T Burner Illustrated Directions

[ThomasPowers]

Go to your local propane supply and ask for a high pressure regulator 0 to 15 or 0 to 30 psi should do it.  For some reason all the propane supply people I have worked with in several states now have known their business pretty well.  Shoot we actually found one that was able to vet a propane kitchen range that was about 50 years old for us---he used to sell them and work on them when they were new.

Do not allow them to sell you a low pressure BBQ regulator, (Some places assume that you don't know what you need...)  Getting a good relationship with a dealer is worth a lot!  I've been given O rings for my soft nosed hookups and even had a dealer come in out of hours to fill up my tanks before a class the next day.

Now places that just fill BBQ tanks can be a bit clueless; which is why I try to find a supply place that services a wide range of propane equipment.

[Frosty]

Another tip for talking to the propane distributors, do NOT tell them what you're doing! Asking them for help designing a forge burner will cause them to clam right up, it's a liability issue. Just tell them what you want, not why. If they just MUST know tell them it's for a weed burner, one of the ones without the needle valve and make up a story about the old one getting broke if they must have a story.

The local big hardware supply, AIH carries all sorts of propane gear including 4+ types of regulator but they're more expensive than the propane distributor charges.

I've been specifying 0-30psi but that may be a regional limitation around here. The places that carry high pressure high volume regulators only carry 0-30psi regulators or BBQ types. The 0-20psi reg I've been using for the last 30 yrs. was sold by the name "RedHead" but I don't see the brand now.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I've seen Red-Hat regulators.

[Frosty]

I have too but originally my regulator had a decal with the name and a red headed woodpecker logo. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Square Nail]

Frosty, a question that has been kind of touched on in this post but I'm still not clear on.

In your instructions (which by the way are excellent and easy to use!) the flare is listed as "if needed/optional". So what conditions would make it necessary to use the flare or is it just a overall efficiency boost for your regular T Burner? I have 2 of your burners complete with the exception of the flares and not sure if I need them or not!

[Frosty]

I just use steel thread protectors as the last and larger dia. nozzle on the end of my burner tubes and they work okay. I imagine a flare would work better but I've never used one. I tune them for what and where they are, thread protector in the forge. I assume a flare would increase the induction and so require a slight adjustment to how it's tuned, maybe not.

I know what my intuition says a flare would do to induction but I'm not going to say what I THINK seeing as I haven't tried and don't want to cause confusion. If you use a flare like Larry Zoeler sells please let me know what it did to tuning it.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Square Nail]

Thank you sir! I'll post results when I finish the build!

[blacksmith-450]

Frosty.  My 2 T still running on the rich side. May I put washer(s) under the fitting to pull the whole thing back instead of cutting the mig tip?

 

[blacksmith-450]

When I asked my question this morning I was in the bus... Now I'm home and I have try by myself.  First picture, it's «before» running at 5-6 psi.  The second picture is with two tiny washers.  I think that I came in the very fine-tuning zone.  Comments ?

 

[CDFingers]

I have lincoln mig welder tips with a 0.9mm thread.  The threads fit loosely into the flare fitting, but the shaft of the mig tip fits snugly into the flare fitting.

Question: Would using a bit of JB weld or other means like brazing to secure the mig tip to the flare fitting, be an acceptable design variant?  If not I will order order the Twecos such that I can cut threads into the flare fitting.

[Frosty]

On 6/6/2017 at 8:12 PM, blacksmith-450 said:

First picture, it's «before» running at 5-6 psi.  The second picture is with two tiny washers.  I think that I came in the very fine-tuning zone. 

It looks  pretty good with a white wall for a background to the picture. How's it work in the forge?

 

On 7/3/2017 at 11:58 AM, CDFingers said:

Would using a bit of JB weld or other means like brazing to secure the mig tip to the flare fitting, be an acceptable design variant?  If not I will order order the Twecos such that I can cut threads into the flare fitting.

 

Welcome aboard CD, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance.

There is a lot of variation in the through hole diameter in brass fittings, that's why I tell folk to take the right diameter drill bit to pilot for tapping the hole to screw the mig tips into with you when you buy the fittings. You use the drill bit as a go / nogo gauge. You want the drill bit to fit the hole snugly or not fit at all, if it is a loose fit it won't work.

