Mikey98118

I am a notorious picky butt about burners. I practice this not to build a Bentley, but so that when all the things that can go wrong have done their worst, the result will end up satisfactory; that includes the equipment the burner is mounted in. The idea is to start off aiming high, so that you can live with the result. Their have been burners of marginal design that put out marvelous flames, but I would rather not gamble on that; it is a rare exception; not a happy rule..

No; you may be trying trying to reduce my designs to mathematical formulae. but that won't work. In the real world burners have to be made from available parts, if possible. Even if you had the equipment and time to drill your jet orifices using wire gauge drill bits, you would find that there is no straightforward progression of sizes with them. You simply come as close as you can, and live with your results in an imperfect world.

I hope you will give us your impressions of your new forge. One of the questions that many people want anwered is what owners think of the various different brands of commercial forges out there.

thank you. I think ceramics sources that are cooperative, and easy to work with are the very best kind.

Here's another ballpark number for you: the actual WORKING length of the flame nozzle, that is the amount of overhang of a flame nozzle beyond the end of the mixing tube, will usually turn out to be roughly equal to its inside diameter of the nozzle, plus somewhere between 1/16" to 1/8", depending on how large the nozzle is. The rest of the nozzle's length is just used to assure it stays parrallel to the burner's axis.

Thank your for sharing these photos, which show how small changes in a burner can make huge changes in the flame. Folks the shortened club shaped neutral flame, is a fine example of total combustion of a primary flame.

I would sure appreciate those flame pictures, and a write up of the changes you made to get from one to the others, on the Burner 101 thread. Otherwise, they become much harder for people to see at the end of the month, when they will join all the other old files. I want people to see that they don't need a perfect burner design to end up with a great flame. Also they make a fine example of how much, some tweaks in a finished burner can radically change its flame. I can post perfect flames coming out of perfect burners forever, without doing as much good for people who are struggling with tuning problems, as your photos can.

Love the cart! Round kiln tiles make cheap and easy forge doors; it's like they were made for the purpose. BTW, have I mentioned that you are crafting a very nice forge? I'm excited to see how its going to turn out.

Maarten, As a binder for thin hot-face coatings, I don't think there would be any practical difference between Bentone, bentonite, or Veegum; all should work fine for that.

My take on things is along the same lines as Frosty's. Going by Digitalfire.com's materials section, there is a long list of purified Hectorite clay products; all with one kind of advantage or another. However, they are all likely to come with limited availability, just as Veegum, which the author calls the king of binders, does. So, starting with bentonite clay, the purer products will have to be researched area by area, to see how good a plasticizer/binder is available in each. On the other hand, bentonite clay should be available in most places, and will due handily for many purposes; just not for crucible or flame nozzles. I too look forward to what you can come up with locally. No doubt many sources of Veegum and other refined binders will be listed here, as more and more people become interested. But, this subject is going to take people all over the globe, and many years to even make a good beginning at answering these questions.

I am easy to find right here, and I also answer emails. Next step will be looking into Bentone. Yes, what he said about building thermally tough crucibles rocked my world too. It immediately sent my imagination into overdrive about using this stuff as high temperature burner nozzles and muti-port burner heads. In the past, using word searches on the various types of crucibles, had been my main source of PRACTICAL information about refractories; now such searches can be cross referenced on Digitalfire.com. It's been a very good week, thus far

We don't want to forget humble ordinary bentonite clay either. I will be looking into mixtures of bentonite and Perlite for use as lite weight castable secondary insulation, bricks, etc. Waste not; want not

At last, I have coaxed Frosty down to the deep end of the pool! Alas, I've ended up there with you It is exciting isn't it; finally a new (to us) ceramic product with a thousand and one uses, which is actually available to mere mortals, rather than only to titans of industry! Yes, the "sticky factor" of 5% Veegum should make Multi port burner heads easy to mold in two parts, and then glue together. Their extreme thermal toughness will make the heads practical for forge work. Your ribbon burners are likely to take a big step forward. However, the big concern about using propylene in my fuel/air hand torches and equipment burners, just went bye bye too. Next thing coming up is commiserating with each other over the amount of forge makers who accidentally become steel founders without half trying. Still, where would we be without problems to overcome? Why do I get the feeling that a practical alternative to high alumina kiln shelf floors just turned up? Of course, this stuff is going to turn oval and "D" forge building into child's play, and end the search for 1/4" high alumina tiles to protect square forge insulation... I think we just entered into "interesting times. " We all will need to keep track of every source of Veegum we can find, and asks others to post any sources they come across; nice long suppliers lists on Veegum T and Zircopax are going to be wanted by people who can't find them locally.

