Mikey98118

And as we all know, the way to get your money's worth from ceramic blanket is to use silica rigidizer on it during forge construction.

No; the heat gain ends in about three inches. The back two-thirds of a 3/4" burner runs from cool to darn cold as it gets closer to the beginning of the mixing tube. Fortunately, there is enough flex in the fan housing to make the screws tight enough that the fan will not become loose from shrinking. This is the advantage that comes from listening to people who have dealt with these parts already Not that I know everything about every size and construction method possible when building Vortex burners, but I know quite a bit.

Twenty years ago I gave away my Makita power tools, and replaced them with Harbor Freight, just to keep my stuff from walking off the job; I had to work with these kinds of monkeys at the time. The only thing worse than their disrespect of your tools is when they like them.

In regard to your vortex burner project : I Have no dog in this fight but I feel like the kid who wanders into the middle of a movie. For all your fellow movie watchers we will back up a little bit. The first question would have to be What is the object of this exercise?? Is there a base line that this improves on? It improves on the previous limit on how hard a flame could be kept from blowing right off a burner's flame nozzle; it also creates a more thorough mixing of fuel and air in the burner. How do you know when it has met your expectations? I know from long experience; you would know by heat output. Is the muffin fan for added air or are you trying to swirl the air to better mix the gas? Very good question; it is for the added swirl. The aluminum block/ spacer in your illustration is for a transition from the fan to the SST?? I would offer that you may want to rethink the through bolt holding the three together, the aluminum is going to expand, a lot, and the weakest part of that sandwich is the fan, it is going to crack. Incorrect; this end of the burner gets cold; the other end gets hot." .

Funnel shapes for 3/4" Vortex burners One of the most convenient ways to acquire parts for air openings on these burners is to use stainless steel reducer fittings, as they are high-quality castings, and cost no more than mild steel butt weld fittings; they are thick enough to provide good purchase for threaded holes, so that mixing tubes with beveled edges can be slid inside the fitting's small openings. Aerating wine funnels are a good size (around 3”) for 3/4” burners, and a few of them are longer than average. The Metrokane 2-3/4” I.D. heavy wall stainless steel aerating wine funnel is a nicely convex cone shape. The inner part you see in photos simply lifts out; it is $20 and shipping from amazon.com, but can sometimes be had for less through their alternate sellers ebay links removed

Great insights, Tim!

I think this is one of those "obvious" pieces of advice that hides in plain sight and gets lost in the shuffle most of the time.

And if you provide a hot-face layer inside of them, they should continue to do so; otherwise, they will soon become rubble.

Thanks, Mike.

For decades clay based bricks have had a bubbling agent added to make insulating firebrick. They were only good as secondary insulation. Today such bricks are totally out of date. There are several semi-insulating bricks on the market, which are based on the very same castable refractories that you can buy in bags. Morgan came up with a fully insulating firebrick that is just as efficient as ceramic wool at 2000 F; it is called K26. Morgan also makes other grades of their bricsk that are use rated to higher and lower temperatures. You can find these products on ebay at reasonable prices and low shipping rates for the lighter bricks. The only caveat I would add for the K26 bricks is that they need a sealing layer on their hot face; Matrikote or Plistex from Wayne should do that nicely. Well, okay; the correct term is foaming agent...

Bricks or parts of them can be placed just far enough in front of the exhaust opening to allow spent gas to escape while reradiating IR back into the forge; this is the simplest form of baffle wall. Lots of people use them for years without trying to rreplace them with something more.

Is tough highly insulating K28 brick, which we can buy cheap on eBay, and is cheap to ship, just too easy an answer?

Well, in these photos I'm seeing a very hot flame, that I wouldn't have thought that burner capable of.

The flame looks good; the forge looks hot. Looks like it's going to be another short thread. Do you understand baffle walls? Becuase a brick wall in front of the forge is about all you need now. A little later you will need to fix your crumbling forge, and we can discuss protecting that brick from heat damage.

