James @ Holkham Forge

I thought I'd post an update and I just wanted to say thanks Tim. I've got two 3/4" Amal burners working now with 60 jet nozzles and today the heat from my old homemade forge was insane. I was forming scrolls around a jig and the heat was pretty much 2ft long on batches of up to 6 pieces of 16mm square mild steel, and the gauges on the regulator said it was only 1.5 bar on a bit less than a quarter of a tank. Thanks so much for your help and advice. It is now really a productive bit of kit! I can screw the burners on and off which means a really flexible workspace.

Thanks Tim: more amazing info and insights! I spoke to Amal/burlen today and ordered a 60 jet that will fit in the 3/4" burner I already have so fingers crossed I can achieve the efficiency and heat that seems possible from this great little burner.

Hi Ric, I was using the 3/4" burner on a nearly empty propane tank at what my old acetylene regulator gauge said was a bit over 0.5bar. I opened the tank tap and only turned the regulator a little and that was enough to create a hotspot 6"x 5" x 9" for me to forge the mild steel sheet elements I was working on. How accurate the gauge was is open to question but it was very low pressure and it made a lot of heat. I guess 5 bar would be absolutely raging hot!. One question I did have was about the Jet Size that Tim suggested " 1/2" injector: 30 jet, 3/4" injector: 60 jet, 1" injector: 120 jet." The Amal website says the 1/2" is Amal gas jet number 70, the 3/4 number 110 and the 1" number 180. Should I ask Amal for some smaller jets or am I getting confused somewhere? Thanks.James

Thanks Tim. Lots of fantastic advice there! I will certainly clean up the burners and put a bit of effort into keeping it working well. The Forge is 26" long with an opening about 6" x 5". We make bespoke naturalistic forged commissions and have used it for long heats when a coke forge is too localised, but as I said it has been feeling increasingly inefficient, stopping us making full use of the possibilities of the tool. I was thinking of replacing the 3 burners with the smaller 1/2" ones to keep the long heat possibilities, although today I welded the 3/4" pipe into one of the exhaust ports and used just a single burner and it heated the front section of the forge area nicely when forging some flower elements in 3mm sheet even at really low pressure which was a bit of a revelation. It was interesting to explore the impact of varying the pressure through the regulator and the choke of the burner. I'm not sure I'm much the wiser yet but it feels much more controllable than the homemade set of three. How well do you think a bank of 3 in series would work from the same tank? Thanks again, James

I have an old homemade (not by me) propane forge which has a single gas pipe which has 3 holes drilled in it which sqirts the gas down into the forge. Unfortunately the jets are a bit off target so have a tendency to burn in the top part of the burner rather than down in the forge (particularly at low pressure). I was planning to upgrade it using 3 x 1/2" Amal buners but wasn't sure about how long the pipe should be from the end of the long venturi to the forge? I've tried a 3/4" burner and it seems the shorter it is the better (if better is a more of a roar from the flame). I'm not quite sure how the length of pipe will effect the flame and heat. Also does the offset angle of the burner affect the heat? Thanks for existing forgeburners and exhaustsAmal 3/4 inch burner plus screw in pipe