History

July 2025

Propane Regulators

Q: What’s up with the “do not touch” on the forge’s propane regulator? Curious what the correct setting is on that, I thought it was just fully open.

We keep the propane flow regulated to around 10 psi, which is not fully open (though that's really an educated guess, it's set by observing the flame cause that regulator doesn't have a gauge). 

The flow rate is not meant to be member adjustable, which is said explicitly in the clearance class.

The "do not touch" is due to members fully opening the valve (presumably remembering the instructions for other regulators like the mig gas, or they though the tank was running low, or they thought that it was supposed to be fully open).

For reference that 10 psi figure pre-dates historical notes. It likely comes from a few places:

• diminishing returns on forge heat beyond the point (for vastly increased gas consumption),,
• the mr volcano can't really hold much more flame than that at a neutral fuel air mix and we don't want a lot of dragons breath coming out the doors (hazardous for folks who aren't expecting it),,
• and lastly we don't want it at forge welding temp as we don't allow forge welding in that forge (the regulator on the forge welding forge is set quite a bit higher, though still not quite fully open, and it gets hot and belches quite a bit of flame and requires quite a bit more caution to use safely),
  

To add a little more to the story, the instructions from Mr. Volcano originally said to back the valve off, just like the welding regulators, in order to stop the flow between uses, and to readjust the flame to neutral each time you turned it back on. The regulator is really low quality and isn't engineered to be opened and closed regularly without wearing out the threads, so that was always just a bad suggestion on the part of the "manufacturer".