Alas, if we can't get more photos from him it's going to be a very short thread

So, here were are, once again with a whole lot of needed information stuck on the previous page, and left unavailable because we can't back up to view it. Any ideas???

When I was a youngster, "it only took a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel." That will never change. how we react to them is up to us, just as it was to our grandparents.

The first two answers were right. However, the heat of your forge tells me that your burner can't be far wrong. As to the dragon's breath; it tells me you probably should turn the burner down some. Be happy, 'cause you're in the groove,

So, which is better? Handy and Harmons' white stainless steel flux, or one of the black fluxes? I've used both kinds; they are both good products, but I prefer the white flux for sweating, and the flack flux for keeping the brazing area exact.

that should read "centering rod"

When you choose to attach a reducer directly onto a mixing tube, it becomes important to ensure a perfect fit.; Otherwise the joint must be power sanded into a smooth transition; this isn't only needed for good mixture flow. You must build and use a centering hod to ensure that the gas jet is soldered or brazed dead center in the middle of the mixing tube during construction. Afterward, the rod will be used to ensure the jet stays centered during maintenance. The rod must move smoothly past the joint, to work properly.

this is just as good a construction path as any, and I can assure you that it works out well for flow characteristics and least possible backpressure at the funnel to fan interface. I used a similar part to build my first "V" burner. Once you have the mixing tube, buy a long enough length of threaded rod to extend comfortably beyond both reducer and mixing tube with room to spare for nuts, a large washer for the tube end, and a drilled plate for the reducer end. Then clamp all of the parts together for silver brazing. You will have to use at least 50% silver filler and flux meant for brazing on stainless steel. Use a square to ensure that both part ends are at true right angles in order to keep their join in line during brazing. Brazing S.S. Funnels to Couplers and Mixing Tubes Aside from burners built from sausage stuffer tubes (and a very few other exceptions), a burner’s funnel section must be joined to its mixing tube by cutting back its small end, and adding a coupling tube, into which a mixing tube will rest. With the exceptions of one 1/4” and one 3/8” burner built from sausage stuffing tubes, no funnel on a Vortex burner is permanently affixed to the burner’s mixing tube; not even when the funnel’s stem and mixing tube are a close enough match to make a brazed joint between them tempting. The main reason for employing coupling tubes is to provide a greater variety of available burner sizes; it also gives easy access to the gas jet for centering during construction, and occasional re-centering after cleaning. Propane comes in widely varying quality from different sources, but even the best of it isn’t perfectly clean (we aren’t talking about triple refined lighter butane here). The waxes and tars that all commercial propane contains are capable of plugging small capillary tubes, or even the smaller MIG contact tips, thus ruining burner performance, while rapidly increasing pressures on gas hose and gas fittings to full cylinder pressure, unless a proper regulator—not just a needle valve—is employed. Poor quality “bargain” propane can form plugging tar balls quite rapidly. It then becomes necessary to shut down and clean the burner by poking the tar ball out of its gas jet with a set of torch tip cleaners (or piano wire for very small orifices), and blowing it back out through the larger diameter gas tube with air pressure; canned air is fine for this if you don’t own a compressor. You are being shown how available funnels can be attached to available tubing products as a convenience; nothing stops you from producing your own turned or spun funnels, should you have a lathe handy. Unfortunately, even with SSTs, working with what’s on the market restricts possible selections, and so the occasions when funnels can be directly screwed onto, or trapped within, mixing tubes are limited. Fortunately, “coupling tube” connectors can be generally employed to ease burner construction. A short section, made out of the same tubing used as a spacer ring between the burner’s flame nozzle and mixing tube, can be silver brazed directly onto the funnel after threaded holes are placed in its forward end, and its joint face is beveled to closely match the funnel’s angle. This coupling tube replaces the original funnel stem (which is cut away before brazing, and any excess sheet metal protruding into the mixing tube is ground away after brazing). Subsequently, funnel and coupler are secured onto the mixing tube with socket head Allen screws. So, how short is short enough? The portion of coupling tube that extends beyond the funnel should be at least twice as long as the mixing tube diameter on miniature burners, and one and a half times the diameter of 1” and larger burners. You need to keep the coupling tube short enough to easily reach well into the gas jet at the gas tube’s end with torch tip cleaners, for possible removal of tar balls. Standard torch tip cleaner sets are a full two inches long. There are also extra-long torch tip cleaner sets with more than twice that length. If you don’t construct a gas jet centering rod you will also need clearance for needle nose pliers, (centering rods are discussed further on). Note: Not only does tubing come with plus/minus tolerances (between 0.002” and 0.005” on small tubing diameters), but it isn’t perfectly round, although it’s much more concentric than pipe. When you are power sanding parts to create a close fit, don’t forget to rotate them while checking how well they slip together. Before securing the coupling tube on the mixing tube with Allen screws, rotate both tubes to assure a tight fit; twist to loosen them before disassembly. Remember to completely remove internal burrs and chase the screw threads as many times as required to ensure a smooth fit between coupling ring and mixing tube; a round file wrapped in sandpaper can be a great help in removing the internal burrs and deformations made by a threading tap. Some funnel stems will fit closely enough on smaller tube sizes (up to 3/8” burners) to slip over the outside, or into the opening of D.O.M and stainless steel tubing. Pan-head screws are good enough to attach a funnel stem to the outside of a mixing tube. Otherwise, a separate tightening fixture is called for; a locking collar. After cutting a thin slot into the mixing tube or onto a funnel stem’s end (not quite as deep as the collar is wide), a simple inexpensive drill bit collar can be used to squeeze the slit tubing section tight around the funnel stem inside it. Stop collars are commonly found in sizes meant for 1/8”, 3/16”, 1/4”, 5/16”, 3/8”, 7/16”, and 1/2” diameter drill bits. But drill stops are also available in size differences given in sixty-fourths of an inch; Mandrel collars are very similar to drill stops, and the same part might be found under either category in a large hardware store. Two Allen screws can be added at one-third distance from the first screw, and from each other, to increase the tightening and centering effectiveness over that of a single screw. The collars are available in a variety of single piece sizes at most hardware stores and in cheap sets through amazon.com and eBay. By drilling threaded holes for three equally spaced Allen screws into at least 1/8” thick wall tube (thicker is better), you can create your own collar in a convenient length for any tube diameter. drilled out round bar or hex stock can be even handier if your mixing tube’s outside diameter is a hard size to closely match. Worm screw hose clamps can only be used when the funnel is slipped inside a mixing tube, and are not recommended in any case.

