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My homemade forge door hinge gave out after 2 weeks
I built this little propane forge back in March and used some cheap strap hinges I had laying around for the door. Worked fine for maybe 2 weeks of light use then one side just snapped clean off during a heat treat on a kitchen knife. The whole door dropped and almost hit my quench bucket. I ended up welding on some beefier 3/8" steel hinges from Tractor Supply that cost me maybe $12. Anyone else had hardware fail at the worst possible moment?
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avery72125d ago
Yeah that's exactly the kind of thing that happens with cheap hardware on a forge. I switched to welding my hinges straight onto the frame and door after my first set warped and seized up from the heat.
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The heat from a forge is brutal on hardware. @avery721 is right that welding hinges directly is way more solid. Actually though, that 3/8" steel from Tractor Supply might still cause trouble down the road if its just mild steel. I learned that one the hard way when my own homemade door hinge warped after a few more heat cycles. It held up okay for a bit but then started binding when the steel expanded unevenly. A lot of guys are switching to stainless or even just cutting proper hinges from thicker plate to avoid that whole issue.
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