Mikey98118

Paulo, Since you've already got MIG contact tips: MIG tips only go down to >023" call-out size; this is the welding wire size they are meant to feed--not the actual size of the orifice, which is .031". The best orifice size for a 1/2" burner is .028" orifice diameter. You can't get smaller than an .031" diameter orifice using a MIG tip...unless, you add a section of hypodermic needle as an internal sleeve to it. It was this frustration (which being a perfectionist) lead me to start experimenting with capillary tube and dispensing needles, and finally to Luer-lock dispensing needles. I won't pretend to have any idea how available various products are in Portugal, so will assume that hypodermic needles would be the easiest source of capillary tube for you to find. Hypodermic needles are all made from stainless steel, which requires boron modified flux for successful silver brazing; fortunately, all these needles can be bent in a curve, and all of them retain a certain amount of spring afterwards. So by combining the right sized orifice with the closest MIG tip orifice diameter, you can slip such a needle into a MIG tip, and it will stay in place (If you cant find a proper match, carefully drill out the MIG tip with the closest hole diameter to the needle's outside diameter) Afterward you grind off the excess needle, and sand away the inevitable internal burr with some spit and a circular motion on very fine sandpaper (at least #200 grit). The best gas jet orifice size for a 3/8" burner is .022" but you can reduce that to as little as .019" by shortening the needle length down to about 5/8". The best gas jet orifice size for a 1/4" burner is .016" but you can reduce that to as little as .014" by shortening the needle length down to about 5/8". Obviously you're not going to have a lot of success bending a 1/2" to 5/8" long sleeve from a hypodermic needle, so for such a short length, the alternative plan is swaging the copper MIG tip down around the needle, so that it firmly grips it; this is done by drilling a hole in a small block of steel or brass, cutting the block in half, and setting the MIG tip (with needle inserted) in the bottom half, covering the tip with the top half, and hitting the block with a hammer; rotate the tip one quarter turn and hammer the block again.

Twodogzz, I really enjoyed your forge build video on YouTube, and hope the outcome doesn't discourage you. I won't add anymore advice than you've already recieved about the forge, other than to encourage you to keep tweaking. If you want to use so much less gas that your tanks don't freeze up, build a different burner. The Frosty "T" burner is as easy a build as you'll ever run across, and isn't a gas hog.

Well, no; the KISS principle recommends not over complicating your work plan. You seem to be operating on the much more common MISS principle: which stands for " Make It Stupidly Sloppy."

I think finish coatings and refractory burner nozzles are more important subjects than using the latest Formula One burner design, and everybody knows I'm a maniac on the subject of burner designs; is this a strong enough encouragement that you're on the right track?

If you want to avoid repairing and replacing brick right away, you should paint it with a high temperature protective coating, like Satinite, and then cover that with a high-emissive coating like ITC-100

RJS, I am one of those "heavy hitters," and I want you to know that the idea has HUGE potential. So, please don't underestimate yourself too quick nest time Nest time; really? Let's try "next time" instead. A century back, snake oil salesmen were becoming a problem; so our society started issuing licenses and degrees to the 'qualified' in an attempt to solve the problem. Today there is more snake oil marketed than ever. Don't be impressed with titles or celebrity; look closer at the ideas being proffered, and judge advice on it own merits.

I believe you can safely get even more heat transferred from the torch into your forge, by finding pipe or tubing that will slip over the torch as a short extension, and which can then be moved a short way into the opening, without overheating the torch tip; worth trying, anyway. Also, Chinese made gasoline or kerosene burning torches are now available with steel burner heads, that can be used this way (poked a short way into an entrance hole); they only cost about $39 in the USA, and should be cheaper in Europe. Such torches are often underated for heating potential becuase no attempt to control secondary air intake is possible with old fashioned brass heads. Good luck, and keep on posting your results.

Europe, has been moving away from straight butane torches, to butane/propane mixtures, for quite a few years now; it solves the low pressure problem...mostly. The only value straight butane torches have is their ability to form needle flames for silver brazing jewelry. I hope by burner opening you are not referring to the gas jet orifice, because increasing it will almost certainly mess up performance.