Peter, You are correct that jet orifice diameters are tied to mixing tube inside diameters; that said, jet orifice sizes are also effected by gas/air mixture flow rates, so that a Frosty "T" burner will generally run one MIG tip size larger, than most other burner designs, including most of mine; the Vortex burner being a possible exception to the rule, as it is to everything else! Finally, the larger the burner the more that jet orifice sizes can be relaxed, but the smaller the burner the more critical they become. You can find an early chart on page 22 of Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns (available free on the web); it is eighteen years out of date, but still provides a starting point for jet sizes. In the end orifice diameters and lengths frequently boil down to personally tuning the fine points for your individual burner; not least because people decide to "just change the burner 'just a little bit" every way they feel like , and then expect it to act as advertised What kind of brazing hearth ? A small square of high alumina kiln shelf with two low walls of fire bricks, making a corner to bounce heat back from, or something more on the order of a classic English brazing hearth, with a burner fired chamber of ceramic chips, to keep the work close to working temperature, and an air/fuel hand torch to raise the work up the final amount for braze welding temperatures where wanted?

that looks like an old gasoline or kerosene stove; not a forge. It's a serious accident waiting to happen; just the same way any antic gasoline or kerosene torch is. Just don't go there!!! there is a site on the web dedicated to antique blow torches; it has an extensing safety section, which will explain why to don't want to try and restore that to working condition. http://www.blotorches.com/

I inteded that last answer for Frosty.

MonkeyForge, I think a lot of your decision would have to depend on what you plan to cast. At 3.5 % one pound of Veegum would go a long way. What is the shipping cost for that small an amount? from somewhere in Europe? Can you get it from China, where they do everything possible to keep shipping charges low? China is a big exporter of ceramic materials... that seems fair enough; I can think of a few things I'd like to mold from this stuff, along the lines of burner blocks. you may have finally found a way to get me to try multiple flame nozzles; along the Giberson line though. I think this stuff is tough enough to make them worthwhile. Also, I would like to see if vibration would be enough to get this refractory to slip cast; that would open up a whole world of possibilities.

Yes, that is a nuetral 100 % primary combustion single flame envelope, It reminds me of the flames from my early Mikey burners. Congratulations, that is a whole lot of flame perfection, considering the design you wore working from.

Frosty, You will recall that the author of the zircopax/Veegum refractory article noted that by 5%, the Veegum binder creates a stick mess of the refractory. But, I am thinking that "sticky" is a good quality in in a thin hot face coating, yes?

Wow; that takes me back. I had a two lbs. ball peen that I used so much in the ornamental iron shop, that the handle was bowed just right to match my left hand swing My computer is playing games. Stuff dissappears, and then reappears...maybe its time for a defrag job.

Wow; that takes me back; at the ornamental iron shop, I had a two lb, ball peen with a reversed bow in its handle from tens of thousands of blows from my left hand; loved that tool! At any right, all you guys are well grounded in the importance of hand tools; most of this generation are not. But, that just makes them like most of our generation was--starting out.

But you already have those tools. This is a chance for newbies who are already purchasing the materials to build a burner and forge, to acquire the most useful tooling for those projects, at the lowest price. Not to mention that your air powered grinder takes a compressor; more $$$. On top of this expense, they have to cough up more money for the accessories to run in it. At this point, they can't see that this tool will end up as useful to them as the forge; its just more money between them and their original goal. Life ain't easy for youngsters...

The percentage of re-radiation in zirconia coatings is directly linked to the size of the zirconium dioxide particles. Crude particles can go as low as 70%, while small particles can reach 93%; since half the mixture is silica, that 93% figure gets cut in two. BUT, we are talking about re-emission--not reflection. For about every .040" thickness of zirconia, or more probably, every .080" of zirconium silicate, another 46.5% of the heat of conduction gets re-emitted back toward the inside of the forge. So, we find that a hot face refractory layer of Zircopax and Veegum is going to not only take a lot of heat and mechanical abuse, but it is also highly insulating. Not bad for a moderately priced homemade refractory!

Look on latest page of Forges 101 for a better answer to heat reflecting layers. Your wife should get a kick out of it too.

Rotary tool and micro drill Electric rotary tools, are the answer to overpowered electric die grinders, which are a grim necessity to unlucky professionals, and should be avoided like a potential trip to the emergency ward, by novices. This leaves electric rotary hand tools as the frequently under powered and overpriced alternative. There is a type of micro drill that trades lower RPM for higher torque; this tool is just right for power grinding and sanding on small parts. And it’s ability to slide along inside asplit pipe, taking the place of a drill press for micro holes in burner jets, is a nice bonus. Its low price seems almost to good to be true; it isn’t though; I bought one last week; its body is a 1.585” diameter aluminum cylinder, that is 3-3/4” long; its speed is 20,000 RPM; the highest recommended speed for a 1-1/2” cut off disk, and still about right for most micro drill bits. Its price is $27; cheap for two essential tools in one