Loading…
10
That fancy forge welder I swore was a gimmick - now I use it every day
A buddy of mine convinced me to try one of those propane forge welders about 8 months ago. I was dead set that my old coal forge was the only way to get a proper weld on shoes. First couple tries with the propane rig were a mess, uneven heat and bad bonds. But after I figured out the gas pressure settings and got a decent fire brick setup, I've been using it for maybe 70% of my work now. The welds hold up fine on draft horses and it saves me about 15 minutes per set of shoes. Anyone else made the switch and found it worked better than they expected?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
juliag105mo ago
Was the learning curve more about dialing in the propane pressure or getting the fire brick placement right? I hear guys complain about the heat gradient on propane rigs all the time but they rarely mention the setup issues. Did you change anything with how you prep the steel before the weld?
8
margaret3045mo ago
Yeah @juliag10 brings up a good point about the prep work too. I started cleaning the steel a lot more before the weld and that helped the bond more than messing with the gas settings honestly. The fire brick placement was the real headache though - took me a couple weeks to get a consistent heat zone going.
0