Barreira, You want to use a propane torch. No butane torch will hold its pressure (which is low to begine with) long enough to provide sufficient heat fo run even a collee-can forge. MonkeyForge, It isn't easy to tell from your photo, but if that is a butane torch you're using, switch to air/propane

Timgunn, I like that idea; very practical way to vary secondary air intake.

I have always preferred to buy tools, rather than build them. Seventeen years ago, I started building burners, forges, and casting furnaces, because all the comment I'd heard from people who bought forges was only about their dissatisfaction with them. These days Chile Forge puts out a good product; One guy in England puts out a good product; that leaves a whole lot of unsatisfactory forges for sale...

It looks to me that Zoeller is asking $36 dollars for his regulator kit, while HiTemp wants $57 dollars; how is that cheaper?

How do you choose the right size of spacer ring? Using schedule #40 pipe, or its tubing equivalent, the spacer ring is the next size up from the pipe you are using as the burner mixing tube. The flame nozzle consists of the next larger pipe size from the spacer ring. You will probably need to do a little filing or power sanding to get the spacer ring to slide freely on the mixing tube, and a little more filing to get the flame nozzle to press-fit over the spacer ring. I would also recommend using stainless steel pipe or tubing for the flame nozzle; not mild steel.

Green Zombie, the following will sound harsh; I don't mean it that way, but...No, it is not working fantastically! I can tell this much from your description of the burner as "working great at first", after looking at your photos. The first photo shows a (probably 1/2" pipe size burner (not one inch, unless you have giant sized hands) with a reducer fitting that is too small, on a pipe that is a bit short). That pipe should be nine times the measured inside diameter of the pipe in length if you want proper fuel gas and air mixing. Your photo also shows the flame nozzle out of proper alignment with the mixing tube (pipe) axis; drill and tap three more holes to the rear of the existing three set screw holes, so that you can properly aim the flame nozzle.Also, I don't think you remembered to include a spacer ring at the rear of your flame nozzle; it will never work properly without one. this advice comes from the guy who invented all those updates to Riel burners that you're trying to employ. Your burner will be "running fantastic" when it produces mostly a single primary flame envelope, without a white combustion envelope behind it (just a clear space), with very little secondary flame, and no third flame envelope at all. Pipe call-out sizes are smaller than actual outside diameter; they are even smaller than actual inside diameters. Read the call-out sizes listed on the bins you choose your parts from; don't go by what you see.

There is nothing wrong with a Riel style burner, if you include the MIG tip modification, which ups its output quite a bit. There is also nothing wrong with a Frosty "T" burner, which is a lot easier to build. I would also recommend that you include a third layer of ceramic fiber, reducing your way overlarge forge enterior; trading it away for enhanced insulation performance; a win win trade off.

A Frosty "T" burner will be the easiest to build, but be warned that nothing larger than a 3/8" burner is likely to have sufficient turn down range to work well in such a small forge. You can find how-to text posted for my 1/4" and 3/8" burners somewhere in this forum. If you can get instructions from someone who has built a 3/8" "T" burner, that would be more convenient for you, as small Mikey burners would require you to buy a hand operated rotary tool.

Yes, the blacksmith group will certainly do him more good overall; however, when it comes to burners and heating equipment, the casting group will probably be more valuable to him. Of course, nothing prevents him from using both sources.

Way to small for a 34" burner; you would be much better off with ibe a 3/8" burner. You can find instructions for building them by following one of the posts that is tagged with an arrow that is labeled "Burner."

NO TAPER; the instant you put taper in a step nozzle is the instant you lose all its advantages. A tapered nozzle has very little ability to help tune a burner for best performance, becuase the amount of its overhang beyond the mixing tube does very little to change ithe internal shape of its opening. A tapered nozzle has the least ability to super-heat and form a secondary ignition source for the wave front; a taoered nozzle is a lot more work to construct. The only reason for employing a tapered nozzle is that the burner design has too weak a fuel/air mixture flow to support a step nozzle. If you correctly follow the MIG tip change I wrote for Ron Riel's burner, even one of them can successfully feed a stepped burner nozzle, so why on earth would you opt for a tapered type???

