Mikey98118

I didn't want to bother evaluating one of them, but after a quick look, it is obvious that some of my suggestions have gone into their design. So, by obligation, then: They will probably work in a manner most people would approve. The good new is that they can be improved; most burners can't. Also, I like the fact that they are small burners. The smaller the burner the more worth improving they are. We can always go larger, but smaller is getting harder to find. Especially after Hybrid Burners went out of business. This is exhausts anything positive I can write about them.

Well, I did know one entry level burner that was a whole lot more than just good, but they quit marketing their product last year. There was a low priced import that I did say was a good burner...until they changed its design. There was also two US burners at high prices, which both went out of business two years back, leaving only one burner I can recommend on the market, at present; it is quite expensive, and is only available in one-inch size; this is simply too large for anything but commercial forges. So, I'm sorry, but buying a Diamondback forge is the only way to acquire even a fair burner at present, which I know about. He has the choice of building a good burner, buying a bad one, or buying a small forge to acquire one that way. Maybe next year the market will improve. Don't hold your breath, though

Shainarue, I noticed two things about your three burner forge. The first thing is that its burner design is very dated. If you change out their air entrances for a Frosty design, they will get a lot hotter. But, worse still is that you have completely sealed the burners against secondary air induction. You will find that some secondary air induction is needed with most burners, and those burners are among them. Simply turn the first burner on and push some of the ceramic wool aside to allow a little air in, watching the flame as you do so; that should show all that you need to see.

What; no comeback to my straight line, Frosty?

What I liked best about the effects of Gas Burners for Forges Furnaces & Kilns was not the popularity of its burners, but the explosion of five-gallon propane cylinder forges all over the internet. With the marketing of modern insulating bricks and kiln washes, I would like to see an equal explosion of brick pile forges. What is lacking is some gimmick like Mikey burners to draw the newbies attention to them. But, hot burners are no big deal, these days. All that's left is someone with a magical turn of phrase, maybe like...a Frosty, yes?

He should embrace the power of both

Shainarue, Frosty is quite right on all points. However, you want that baffle wall to have an internal pass-through. You also want to try baffles in both forges. So, I will add that "as with outer baffle walls, so with internal "B" walls." You can comb through various discussions on this thread about external baffle walls consisting of everything from simple hard firebrick, to movable and replaceable kiln shelve walls trapped in angle iron pockets on the outer side of hinged and locked forge doors. What is the difference between them? All of these schemes work, but they are all a choice between extra work now versus added convenience aferward . Over and over, I have suggested that newbies simply start out with a movable wall of firebrick. Why? Because, this gives them time to ponder the choice above, while working with something simple and temporary. No big investment in time or money means no hesitation when its time to do something permanent. As without, so within. You have stated that you wish to be able to run stock through the internal baffle wall. Frosty has brought up the complication that you will need the baffle to stay in position during all that movement. I suggest that you simply employ firebricks, cut and ground to do this job. But, but, but, they will be a heat sink!!! Yup, and so what? We are not talking about the length and width of a forge floor; we are talking about the rather small area of what becomes a temporary rear wall; it is temporary in two senses. To begin with you only use it when needed. And finally, it is essentially a test rig. Once you decide how you want to construct a sophisticated baffle, its work is done. And you want to take just as much time thinking that over as you put into building your forges. Using something--anything--for a baffle will start your imagination turning over, and you will suddenly have a dozen different ideas churning away on this issue. Which one of us has built even a second or third forge, without coming up with a better plan, the moment it was just too late? Work with something simple, with a minor investment of time and money, before taking the plunge. BTW, it would be nice if you share your thoughts with all the others with these same questions, once you start working with that temporary rig. We so-called experts can yak all the long day, but we cannot share what we don't have. We cannot share the sense of wonder; that takes doing something new; for us it isn't

No; two burners are not a necessity. I am never satisfied, and always looking for a little more advantage. Two burners allow one of them to be shut down, and an internal baffle wall to be placed in the forge center. Then, the other burner can be run in one-half the forge area; this gives the same advantages as two different forge sizes in a single forge. For instance, a five gallon propane cylinder forge, can replace a two or three-gallon forge, at will. Do many people follow this advice? Heck no; but later on, some wish they had. Building the extra burner, and extra mounting for it, adds little expense (but more work). The first trip to refill your propane cylinder will make it all quite worth while, unless you always max out your forge capacity; not many do.

