This Forge Changes Everything 

Electrician here who works with magnetics and induction heating: If you are going to bend your own elements, keep this in mind: You want all of your coils to go in the same direction., reversing the direction will only weaken the magnetic field, as reversed fields will cancel each other out and nullify your heating capability. a 'C' shaped element is possible, but would be grossly inefficient as you couldn't get many turns of conductor on your work without doubling back on itself and killing your field.

I feel like you're going to want thong clips and tool rests because holding bars that long will get annoying fast. Feels like an amazing machine with endless possibilities.

One of the interesting things you can do with an induction furnace is place a high temp non conductive sleeve inside it and run argon or helium to prevent any oxidation on the metal.

Looks like it could benefit from having some support tools that could help hold the metal in the right position and making it easy to handle the hot metals. They same way as you have tools for your gas forge. Also, induction heating is just always super impressive.

If you want to make your own coils, use salt instead of sand. Especially with smaller coils sand is difficult to remove. Salt will desolve in water. Just force water under pressure through the salt and it will come out.

if you want to bend copper pipes, fill them with soapy water and let it freeze. that´s how trumpets are made :D

Very cool. I always thought these seemed like they might be kind of a gimmick, but not being a blacksmith I hadn't realized how slow the gas forge was. I imagine it's probably more efficient energy cost wise since you don't have to leave it burning in between heats.

An induction forge is such an interesting piece of equipment. it won't replace a gas or coal forge entirely, but rather another helpful tool in your arsenal

I think that the most exciting thing about an induction forge is that you can melt metal in an oxygen free environment, either in an inert gas or a vacuum, I used to run an 11kw induction evaporator that evaporated molybdenum at about 1,600 C and 10-7 vacuum. I can see going forward you making all sorts of special tools and guides to compliment this awesome addition to the shop. If you are really interested in making alloys let the channel know and I am sure any of us who have some experience will give you some things to look out for.

Hear me out. Stainless tool wrap a burrito and warm it up in there.

Yeah, this was the only way I could keep making knives. No workshop so i had to set my forge up in the backyard, harvested for parts within a day. So induction inside was the name of the game. Great for just heat treating too

We have an Ajax Toccotron 25 Kw machine at my work. We use it to heat treat and temper 4130 steel and 440 sst parts. The nice thing about the Toccotron is you can make programs with three different power levels and times for each. Cool machines.

I appreciate that you honor the old technologies and embrace the new.

I love how confident Will is with a power hammer. The Little Giant put in some work!

Make a toolrest with a reciprocating arm that moves a knife slowly back and forth to evenly heat a whole knife blade

A power button that works both ways! What a time to be alive!

It's a super smart idea to mess around with new tools like this to get to know them, but especially with a whole new technology. You know a ton already about how your bread will come out of the oven, but now you're trying to microwave it; gonna take some getting used to. Don't forget that eventually that heat will travel down the bar to your hand if you keep heating and working it.

It would make heating up only the end tang for putting on pommel and butt caps. Or addressing a warp, or putting a bend in a particular part for blacksmithing.

Another tool too add to my "massive amounts of money" list of tools to get in the future. Along with a milling machine, power hammer, metal lathe, cpu/gpu manufacturing plant, and F22.

OK, Will, hear me out. Attachments for that induction heater. Make a long flexible wand with a coil at the end. Something you can reach the twist machine with. Then as you twist things you can use that wand to heat certain parts of the metal to add more twist in certain areas. That is all. Thank you.

One of my customers made precision forged connecting rods. The near net connecting rod forms were reheated with an induction furnace and smacked by a forginging press to make the connecting rod. I had other customers that used induction hardening machines and we used induction heaters to preheat our steel strip on our galvanizing line. We use an induction welder to weld the seam on our steel tube at our tube mill. That is the seam on the square tube you use.

For knife makers in garages, or larger production handmade shops, I would hope this becomes prevalent!

