speciality_for ... ducts.html

Three TOTALLY different processes. You're going to wind up with three totally different forges. Just accept it, pick one to build or buy at the moment, and move on.

For casting, I remember finding this site when I first became interested in it.

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

what forges are you all using?

You could build that forge on ebay for about a third that money.
The burner is off the shelf pieces from the hardware store and they used a couple of pieces of refractory board in a fabbed up frame.
You don't even need to get that fancy, you can build an atmospheric burner and clamp it to something stable and aim it at a chamber made from firebricks. I am thinking 35-50 bucks might do it.

Sort through the anvil fire site. There are lots of good ideas there.

Destichado is correct you are looking at three different processes and three separate requirements for the tool.

Thaddeus wrote: You don't even need to get that fancy, you can build an atmospheric burner and clamp it to something stable and aim it at a chamber made from firebricks. I am thinking 35-50 bucks might do it.

I dabble in all three processes the OP listed, and this above is exactly what I have... a pile fo firebricks and a weed burner.

I bought a tool cart with an open pan top from Harborfreight and poured the top full of refractory cement. I have a pile of firebricks in the bottom which I can use to build walls as large as the whole tray, or as small as a little knife blank. I have a few firebricks wired together into a lid with an expanded steel frame which I can set on top. A weed burner clamps to the card rail and I can hit welding temps on most things or melt several pounds of bronze. Arranged like an open top firepit and I can heat larger pieces of sheet for armor work. For extremely large pieces (heating an entire breastplate] I arrange the firebricks over a patch of driveway and aim the weedburner down by hand.

I paid $70 for the cart, $50 for fire bricks, $30 for castable refractory, and $25 for the weedburner... Less than $200 with tax for a setup that can do several different processes.

I agree that the best way would be to have 3 specialized forges, but if you just really don't want to, you could get a big stack of firebricks and stack them in different formations depending on the job.