Don't forget that the actual inside diameter of schedule #40 3/4" pipe is 7/8" another bit ofwriggle room can be provided by going for a slightly larger mixing tube. And yes, high-quality reducers, like stainless steel types, are perfectly acceptable air openings. Don't forget that the actual inside diameter of schedule #40 3/4" pipe is 7/8" another bit of wriggle room can be provided by going for a slightly larger mixing tube. And yes, high-quality reducers, like stainless steel types, are perfectly acceptable air openings. the three to one maximum is blade diameter to mixing tube inside diameter, so if the large opening of the reducer is over three to one, just use a slightly smaller fan. Perfect matchups are nice, but we do what we must to live with our part choices

LEM Products makes a 1" outside diameter SST; that actually ends up about .060" larger than the standard pipe size for a 3/4" burner. The LEM SST is top quality too; unlike the three Smokehouse products that I have from them so far. The 1" SST is a little short on Funnel length, but we will make up for that by using a 3/4" thick aluminum fan mounting plate, which we will bevel to--in effect--lengthen the funnel section and increase the diameter of the fan opening. Fair enough? This is no burden to me, since the book demands all three methods of making a 3/4' Vortex burner.

John, You do realize that this SST (sausage stuffing tube) only has an inside diameter 1/16" larger than the standard 5/8" inside diameter used in 1/2" size burners, don't you? I am also having trouble getting the really large SST I wanted to use for my version of an SST based 3/4" Vortex burner. We can still use the wine funnel version of this burner, or we can build a 1/2" size SST version; your choice.