I totally agree with everything you wrote, and thought your burner flame was a delight. The best part for me, isn't where we agree, but what we both learn something new, when we don't Steve, Buy the book, use the book, and then sell the book. However, you can converse with its author right here, and with others who have built its equipment, and more importantly have changed its details to suit their needs. You should too; it is twenty one years old. People have made improvements. Do not follow its advice on the number of air openings. Instead, always use three air openings. Do not go through all the hassle to make its accelerator (gas pipe and MIG tip) the way I suggested. Take a little extra trouble and expense to use 1/8" schedule #80 pipe. High alumina kiln shelves have become expensive in the last two decades, and so I suggest that most people ignore the book's advice about how to go about building a forge floor. Nevertheless, anyone who plans to weld in this forge, should just cough up the dough. There is no easy and convenient way to deal with flux in forges; the best you can have is one or the other. The point of using a high alumina kiln shelve for a floor, is that it easily slides in and out of the forge shell, for easy removal of flux with a wire wheel. But, but, but, what about kitty litter in a stainless steel pan? Its a fine idea...in a box forge, or in a "D"forge (if you're careful to give it a couple inches of vertical walls at its bottom) not in a tunnel forge. And anyone who plans to go this rout is wise to buy the pan first, and build around it, if they want to get the forge right There is no best forge, best burner, or best size for either. If you actually use them much, you will end up with a variety of forges, just like your variety of hammers. Fortunately, not anywhere need anywhere near as many forges as hammers. And just like buying or building hammers, the idea of needing several is kind of a drag, in the beginning. But it only takes a few trips to refill your tank to realize that, like hammers, the right forge for the task is a huge blessing. Nor do I think that gas fired forges are the only way to go. I started building them after Kathy retired me at the right old age of fifty-four; she didn't agree with my retirement plan (just kicking off at work) By then, my lungs were in pretty bad shape. However, coke forges are totally cool. We just can't always have our druthers. But you'll find properly built propane forges to be a real gas

Gas rated ball valves are as quick as anyone could wish. A quarter turn on, and a quarter turn off; they are available at most hardware stores in the plumbing department.

Steve, Frosty has it right. Neither one of us cares what kind of burner people choose; only how well it works. Frosty admires the practical, and I like to push the envelope. But we agree that whatever it takes to get the job done is the main point. A quarter century back, we both reached the opinion that fan-blown was not a necessity to get a burner hot enough. Back then, the common myth was that naturally aspirated burners would just never get a forge to welding heat. Both of us called that bunk, because that's what it was; not because we with thought fan-blown burners were evil of something. The other extreme is to think fan-blown burners are somehow second rate burners, which is equally bunk. My favorite burners (at present) use fans; just not to induce air. I use fans to induce vorticity. But, this doesn't mean I think using fans to induce air is somehow wrong; it just isn't what I'm looking for ...right now. If I ever get around to making ribbon burners, that will change. The bottom line is that "one shoe doesn't fit all." Several people on IFI have developed totally cool burners, which have little in common with Frosty burners, or Mikey burners. So, whatever works best for-what-you're-doing is best

People have even used popcorn tins; they seemed to be all the rage a few years back. Personally, I think five gallon drums are thick enough, but popcorn tins...not so much. If you get tempted to mount your burner at top dead center, and pointing straight toward the forge floor, then you would be wise to use two 1/2" burners in place of a single 3/4" burner, so that the flame can finish combustion before it impinges on your work. So, why would anyone do that, after we have all said not to? The thinner the forge shell the tougher it becomes to mount burner ports at an acute angle. Then, the temptation to just use electrical conduit's hardware and call it good gets very strong

