Mikey98118

So, what do we do then? You order a bit of piano wire online, and use it to poke the junk back out of that tiny hole.

Randy, I know that Giberson mentions them in his book, and calls his own ceramic burner heads something else. His square burner heads are a more recent innovation, though, so we need to look somewhere else?

Thomas, Probably better quality propane too. I cut up a lot of propane cylinders and saw a lot of difference in how much tarry mess was on their bottoms. When you're locked into a bottle exchange, the providers can sell you anything they want. I prefer to use propane that I know is good quality.

You're right JHcc. Sorry JC, my bad. Sorry; that would be JHCC. Time for more coffee.

JHCC, I think you read your way well past Super Mongo"; that has more in common with a generation five Mikey burner. BTW, if you move the contact tip up within a 1/4" to 3/8" behind the forward edge of your air openings, you'll hit the sweet spot and see an immediate performance increase from that burner. The photo doesn't show whether or not the beveled the insid of you air openings on their dorward edges; that makes a big difference too. Mikey That should read "...you beveled..."

Hand torches simply aren't designed for, and don't belong inside of heating equipment. You'll be far better off building or buying an air-fuel burner; that said plenty of guys have got away with using jewelers torches that way; I just don't recommend it, because plenty of guys get away with plenty of things--until sum guy doesn't... How great a risk usually depends on length of exposure more than amount of it. The social battle over Industrial contamination started being fought here in the sixties, and biased information was generated by both sides. I was chair of the Boiler Makers local #104 safety committee, and witnessed a lot of "down and dirty" tricks. But the strongest fact that I took away from that experience was that health studies can't help generating flawed statistics over time, because most guys are just passing through the trades these days, while bad health impact shows up strongest in guys who spend their careers in a single trade. All this to say that low levels of exposure all have an effect; how dramatic usually depends on how long you're exposed, but anyone can "roll snake eyes." You are 21 now, but someday you'll be 61; it's a little late to be careful then... Ceramic board is simply super compressed ceramic blanket. Once either product hits 1600 F it will start forming crystabolite; a known carcinogen. However there are many inexpensive sealants, such as Satanite, which stop ceramic particles from becoming airborne.

Alan, The original hearths stopped being made and the company closed down in the early sixties, but you could still find them used when I looked into the subject back in 2006. I don't even recognize the Alcosa brand, but a company called Flamefast was selling an updated version of this system using gas heated ceramic chips for forge/brazing hearth/casting furnaces, with hand held air-gas torches, and their main customers seemed to be schools; they even contacted me to ask permission to use my burners as part of their system, but never actually did. I will now have to look up Alcosa. I've only been to London once, but from what I've read on newsgroups its just as easy for me to research industrial products from Seattle as it is for the locals there; we all seem to do our best research on the Net. Do you have a differing view? Am I getting a false impression by reading postings from the eternally clueless, or is finding industrial tooling and suppleis there harder than over here? I bought a Bullfinch torch system; that's how I learned to simply cut the fuel hose at the regulator end and replace an English reg with an American model the easy way. the flame control on the Bullfinch system is wonderful, but the torch is over large. BTW, the 60/40 mixture has become standard for fuel canisters over there as near as I can tell, and when I looked back in2006 it is what they were calling "LPG"

Charlotte, We agree. Also our expectations of the down side can be totally off too. After I burned the garage halfway to the ground, I fessed up to the insurance agent that I was working a business from home, and he simply cut the pay out in half, instead of walking out from under me. Years later, A local fireman was asking me a technical question about my book in the grocery checkout line. The fire department had been keeping tabs on me all that time; he was grinning to see the shock on my face Even though local fire departments are pretty strict on propane safety, hot glass studios get approved and licensed all over Seattle. But, when a friend tried to get the Auburn fire department to inspect and approve his shop forge, he was handed off to the Fire Marshall personally, who proceeded to duck out of taking any responsibility by telling the man to do. He'd only say "get a copy ($$$) of the NFPA recommendations," because that's what they used for local fire safety codes. It's a pure waste of time to try and predict which way "the authorities" will jump.

MIG tip tapering makes a lot of difference in smaller burner diameters and no difference in large burners.

Charlotte, Nearly all local fire codes are based on, or taken directly from the NFPA. That doesn't mean there can't be zoning codes preventing someone from plunking down a 500 gallon tank in the burbs.

Do we know who first invented the ribbon burner?

Please, just go to the Larry Zoeller Forge website and look up coffee-can forges there. Add a simple to build Frosty "T" burner in it, and get forging without all the false starts. And, before you ask, the wide open front is supposed to be muffled with a brick "wall" set a short distance away from the opening's edge. By using brick you can vary the size of slot that parts are fed through.