The forge where i practice blacksmithing recently got one aswel and although it’s a highly interesting machine, it’s not as harmless as Will portrays it to be. It does indeed heat the material using a very concentrated alternating magnetic field, which also mean te surrounding area gets blasted with a lot of waste radiation. We had a safety analysis done at our forge and the company gave us a safe zone for electronics of 2m around the coil (this includes phones, cameras, but also pacemakers and other metal implants) and also a safe zone for bodies. The coil does actually affect living tissues aswel (they are in fact conductive) and will heat them up every so slightly. They gave us a safe zone around the coil of around 20cm where they recommend to keep your limbs out of when the machine is in use. It is recommended to always hold your work with a pair of tongs. It goes without saying that any sort of jewellery has to be removed before operating the machine. It is also imperative that you prevent touching the bare coil and make sparks like Will did. Even though the machine works with incredibly high currents, its voltage is quite low so the danger to the user is limited, but this is preferably best avoided. Moreover, the arcing has a chance of melting through the bare copper and puncture the tube. For your own safety and that of the machine, it’s imperative that the copper coils be wrapped with a fiberglas sleeve as shown in the video. The coils on our machine are even covered in a ceramic for even further protection. For us ornamental blacksmiths the machine comes with more downsides. Since we are working with many complex shapes (scrolls, railings, gate ornaments,…) the coils tend to be limiting. As Will showed, small stock can be heated by a large coil, but it will not get very hot, so if you are working on a piece with changing cross section, there’s not one coil that will heat every part as efficiently. For heating scrolls, the only viable options are the pancake or taco coils, but they tend to be quite inefficient and not get the steel all that hot. If your scroll is very large in diameter, a taco will not reach the center and a pancake needs a lot of standoff from the machine, which risks breaking the thin tubes due to metal fatigue. For a knife maker, who works with largely similar shapes, i can’t imagine there is a more suitable machine out there.

We love you will, my brother. Be blessed.

My first thought was you could use it to heat your metal initially then use then gas forge to keep it hot once it’s a weird shape, but with all the fun coil shapes you might not even need to do that. I’m interested to see what you can do with this thing

Yeah this is awesome....

Watched the video of them using this to make crucible steel. Was freakin nuts

For those wanting to know how this works (and correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I went to college): the magnetic field produced by the machine affects the metal (obviously). If you have a field that doesn't change (pulses like an induction stove works), you have to move the material to produce eddy currents inside the metal which will heat it up. Because the magnetic field wants the field not to change, the metal itself will become a sort of magnet itself with opposite poles to the coils. The change and movement of the field inside the metal is what heats it up. Pretty neat stuff indeed

Induction forges are pretty trick. The barrel for Desert Eagle pistols used to be two pieces (the large area where the bolt locks in and the chamber/rifled section) that were pinned together in the past. Now days Magnum Research uses induction to heat the two pieces to essentially weld them together.

The 1/4" rod still heats up pretty quickly at first, because it acts like a pole piece, focusing the magnetic field into its length. In addition, as long as steel is magnetic (below Curie temperature), it has double losses from magnetic hysteresis as well as the induced current. Above Tc, the hysteresis and magnetic focusing effects go away, and it's like heating any other nonferrous metal -- you need much more voltage on the coil now to keep it heating up, it's harder to heat past orange-hot. EE here -- have designed and built several induction power supplies. It's fascinating tech, just a bit hard to use: the coil shape matters so much. To help with that, you can get or make a quick-change adapter (to mate electrical and water connections in one motion), and with some limitations, you can get/make flexible coils by stuffing chonky ground braid (the tubular-weave kind) inside a hose (make sure it's got good enough water flow to keep cool all the way along it!!). The tuning settings are also critical. Not clear if that unit is fixed or what, but tuning determines how much power you can get into a coil of given design (size and number of turns), and what frequency it runs at. Typically, there's a number of capacitors inside that tune the frequency, and a transformer with selectable taps that matches the high-frequency inverter to the coil. Frequency won't be important for forging application, but in precision applications like case hardening, it's critical for the case depth (you can heat the outer layer, 1/16", 1/4", whatever, just over austenizing temperature, then quench with water spray, to get a much deeper case than chemical treatment can do; power supplies for this application, have replaceable capacitors and adjustable tap settings to enable this). If you don't have tuning options, the range of coils you can use will be quite limited; generally speaking, you will have fewer turns as diameter goes up, but also the range of diameter ratios (coil to work) that you can deliver full power into is limited, and somewhat dependent on the coil design (size and turns -- inductance, overall).

