My propane forge upgrade made me think of hand cranked bellows

I finally switched my shop over to a propane system last week. It's so much cleaner and the heat is steady right away. I remember spending hours just getting a coal fire hot enough to work steel. Those days were tough, but you really learned how fire behaves.

3 comments

3 Comments

jamiesingh3mo ago

Remember trying to hand crank bellows for a coal fire. My arms gave out before the metal got hot, so my projects were always weirdly small. Guess my old forge was a brutal gym membership I never asked for.

kellyw442mo ago

Wait, you had to hand crank bellows?

the_abby3mo ago

Ever think about how quiet propane is compared to the whoosh and creak of old bellows? @jamiesingh's arm workout at least had a sound track, lol. I kinda miss the noise meaning work was getting done.