JB weld will fail if it gets very warm let alone how hot a forge burner gets when you shut it off. I have heard of guys threading the outside of the mig contact tip itself but I've never tried it so that's hearsay. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[blacksmith-450]

On 7/3/2017 at 12:27 PM, Frosty said:

 How's it work in the forge?

Like this !  I'm pretty satisfied. 

 Thanks again Frosty.

The flat bar is 1-1/2 X 1/4, the dark points are rust, not scale.

[ThomasPowers]

Well as the fellow who first taught me forge welding used to say---"Don't look at it---*HIT* *IT*!"

[Frosty]

Looks good enough to HIT IT! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Gillinomics]

Hi - longtime lurker, first post.  First off, thank you for sharing your wealth of information Frosty.

  I am an apprentice blade smith and am slowly bringing my own shop together, and have been considering building 2 Reil type burners for my 280 cu forge, but the plans for your T burner have me intrigued.

 I would like to run two burners but have a singular brass or iron nipple running perpendicular through the T section with a cap on one end, In your ratio you state that tip distance from start of burner tube is .5 x D, is it possible to forgo the MIG tip all together and use a #57 bit drilled directly into the nipple, assuming that it runs perpendicular through the T and in parameters with this ratio rather than descending from the top?  Or would this create unwanted turblence? I would imagine the vortex effect would be strong enough to negate this, but admittedly know very little about this subject with the exception of knowledge garnered here.

I am on a tight budget and trying to work with parts that are available to me, but if this is definitely an o-no situation I can wait to build my burners to spec.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Gillinomics, two issues

home built burners out of pipe fittings are not identical, and often require individual tuning,

second you would be fundamentally changing the desighn and would have to do your own R&D. 

I would acualy suggest building a single burner forge, then when you have it all squared away build the two burner. My profirge is great for bringing 4 shoes to forging temp, but horribly inefficient for general forging of things like punches and such.  This is why I either do things in pairs or use my charcoal forge. You will find that you can only forge what about 6" at a time anyway. So for acualy forging a knife, it's furniture, tools and other hardware a single burner is effecent, then fire up the two burner for heat treat and special projects where you need a foot of hot steel. 

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Gill, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the gang live within visiting distance.

What's the shape of your forge? At 280 cu/in a single properly tuned 3/4" linear type (eg. Reil) burner is more than enough to bring it to welding temps unless it's long and narrow. Then a pair of 1/2" burners are plenty.

You want to try what? Drilling perpendicularly through the Ts, drilling #XX holes for jets in a brass or iron nipple, plugging a leg of the Ts and expect . . . WHAT? 

If you're going to start mixing burner designs you're on your own. I don't want to sound mean but you don't know enough to design something new. I know I didn't and spent years making the T work worth beans.

Pick ONE set of plans, forget what "some Youtub exspirt" claims is THE way to build a burner. in case you haven't noticed Youtub is populated mostly by people who's only qualification is a camera and connection, its mostly BAD sometimes outright dangerous BS. Sorry, end rant. Follow ONE set of plans. The big advantages being it's a proven design and even better if you run into trouble you can ask the guy who developed it. Good luck asking Sumguy on Youtube maybe you'll luck out.

Mixing and matching is a road to wasting more money and time trying to get it to work than just buying one of the perfectly good burners from someone who makes the things. You could better spend that time mowing lawns and picking up dog poop, buy a complete turn key forge and go to work in it.

I spent a LOT of time working out as simple to build propane burner as I've ever seen and I spent years making it so. The necessary equipment list is really short, borrow the use of a drill press. The necessary tools will run you maybe $40.00 tops and you'll have the drill bits and taps till you wear them out, break or lose them. If you don't own a ruler I can't help you. I live in Alaska where shipping doubles the price of everything and the total parts list runs about $12.00 per burner. Not counting the: propane tank, regulator, valve(s) and hose but you have to buy those anyway. 

The T isn't the best home build jet ejector type burner by a significant margin but it's the easiest to make and requires the least shop skills. Invent your own if you must and please let us know how it works. I'm not trying to discourage you, I LOVE seeing pictures of blades even though I don't make them. I love success stories and really want you to be one but I no longer buck the odds nor encourage people to do so.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

The need to individually tweak burners really pushes to NOT have them connected by anything but a hose to the regulator!

