Mberghorn

I got mine from ebay. Much cheaper http://www.ebay.com/itm/400992184543?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Sadly I built my forge before discovering IFI but I got a good bit of info from Ron Reil's pages and other various research that I'd done. I ended up using a ceramic fiber blanket called Cerachem blanket made by a UK based company with a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. It comes in various weights each having a different temperature rating. Mine is rated for a working temperature of 1425C (2600F). Here's the product data sheet http://www.morganthermalceramics.com/media/3993/cerablanket_cerachem_cerachromeblanket_english.pdf I didn't know anything about rigidizing at the time so I went with the 2" thick blanket. It tends to hold it's form pretty well even for not being rigidized. I have some 1" firebricks, which I bought on line that are pretty heavy so I hope they're not the crap ones that I keep hearing about on here, as my floor and they seem to do alright so far. I'll post some pictures when I get home of my build so you guys can chop it up and tell me what all I did wrong that I might not have figured out by reading all this already. I'm all up for constructive criticism!!

I had never heard of something being threaded like that either but sure enough....I tried three different thread gauges and they all said 27. I was hoping that I could get away with a metric one because it was so close but no such luck. That's a great idea! I just bought some mig tips and then put a thread gauge on them to see what tap I needed. I can't believe it never crossed my mind to buy them both at once. That's why they pay you the big bucks, Frosty.

I think I'm going to do just that. The Group closest to me is meeting this Friday so I might just head up there and introduce myself and see if there's anyone that lives closer. Conveniently enough the discussion topic for this weekend is gas burners!! On a side note if you're ever on the eastern shore of MD and want to venture a little farther south closer to VA they have a TON of antique stores down there. One of them had a 600 lb anvil in pristine condition! The first set of .035 mig tips that I bought were advertised as 1/4-28 thread but were actually 1/4-27 thread. Took me forever to find a tap for that and cost me too. Moral of the story is make sure the tips you buy have the thread you want before you buy a 25 pack.... Also, is there a particular type of tube you recommend to slide inside the larger #40 pipe to constrict the gas flow, such as titanium tubing vs copper vs brass?

I looked at the map and the closest Guild is about 2 hours away from me. Two hours isn't a deal breaker but doesn't really allow for weekly visits. I did find a...veteran....blacksmith about 45 minutes from me and he said he'd be more than happy to show me the ropes and maybe sell me some of his stuff!! He said he's getting too old for it now.

I didn't know they had a comprehensive map like that on the ABANA website. I'll definitely be looking into that, thanks!!

I ordered some .023 and .030 from Welding Supply through ebay so once those get here I'll swap them out and see which works better for my needs. I can't thank you guys enough for all the info contained in these pages! Being so far from any other smiths that I know of this is as close to an apprenticeship as I can get, lol!

Makes sense. With three 20# tanks you're basically tripling the surface area of the same 60# of fuel. Maybe I'll sell my 100# tank and just pick up a few more smaller tanks and get a nice little daisy chain going.

So after looking at the "Z" burner on Larry's website it looks like the only thing that he changed in the design is that instead of using a reducing tee fitting he uses a sort of Y fitting instead. After reading all the info in here about the swirl of air and gas in the mixing tube I would assume that this gives as much of the attributes of a linear burner that you can get with a side-arm set up. Brilliant! I might have to see if I can find some of those fittings and do some "tinkering" as Frosty would say. I also found where I got the .035 orifice suggestion from. It's on Larry's page in the side-arm section; he recommends a .035 or a .045 mig tip for the 3/4" burner and a .023 for the 1/2" burner. I'll try and post some pictures of my progress for other FNGs like myself.

I have enough information on these pages to keep me occupied until it gets here, lol. Plus, I do better with hard copies of books than digital versions. I misspoke yesterday, by the way. The jet tip I have in my burners now is a .035 Tweco tip. I'm not sure where I saw that size recommended but I'm sure it was from an out-of-date page. I ordered the .023 tips this morning and I'll be swapping them out whenever they get here. In the mean time, I'm off to research the "Z" burner and the "Mikey" burner!!

Glad I could contribute! I currently have the .030 mig tip in my 3/4" burners and I based my build almost entirely from Ron Reil's pages and pictures of similar burners I could find from the Internet. I'll definitely be checking out Larry's "Z" burner as this is the first I've heard of a build of one. I've seen them for sale on his site (I also bought the flares for my burners from him) but I missed the plans for it. On a side note I bought your book from Centaur Forge (it was over $100 on Amazon) but I got an email saying that the publisher was waiting on final edits from the author before it went back into print. Any idea on when it'll be available? I'm trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can find!

As a budding blacksmith, I am so thankful for this thread and this page in general. Literally all the questions I had about gas burner construction and tuning were answered in these pages. They also piqued my interest on different styles of burners! I currently am using a modified side arm burner but I'm going to have to do some serious adjusting now that I have a better understanding of how the dynamics of gas burners work. Mikey and Frosty, thank you for bouncing ideas off each other where we all can read it and soak up the wealth of knowledge between you two!! Okay, enough ego stroking, lol. I have found two websites that have pretty much every plumbing part that you could hope to need for these burner builds; www.zoro.com and www.supplyhouse.com carry schedule 80 1/8" pipe nipples in any length you want and they also have multiple sizes and configurations of T-fittings in addition to other various industrial supply needs. I hope my newbie-ness was able to help somebody!

I'm new to the gas forge scene but from reading this entire thread I've gathered that heating the tanks with electric heat is largely frowned upon. I have a three burner gas forge that I built. My burners are pretty closely based on the side-arm design from Ron Reil's page that Frosty and Mike were talking about a while back but I still have some adjustments to make. I'm wondering if the fact that my burners aren't properly adjusted could add to the circumstances that cause tank freezing. I have four boys and two of them are very young and curious (2 yrs and 3 yrs old) so I don't get a ton of time to play around with burner adjustments. Based on everyone's consensus I did go out and buy a 100# tank but I still have the two 20# tanks that I'd like to use as back ups. Long story short, is it possible to adjust a side-arm style burner to get decent forging heat, like bright orange or yellow, while cutting down on the tank freezing of a smaller tank? I'm wicked new to the smithing world so any information is greatly appreciated!!