Irondragon, To begin with, please pardon the delay in my reply. The last two times I checked back, IFI was not available. Update; then I had lots of fun trying to post!!!! Loved your history. I joined the naval reserve in my last year of high school for the same reason. Getting shot at was my duty; endless marching for the privilege sounded like pure BS! I think an associates degree is wise for most people, because that is what replaces a high school degree as entree level for most jobs worth having today, and it doesn't cost much from a junior college. A four year degree is a big pay out in time and money for a minor return for most people, because they never learned what accomplishing actual work meant. Trade school (like they do it in Europe) would make way better sense for "the average bear." I was lucky. Dad put me to work in his ornamental iron shop weekends and summers at the ripe of age of twelve. At eighteen I got to go to boot camp, like most of the other boys. By the time I met Kathy at twenty-six I wasn't completely clueless, and manged to hold onto my husband degree. No divorces, no bad endings, just a quite old age

My favorite lesson on teaching/learning came in a similar way. One of the things I did while editing Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns was to teach a class of four how to make their own 3/4" burner and five-gallon gas forge, using my book notes. Three of the students did fine, and worked without a hitch, but the fourth guy had an anxiety problem over his burner; there wasn't a thing wrong with his work on it. His problem was that he thought the whole deal was just too good to be true. He had worked himself up to maximum self doubt. So, I carefully followed every detail of his construction steps, and insisted he adjust and light up his burner. You should have seen his eyes when a perfect flame appeared on it! The lesson for me? Self doubt can be a student's biggest problem. This guy was a commercial airlines pilot. But logic was little help to him, when he got to wanting something too much, and all but convinced himself that "therefore it couldn't be possible" Big issues in life can swing on such tiny worries

I didn't run out of patience with Jr. collage classes; just ran out of time and money However, two years in business taught me the lesson of always self-teaching on the job; it served me well for the next half century If we desire to learn, knowledge is there for the taking, wherever we go.

You are right about that. We drove north up the east side of the Sierra Nevada range. The beginning of that trip was utterly boring (night driving through a white out), but the next day was spent driving beside a river through mountain valleys, ending in a valley of farm land in Oregon; hundreds of miles of interesting. I only remember the highlights, since so much of the trip was at night. You wrote "...and flew to Alaska to visit my Brother next July and never went back." If I had left for Seattle right after high school, I would probably have become a ship's welder within a year, and ended up moving to Alaska before long; especially since Kathy would only have been eleven back in 1964. Getting married is what nailed my feet here. It was kind of funny. Kathy and two of her friends moved from Ballard (a neighborhood of Seattle) to Bremerton right after graduation, and attended Jr. college there; all three of them got their Mrs. degrees, while the local girls were busy playing games. The difference? They knew what they wanted, and bagged their quarry without messing around. Single mindedness should never be underestimated

Yup! I crossed the state line in the morning on January first, and drove straight through to Bremerton, before giving up and going to sleep. Dad and I had driven to Arizona to see my brother, and then stayed overnight in Vegas on the way back. He wanted to go back to the coast before driving North, because of a white out in Nevada, but I refused to set foot back in that state, so we drove straight through; about 31 hours worth. I never looked back, and didn't even hear about the quake. Learning a trade, and then being in business delayed my departure for elsewhere (anywhere), for seven very long years after high school. Once gone, I staid good and gone!

I didn't find TIG so much demanding as very confining. Mikey don't like that! Oxyacetylene welding allowed me to "set my own terms." Of course I was doing it on steel pipe refrigeration systems. And more often then not being forced to mirror weld, so the jobs themselves were more than a little confining. Still, I just loved gas welding. One of my favorite things about being a ship-fitter/welder on factory trawlers in the Bearing Sea was that the damp and salt air wreaked their fancier welding equipment, so I got to stick and gas weld a lot. I moved to Bremerton WA from Anaheim CA to start the new year in 1971, and enrolled in the welding program at their junior college, intending to get a degree in it. I used to come over to Seattle on the weekends to work on "Noah" Brown's steel hauled forty-five foot "fishing vessel," which he was building in his front yard. He wanted to use #7018 electrodes of course, but only had an old Lincoln AC "cracker box" to work with. I was the first guy who could weld out of position with those conditions, and was making enough money on the weekends to keep me in school. More importantly, while still learning to certify, I also learned that what all the experts say "can't be done," usually only means that they can't do it. I also learned that doing the tough jobs will mean you eat well when the slackers are rooming four to a car. Marriage the following year meant goodby to a degree and hello to Todd Shipyards, but the weekend lessons stuck; I went right on learning and striving to be one of the best at work. By 1984 the big yards were closed or down to skeleton crews, and the slackers were again sleeping four to a car...I went to back to work on fishing vessels in Ballard and in Alaska, and had a ball for another decade. Okay, the Bearing Sea was never a ball...but it was a fascinating learning experience. The last such, was when about half a dozen of the boat kids came to visit Kathy and me in Seattle; It seemed cool, since I never play around; but they kept bringing up chances I took. Each time she would give me her best chilling smile. It was good that I never intended to go back. Know what I mean, fellow husband type?