I picked up a US Solids 15kw machine last year. It is my favorite addition to the shop. I recommend induction to everyone who, like me, needs to get up and forging quickly… and be able to shut down just as fast when you need to. It’s a game changer in every way.

I used one there the day we were at Coal and Iron together for the first time. Quite odd when you are used to coal. But I will say my first forging in it was welding a rein on a tong bit.

I’ve wanted one of these for a while that would make everything so much quicker

You can use it to find those microscopic slivers that find their way into your fingers. The ones that cannot be pulled out by any means, with any tool; It works great, I did it a few times myself.

Had a lot at my old work .Forging,brazing carbide inserts and heat treatment.Heats up steel very quickly.

I’d say make an adjustable stand, with some 2” angle iron on the top in a V position, so you can rest your work piece on it and keep it in the center if the coil. I imagine arcing on the coil will eventually burn holes in it, so having a stock rest will save on coil damage. Bet this tool does hilarious things to your power bill this month! 😂

I'd love to see that try something like Cannister Damascus. Might need a custom coil for it but that this is amazing.

@16:13 no bad will please think about gravity

fill the copper pipe with water with a little liquid dish soap and freeze it. They do that to make musical instruments. It keeps the tube from collapsing when you bend it.

if you're working with small stuff, this, imo, is the way to go. there's a particular sized over which traditional forges become far more efficient, but for little things like chef's knife-sized things? I like a good induction forge. ...now if only I had one in my shop! 🤣 ...also had a shop! 🤣... 😭

I highly recommend building a resting bench for your arm that way you can steadily and repeatably hold the piece inside the coil.

Lots of possibilities with induction. Using a crucible and holder- small scale casting can be done more economically. Also, heat shrinking and some bearing removals take minutes because of the surface induction.

It can't replace a gas forge, but it almost can. This is ideal for small shops, and also perfect for fine work where oxidation is a problem.

If you had the gumption to prevent O2 exposure, you can rig up a plastic basin (just get a clear couple tubs from Walmart for $5/ea or w/e) that is the smaller, inner basin where your coil sits and that is filled with welding Argon, and the larger, outer one is just air, to catch any argon you "splash" out of the inner one just poke holes and seal as appropriate.

I always wondered why neither you or Alec were using that :)

I’ve used induction heaters on cars. Being able to heat a seized nut in seconds without breaking out the torch is great

So that was amazing! That's going to change blade forging for sure and Artisan forging definitely. Even larger forging problems are solved easily with this thing. This Alec Steele know about this? And about it being quiet.. yeah that's kind of a groovy perk but your Hammer still going to go a bang a bang a bang LOL

That's a pretty interesting machine and for some things I can see where it would come in handy. Stay safe and healthy will. Sense Damascus or pattern wielded steel has different types of steel in it will there be much difference in time it takes to heat it fully with the different steel types it has?

Man that’s a game changer!!!

I did a lot of Soldering with a similar device, its neat!

Thanks again. Good machine !

i think they sell silicone pipe-supports for bending copper pipes cold. they've got a cord down the middle, then a section that's silicone, so you can fish it in and out with the string, and also won't have to deal with sand if you don't want to... you can even make one with a length of strong cord with some knots to "grab" the silicone; I suggest something like Dyneema, run it down a couple feet of fresh copper tube (that's been sprayed with mold release if needed) with the bottom sealed with the string poking out (just pinch and roll it). tape a funnel to the pipe, pour in your liquid silicone of a firm variety and maybe give it a whirl, spinning it over head by the open end, to use the centrifugal effect to force it to the end so you don't get any bubbles. pull it out after it's cured, and you just gotta chamfer or taper the ends and remember to lube it before use!

Needs a jig holder clamp thingamajig for larger thicker pieces, makes life easier I think

Pretty sweet piece of kit

Great overview of a game changing tool!

There is something so whimsical about needing to water-cool the thing that melts steel

Great tool!!

This is some crazy cool tech! Have never heard of this!!

That's super cool!

Love seeing the combination of old with new.

This is awesome.

