T-Rex Hut Forge

Blacksmith propane gas forge using a T-Rex burner.

Many thanks to Jesus Hernandez, Rex Price and Ron Reil for the valuable information on their web pages from which this forge was inspired and designed.

Easily reached welding temperature at 10 psi, but runs comfortably at 5 psi, even lower. I use a quick-disconnect to for the gas hose. It makes the forge very portable.

I don't have a bending press, so I used a grinding wheel on my circular saw to score first, then heat and bend. I used a straight edge guide to keep the line straight. Careful not to score too deep as it will weaken the bend.

The burner holder is a piece of square tube with 2 screws per side so I could easily aim the burner in any direction.

I used a thin layer of Kiln cement to glue the first layer of Kaowool to the shell, but I probably didn't need it. The Kaowool seems to stand up on its own.

The ceramic fire brick sides are to protect the Kaowool from being poked by the iron. Kaowool is like cotton candy. The removable shelf catches corrosive flux, and slides out for easy reconditioning.

Initially I had welded steel posts to hold the ceramic posts in place, but removed them as they were acting as heat sinks transferring a lot of heat to the shell. I filled the center post holes with Kaowool to eliminate any air gaps, and surrounded them in Kaowool instead. This works much better.

The ceramic shelves were cut with a masonry cut-off wheel attached to a circular saw

The direction of the flame is slightly offset both side to side and front to back to reduce any back pressure from the burning gas. The burner tip is recessed 1 inch back from the chamber ceiling to protect it from the heat.

I coated the chamber with ITC-100 using a brush, no need to spray.

I went ahead and used the ITC-296 top coat over the ITC-100.

Coated the inside of the fire bricks also. These are soft fire bricks, but the top ones cracked due to temperature differences, so I replaced them with hard fire bricks.