Ironhawk, My land line number is 206-722-8326 My URL is michael.a.porter@comcast.net

WayneCoe, Your dad was a smart man; if ever a pithy-grabber was spoke, that is one. It's also pretty important to know what goes where, and why, if we want to end up with a good enough piece of equipment; otherwise, we are simply trying to stumble through to the finish line on luck! The only exception to complete understanding is building on faith, based on a complete set of instructions. Frosty, Very few of us write well enough to hold the interest of the average reader. My first book was written for starving artists; people who had earned a bachelor of arts degree in fine arts from a typical American college; only to discover that they were never taught the skills needed to create first rate multimedia art, and who could never afford to buy the equipment; I wrote it for people who would be driven to pay close attention to its building instructions, and only bothered reciting the reasons why the equipment worked so well for any of them with left over curiosity after equipment construction. My family was thrilled that one of them was a published author, but none of these highly intelligent people could make it through more than a few pages of the text; this was because they had no interest in the subject. Driving interest trumps all other factors, but is seldom seen

The flame nozzle design is everything; EVERYTHING!!! All the other construction changes on all of my burner designs are meant to assist the right flame nozzle design to work at peak efficiency; that said, a mere tapered flame nozzle built from refractory can do almost as well as one of my stainless steel flame nozzles when fed from an older burner design; I fully expect the same improvement with one of my flame nozzles built from refractory. Hybrid stainless steel, refractory lined flame nozzles are the wave of the future for burners employed as hand torches, or in small equipment, and refractory burner blocks for brick pile forges.

Frozen Forge asks, "Mike, I recall from somewhere about putting a compression type spring that fits against the I.D. of the mixing tube to promote mixing and a swirl effect. Any thoughts?" Another good question; right to the point. Turbulence is what creates efficient propane and air mixing; you cannot create a stable air/propane flame without it. That said, there are many ways to create turbulence in a burner; some good and most of them bad. The difference comes from how much interference with laminar flow you create in order to accomplish good mixing. Most forms of turbulence are the equivalent of driving your car with the handbrake engaged. Swirling the fuel and air together is the least costly method for mixture flow speed. So, anything you put inside the mixing tube is going to be harmful to flow speed. the only device I've ever seen in oxy-fuel torches that works well is internal fins to create spin in the mixing chamber, or fins in the goose neck to reduce spin in the output flame; I would not use either in an air-fuel burner. BTW, an internal spring in a burner's mixing tube will interfere with the swirl effect; not promote it. I harp on about mixture flow speed, because high flow speed allows a more radical flame nozzle shape, which reduces mixture pressure in the flame nozzle two or three times that achieved in a typical tapered flame nozzle; this shape is easier to build and far more easily tuned than a tapered nozzle; it wil also support a much larger harder flame. Frosty is right about increasing the orifice diameter on the MIG tip; it's the only possible reason this burner design could run lean. BTW, nice work on that burner. where did you order the threaded stainless steel reducer from?

Frosty, Yes, IF YOU CAN GET COMPLETE COMBUSTION IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE DISTANCE (which requires a single wave envelope AKA wave front) slower velocity is best, because it gives more "hang time" for combustion products to transfer heat to the hot-face surface of your forge; this can be accomplished by deliberately turning down one of my burners in the T-D-C position or by building two smaller burners instead of a single larger burner. The major advantage of ribbon burners is short low velocity flames, so if hang time were the only criteria, they would win hands down; it's not. But, suppose someone is building a vertical forge or casting furnace; or suppose he/she is building a rotating forge/furnace. Then low velocity flames equal LESS hang-time when the equipment is in the vertical position Why is longer hang-time a desirable factor, but not the central factor? Because of radiant heat from equipment walls. Hang-time would be the trump card if combustion heat transference to the work was mainly accomplished by contact with super heated combustion products, but this just ain't so, above 1600 degrees; the hotter your furnnace the greater the percentage of heat transfer happens through radiation.

Every good rule has a possible exception, One friend of mine uses a top-dead-center position with his burner pointing straight down at the forge floor; it works beautifully for him, but he only heats up to 1/4" square stock with his burner turned down to the minimum pressure that will produce a single wave front neutral flame. this is as close to the slow flame performance of a ribbon burner as you're going to get with a jet-ejector burner design. I wouldn't even mention this exception if bean can forges hadn't been listed among his possible choices, for anything larger I use a tangential position with my burners (twenty degrees down from top-dead-center).