Advice on adjusting a blown burner

[territorialmillworks]

I think I found the 'sweet spot' on my blown ribbon burner tonight but it was more luck than intuitive effort. Oh, did I mention that I had a rather loud backfire when I leaned it too much? And who says learning can't be exciting??? Gas induction is into the blower body at 3PSI. With the choke, regulator, needle valve and discharge valve, is there any side bars to adjusting these or do you just mess with it till you get it right? Any ideas?

THX, Keith

[mike-hr]

I look across the door opening in a dim light, and fiddle with the needle valve until there is a slight hint of orange breath coming out the door. I take this to be a slightly rich flame. Turn the valve towards closed until the orange breath goes away, that's neutral. A rich flame makes less scale, but makes CO, a bad thing. My ribbon burner makes copious amounts of CO until it's at working temp, then I can get zero CO on the meter with a neutral flame. The 3 psi doesn't mean much, it's variable with the jet size, and the cfm of the blower pumping into the system. You need to watch out for pre-ignition, when the flame is burning before it gets to the ceramic block. I put a dab of axle grease on the inlet pipe. If it starts smoking, close off the gas for a couple seconds, then turn back on. The forge will light itself again but the flame is on the correct side. Not much calculus involved, but works for me...