Updated Review of Mr. Volcano 2 Burner Forge

Not so sanguine now.

Back in May, I got my first forge, a Mr. Volcano 2 burner forge from Amazon. After building the thing and playing around with it a bit I wrote up a review here. Now I would like to update that review.
I have been using the forge for about 6 months now, pretty lightly all told. I generally only worked it 4-5 hours a week at most, because I only really had time to work in it a couple days a week for a few hours. Those days where I got six or more hours at a shot were rare and wonderful! All told I probably have less than 80 hours running the forge, but I have noticed some things.

On the pretty good side, while the forge isn’t the most well insulated thing, it is pretty decent still. It gets up to welding heat (the upper end of what you ever need for steel) without having to totally blast all the propane ever into it, and with a few fire bricks in back to close up the end it does a decent job.

Likewise, while I don’t have a ton of data points for comparison, it isn’t too bad on gas consumption. I have filled up a normal gas grill style propane tank for it only about 4-5 times, so it’s eaten about 120$ in fuel all summer. I think I could do better making a ribbon burner forge myself, but I sure as hell couldn’t do it for 135$ shipped, so that’s not bad. Now, I probably run it a little cooler than I need to, but I am still pretty happy with how much gas it uses as a starter forge.

Onto the not so good side…

The damned thing broke.

Some months ago, early August I think, one of the sockets for the burners snapped off. The little guy holds up those rather long and heavy venturi burners, and are just held on by four spot welds to the fairly thin metal making up the sides.

See the sockets. See the burner. See the burner stressing the sockets.

Now, those burners make for a long lever arm, and over time did what lever arms do: exert a lot of force on the metal and refractory cement that was holding them in place. Eventually, that front burner there popped the socket loose from its welds. Turns out it chewed up the refractory too on its way out.

Ok, not ideal, but I often only use the one burner, so I swapped the forge around so I can use the other, and when I need to use two just rigged up some chains to hold the damned thing in place. That worked for… what month is it… about two and a half months. Early October and the other socket failed.

I gotta say, burner sockets failing after about 3 months of use, less than 40 hours… that’s not good guys. Not good at all.

Now, if I had smacked one, or dropped the forge while they were in, or decided it was smart to hang a helmet off them while they were in place, that’d be one thing. When the first broke I thought maybe I had damaged it somehow without noticing. Except, I always remove them and store them separately from the forge when not in use; they take up too much space in the garage otherwise. Unfortunately, the failure is the result of bad design/quality assurance and not user screw ups.

I am not so sure about that “Buy American!” plus quality product assertion from the early review.

As a result, I am now a little less enthusiastic about recommending the Mr. Volcano to a new metal worker. I mean, sure, the welds failed, but you can weld them back, right? Yea, but there’s that whole “new metal worker” thing. I didn’t know how to weld, damnit, and frankly having to buy a welder and learn to use it suddenly was really aggravating¹. Especially because welding metals of rather different thicknesses that you can't really brace or clamp nicely (due to the refractory cement and ceramic wool inside) is particularly difficult.

Before you laugh too much, this is the first real thing I ever welded. I did have the sense to practice on some old bed frame steel first, of course. I also had to patch some holes from earlier misadventures…

Why, no, that isn’t the kind of forge welding I was hoping to be practicing last weekend! (Or the weekend before that…)

Plus, the damned thing still isn’t fixed. The thin metal walls of the forge warped a bit as I butchered my way through the welding process, putting a nice airgap between insulation and steel on the socket side and some new cracks in the insulation elsewhere. I am off to the local Harbison Walker outlet to buy a giant bag of refractory cement to patch all that up.

And then I am going to buy some insulating ceramic fiber blanket and a crap ton of thicker walled scrap steel and weld and build a new forge. Or at least I plan to this winter.

So… would I still recommend this forge to a beginner?

Yea… I guess. However, I would add stipulations.

• Can you weld? If so, go for it, but maybe weld some reinforcing strips around the sockets to hold them in place better.
  If not, maybe get a single burner version and save the money for the Harbor Freight flux core welder you are going to have to buy and learn to use when it breaks.

• Maybe consider buying a more expensive, but more substantial, forge kit. Possibly one with thicker walls and more durably welded sockets.

• Perhaps build a frame to help support the weight of the burners.

Now, in all fairness, I haven’t contacted Mr. Volcano about this problem. I mean, I doubt they are going to have me ship the forge back to them, or something. I do intend to write them a quick note suggesting “hey, maybe attach those critical mounts better.” If they come back with something really great I will be sure to update here.

All told, I am not exactly filled with buyer’s remorse. 135$ is a reasonable amount of money to spend to see if you like something, but I am disappointed in what is sort of an unnecessary failure. I rather thought I had the forge thing solved until I decided to make one long enough to heat treat a really substantial sword, and now I am dropping time and money fixing mine so I can heat treat an 8” chef’s knife.

So yea.

1. I will share that story later… I won’t rob you of the opportunity to laugh at me.