Any 1-1/2" long MIG tip can be inserted into a drill and spun under a hand file. "Presto, chango"; you got a tapered tip. Don't affempt to file the tip end down to a point; leave about a 1/16" around the orifice. There is even an exception to the tip length requirement. Larry Zoeller exchanged the recommended schedule #40 1/8" gas pipe for a schedule #80 pipe, so that he could tap thread directly into the pipe without silver brazing an insert into it, and found as a side benefit that 1" long MIG tips now worked just fine. I tried out Larry's changes, and they DO work just fine. You can order these pipes from Larry Zoeller forge, or from McMaster Carr. The likely reason you're being lied to at regular welding supply stores is that the sale of a single MIG tip doesn't even justify their paperwork. When you order the tips online, they aren't sold singly. So call the welding supply store and ask if they have them in stock and will sell you THREE tips at a time; otherwise you get to pay shipping charges for online purchases. After the book came out I got a lot of angry claims that this tip wasn't available at local welding supply stores; and now you know why.

Folks in the UK used butane instead of transferring to propane back when we did over here. Nowadays they are replacing straight butane with LPG mixtures (60% butane and 40% propane). But naturally aspirated burners were pretty standard on their brazing equipment for decades; they used a fan-blown burner to heat the ceramic chips in an open forge with low pressure butane, and a naturally aspirated burner mounted on a hose for additional heat for the area being hard brazed. You can still buy this equipment in England; they also make very advanced naturally aspirated LPG hand torch systems; I think the brand is Bullfinch.

That burner ends in a hose barb. Cut off one end of an American fuel hose, insert the barb into it and crank down a worm-drive hose clamp on it; you'll be in business the painless way. Or, as they put it in mafia films; "bing, bam, boom; job done.

I should stipulate that we-uns over to the casting groups only use Perlite as a third layer outside of the hot-face refractory, and ceramic blanket layers. But, I've wanted to try sawdust added to a semi-insulating refractory like Kast-O-lite 3000 for a while now. So much to try, so little time in a day...The Perlite, when added to refractory melts down to almost nothing, leaving the same kind of void as sawdust, but sawdust is finer than Perlite, which might make for a stronger refractory matrix when all is said and done. What keeps me from employing either of them is that Kast-O-lite 3000 is so tough and so easy to work with; it is just way too satisfactory a product to be improved much; so why go there?

That there looks like a Devil Forge, and they also make a tunnel version, that looks very much like a coffee-can forge on steroids (heavier construction materials). You would probably be happier with that shape, if you add an exterior baffle.

Charlotte, Water glass, is less expensive than colloidal silica as a binding agent for ceramic fiber and for Pearlite, when purchased from a pottery supply store; but it is also heavier do to the salt content, and has a lower melting temperature for the same reason. Rigidizer is usually just colloidal silica with food dye added so you can see how far it has penetrated into the ceramic fiber. Colloidal silica is also called fumed silica, and is available on the cheap from several online sources; it is also super light (equals cheap to ship), until it gets dissolved in water. After the water is fired off its super light again, and very effective.

Can you post a photo of the burner? I always like to see what's out there.

Ianinsa's advice is the easiest way to go; I have fit up a British regulator to American hose by cutting off one fitting and running the barb from the British fitting into it, and then cranking down a worm screw hose clamp; works like a charm.

The simple answer for you is to extend how far that MIG tip reaches into the burner by adding a 1/8" schedule #80 gas pipe for it to screw into "which then screws into the fitting; cut off one end and and run internal thread for the MIG tip), so that the end of the tip is about 1/4" behind the forward edge of the most forward air hole. No doubt you've read that air slots are better than multiple air holes, and rectangular air openings are better still; these things are true, but your main problem is that all those air holes are forward of the gas jet; poor air induction is the result. I think you'll also need burner flares (AKA flame nozzles) added to your burners, because the forge interior is probably too large to develop sufficient back-pressure to stabilize the flame without a flare.

I see plenty of good answers to your question. What we all have in common is, at some point in our lives, we learned to self-teach. Formal education in any endeavor only takes you part way; then mommy bird kicks you out of the nest, and it's fall or fly time. The earlier you make the decision the further you go before "Superman doesn't live here anymore" strikes.

If you choose to buy your burners, I would recommend the Devil Forge burners being offered on eBay for fifty bucks; they are the best dollar value I've seen thus far.

Your burner is set at too low an angle. Move the brick until the burner's flame impinges direclty on it, and then move the forge legs to keep it in that position. At its present angle, your insulation won't last long.

so, how does a guy get more cylinder surface area to fit in your small space? hook up two five gallon tanks together. You can see an example of how to do that on Larry Zoeller Forge. You look to have a good burner design, and it's plenty large enough for the cubic inches in that forge, but I don't see any indication that the forge sports a high-emissive coating, like ItC-100 or one of the home brewed versions written about in other threads on this forum, so you aren't getting good heat reflection inside the forge. Next, you have a monstrous large forge opening, which allows IR to escape with the exhaust gases; that's another strike against you. Employ a high- emissive coated external baffle an inch or more away from your forge opening, to allow the exhaust to escape, while reflecting radiant energy back into the forge. Take your choice of cutting a much smaller opening (to shove stock through) in a high alumina kiln shelf, or insulated fire bricks, from your local pottery supply store. If you choose IF bricks, coat them with Satinite or stove cement, to toughen their surfaces, before painting on the high-emssive coating. All these changes are add-on features, which beat the heck out of rebuilding your forge or trying to change out your present burner for a high power version.