How awesome 👏👏

I think the first time I saw an induction forge was on a video of Bob Kramer. Granted he used it to heat up a meteorite and smoke some fish with it, but it works, and cooking with forge tools feels familiar somehow. “Handmade with Anthony Bourdain”, and it was sponsored by Balvenie, if memory serves. The potential was evident, and is immense with a good supporting setup. Have fun with iterating your flow around it, let us know how it goes, and thanks for sharing! Edit: It was called “Raw Craft” not Handmade. Memory served up about 75%, but that’s little surprise these days, if I’m honest. Which I am. 😬

Very interesting!

very very kool, awesome Edit as well

We was subcontracted to help wire. A electric motor rebuild shop that had huge motors and they used a lot of the induction to set bearings.

It seems so bizarre to see you holding a bar and your hand is only inches from 1500 degree+ glowing steel but you're not burnt. The speed that it heats up an isolated area before the heat propagates down the bar is hard to fathom. I'm excited to see how you can use this to do precise edge hardening and tempering.

God this seems like magic

This machine is amazing

I love my coal Ironworks press. They have great products.

Dual coil, melt forge for gold and silver. Have a small melting coil go into a bigger coil around a crucible to keep the metal liquid.

The induction coil works basically by alternating the direction of the magnetic poles in the material back and forth at really high frequency.

I would love to see a detailed look into how much it cost to run these things if you ever get up to it.

You can also fill the tubing with water and freeze it to make kink-free bends.

Cool tool.

You can also use to it to heat a crucible and melt steel for casting, etc.

Those are also AMAZING for casting metals.

Can also fill a pipe with water and freeze it to stop it from collapsing or kinking if you don't wanna get sand everywhere

Hi Will, that's a really interesting machine you have there. Please ask the folks at Coal Iron Works what they mean by 25 kW. The machine requires a dedicated 50 Amp, single phase, 220 volt service according to a video on their website. That's 11 (eleven) kW input power, which is why I question the 25 kW rating. It would all make sense if it took 50 Amp, three phase @220 volt input, but the video claimed single phase.

Interesting! Wonder about the efficiency compared to a regular force. The benefit of this machine is that you can generate the required electricity using solar power. Get some panels on your workshop, Will!

That is cool

man, that beeping is reminding me very much of a heart monitor at a hospital along with some really bad memories.

Wait, Water is flowing through the coils as they're energized? o0 My goodness technology is so advanced. We are living in the future. No stinky gasses, BUT you gotta have airflow! Burning metal is TOXIC. Awesome machine. Looking forward t some projects with it.

nice! now you need to build a stand that holds your metal firmly and not shake around (tripod wheeled post with a sliding arm and chuck)

I was looking into one of those induction forges. The problem for me is the 50 amp breaker that's needed. My city row home has all 20 and 30 amp breakers, haha.

First video that Ive seen in a while. Will looks jacked. Not some skinny little kid anymore.

Omg I need one of those in my life 😂

I've seen induction used like that in a very old video of Bob Kramer and Anthony Bourdain and always wondered, why it isn't used more.

cool toy!

As a former engineer, I greatly appreciate the flexibility that you can make your own coils. How wide and thin can you make the coil to keep the blade equidistant from the coil on all four sides?

it is an induction heater. Just like induction cooking tops. -You can easily google how those work. :)

Fill them with water to bend them instead of sand. Water cant be compressed. Make it long enough to sacrifice maybe an inch on each end. Crimp a side, fill with water, crimp the other side. Its a lot harder to get sand out than it is to get water out.

I'm in Muncie, would love a meet and greet in Anderson.

That's awesome. I would be curious on the cost difference. Where I am, it's about 17 cents per KWH, so 1 hour of run time would be about $4 to $5. How much is an hour of run time on your forge?

1:35 in and I am already sold

wootz, wootz you said that (how ever its spelt) yes sir looking forward to seeing that. Slan go foill Conor

I wonder if the electromagnet would work with a tungsten rod? That's about $250 for the materials alone, but it would not melt easily...

I don't know if this has been explained elsewhere, but for the curious: the magnetic field of the induction forge induces a current in the bar. Since the bar is an imperfect conductor, it has some resistance. That means some of induced current is converted to heat. More induced current, more resistance, more heat.

Love their name Coal and sells a electric "oven" that's progress!

It uses an alternating magnetic field which by induction, faradays law, induces electric currents in the metal and by resistive heating the metal heats up