[Gillinomics]

Thanks for the input everyone!  I am gathering the parts I need and I'll get back with an update when they're complete.

[Frosty]

True Thomas. That small a chamber and multiple burners really do need individual 1/4 turn ball valves for shut offs.  If a person actually needs to control burner output individually then individual needle valves are in order. This would be easy enough to add as you go if you use a manifold and individual copper tubing to each burner. It'd be as simple as adding a fitting. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BartVH]

Hello,

I've been building the T-burner according to Frosty's description (thanks !).

Dimensions should be matching the building instructions. However, I've the following issue with the burner. When igniting at low pressure, there seems to be a flame close to inlet of the of 3/4 tube. You can clearly see in the following video I recorded . The burning is not running properly I assume. When increasing the pressure the flame at the inlet of the mixing tube goes away and a more stable, powerful flame is obtained. Notice the difference in sound. When igniting with a higher pressure, the backflame (if this is the correct terminology?) is not happening and the stable, powerful fame is immediately there. Is this expected ? What could be the reason for this. I'm using a 0.8mm mig tip and 0.7bar pressure (10 psi). It's placed about 3mm of the center line toward the gas inlet side where the mig tip is placed. I understood from Frosty's building instructions this was the way to go. Looking at other video's I notice that these guys have placed the mig tip more towards the 3/4 pipe . Could this explain this behavior ?  I the 3/4 to 1 inch transition does in fact help which is a contradiction to what I understood from the building notes... ?

Any other comments on the flame itself. This is my first burner, so it's all new to me...

 

 

 

[Frosty]

It looks like it's burning back at the jet because the pressure is too low, otherwise it looks good. How does it work in the forge? I don't use my burners outside the forge so I tune them in the forge.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BartVH]

Hi Frosty,

I haven't tested them in a forge yet. I wanted to check the burner first and do a sanity check.  I'm going to build a forge next and see what happens. I started at very low pressure just out of cautiousness. However when firing the burner at higher pressure the back burning is not happening. So after the initial wondering "what I'm doing wrong", it seems I'm the right track. Now I need to move ahead and build the forge itself.

Thanks again for sharing the instruction notes and comments on the forum.

 

Bart

[Frosty]

You're welcome, its my pleasure.

Yeah, seems most people want to try the burner before putting it in a forge then they run into having to tune it to run in the forge. The T is just the easiest to build, shortest tool list, functional burner I know of but it's not the most stable. Things like back pressure and breezes effect them more than other builds. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Chris Comtois]

Hey Frosty - thank you for posting these plans!  Very simple to follow and understand.  Built my first pair this weekend for a propane tank forge.  I'm having a couple of issues tuning them, I'm still in the troubleshooting phase but I thought I'd post them here to see if anyone had any ideas or could learn from my mistakes!

My problem seems to be gas flow or maybe pressure.  I get a large blue flame in the forge that starts about 1 1/2 to 2 inches from the end of the flare.  It doesn't seem very strong and sort of pulses with a "thwup, thwup, thwup" sound.  Does this a few times and then dies out on me. 

I have the Ts oriented perpendicular to each other and the long axis of the forge.  Currently I am only able to test one at a time because I don't have the proper parts yet to run both off the same tank.  I have trimmed one mig tip back to about 1/4 to 3/8 inch.  Haven't trimmed the other one yet until I get a feel for the first one. 

Flares just enter into the chamber of the forge, about 1/8 inch or less past the refractory.

I have what I think is a high pressure regulator, not sure of the specs but I bought it a couple of years ago to make a crucible forge burner.  It worked fine for that at first, then I started having similar problems.  This is going to be my first trouble shooting item.  Figures it would be the most expensive part of the build!

Also, upon re-reading of this thread, I think my flares might be too long.  If I recall (I'm not at home right now so I can't measure) the flare extends about two or three inches past the end of the 6" nipple. 

Again upon re-reading of the thread, trimming the mig tip back to about half the diameter of the Ts is the minimum to start tuning, if I read it correctly.  I may need to trim it back even further.  How far is too far?  Is it possible to have to trim the darn thing right down to the fitting it's seated in?  Oh well, the tips are cheap enough and they come in a five pack...

Any thoughts or suggestions from folks?  Like I said, I'm still troubleshooting but I'd be happy to hear from others.

Stay safe!