An ADF with a shade two clear state is a high class auto-darkening filter. About ten years back some of them were being offered at "introductory prices" on Amazon.com. Like a fool, I hesitated...and then they were suddenly gone, never to return Anyway, it sounds like you have a fine ADF. One of the things I mind about the very high priced name-brand ADFs being offered today is that their sellers seem to think three years use before they are ready for the trash can is a mark of quality. I must agree; its the mark of very poor quality in a highly over priced item. I purchased one of the first ADFs on the market in a 3M welding helmet, a couple of years before Kathy retired me; it hung on the garage wall for a decade, and was still going fine when I gave it away along with all my welding machines. Since the surgeries, my eyes see well enough to weld again, but going back to the same old stuff sounds like a bore. Torch welding was always my favorite by far, and these days there is no boss to say "no, no; use the wire-feed"

The last time I used a gold surfaced passive green glass filter was about fifty years ago, when I was a welder at Boeing's Seattle plant. I still remember that it had a green view with a slightly blue tint; it was quite restful for high amperage welding; these filters had a clear glass front layer over the gold coated green glass. Such filters are still available, but are far from cheap! So, what I am doing is pushing the envelope, to discover present limits of what can be done vision-wise by repurposing ADFs and other light filters, for redeployment in torch work. At present nearly all the good stuff is dedicated to arc welding, and torch welders can "take an old cold tater and wait". Mikey don't like that

Again we are into Fall, and chilly winter is close ahead. Now is the time to seek answers to your questions about how to get on with building a nice warming gas forge for your garage or barn. For they who hesitate will shiver all through winter

What I thought about it was that it was a typical male -think prank, that women feel marks us as blind stupid. I ran around with a character for a while who would point out something he despised in others, and then turn around an do the same thing; it seemed to be some kind of a reflex with him. I mean, how dumb can you get? He was always trying to "game everything and everyone," never understanding that his biggest enemy was the one he looked at while shaving. Remember back when California-isms were being bandied about? Dumb as most of them were, one stays in my memory. "Wherever you go; there you are."

I watched the first Godzilla movie; it was boring, but I forced myself to finish it. Never watched another. I did see some twisted horror comedy mystery movies, and then an of alien cowboy and a couple horror time travel types back in the eighties, and must agree; twisty is cool. I used to spend Halloween night at the drive-in, watching old horror comedy flicks like Abbot and Costello meets Frankenstein; the mummy; the wolf man... Never had nightmares about any of it. Instead I had a recurring nightmare where I fell through stars all night long (or anyway it seemed like it); then it changed and I was being chased down a slope by a giant boulder. Kathy took me to see the Indiana Jones movie on the big screen just to surprise me with its boulder sequence. And women think guys blockheads!

I was a total fan of his movies. My favorite special effect was the fighting skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. Even while watching, I was admiring how they could pull it off so believably Attack of the fifty foot bimbo was total dreck; what a waste of film. Deb on a trip? I used to have to work hard at not missing Kathy during her yearly trips to Europe. Fortunately, she and her best friend Marilee got too old to put up with half a month there, and just do at week at a time, these days.

If I were to start a new thread it would probably be about doing tricks with torches...don't think that would go over very well