T Burner Illustrated Directions

[Frosty]

I don't recall if you mentioned it already, I forget things. Did you use a kiln wash in your forge? How are you blocking the openings? Check out Mike's Thermal Baffle posts in the Forge 101 section. It's a brilliant solution that does as well as closing the forge tight while allowing exhaust to escape freely. This really increases the working temperature in a forge.

Yes, sand a LITTLE bit off the mig tip "jets" and remember to clean the burs from the orifices with the torch tip files.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

Yes; definitely.

With his forge running with the exhaust opening wide open, and a green tinge in the burner flames, it is still reaching bright orange incandescence. A tweak here and a baffle plate their, on top of a coat of Plistix in the interior well see it passing lemon yellow to yellow-white incandescence. At this point his only concern will be to keep from melting his work in there

[Mikey98118]

Frosty,

Do you have a typical amount of firing time time needed to get rid of those opaque orange calcium flames?

[Justin Keller]

4 hours ago, Frosty said:

I don't recall if you mentioned it already, I forget things. Did you use a kiln wash in your forge? How are you blocking the openings? Check out Mike's Thermal Baffle posts in the Forge 101 section. It's a brilliant solution that does as well as closing the forge tight while allowing exhaust to escape freely. This really increases the working temperature in a forge.

Yes, sand a LITTLE bit off the mig tip "jets" and remember to clean the burs from the orifices with the torch tip files.

Frosty The Lucky.

I did use kiln wash, it is a high alumina kiln wash from a pottery supply store.  The rear opening is blocked with a hard firebrick that is cut to fit loosely inside the opening.  I am reading up on the thermal baffles right now and will change my system based on Mike's advice.

Thanks again, Frosty.

2 hours ago, Mikey98118 said:

Yes; definitely.

With his forge running with the exhaust opening wide open, and a green tinge in the burner flames, it is still reaching bright orange incandescence. A tweak here and a baffle plate their, on top of a coat of Plistix in the interior well see it passing lemon yellow to yellow-white incandescence. At this point his only concern will be to keep from melting his work in there

I will adjust my baffle as you recommend, do you put baffle walls on both openings of the forge?  How far away from the openings would you recommend putting them?  I put high alumina kiln wash on the interior of the forge, I do not have Plistix but I do have ITC100 that I could put on, my understanding is that it wouldn't be useful after the kiln wash.  

Thank you for the advice!

Justin

[Frosty]

The dragon's breath from NARB forge is still orange but pretty pale compared to the first few firings.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

23 hours ago, Justin Keller said:

I will adjust my baffle as you recommend, do you put baffle walls on both openings of the forge?  How far away from the openings would you recommend putting them?  I put high alumina kiln wash on the interior of the forge, I do not have Plistix but I do have ITC100 that I could put on, my understanding is that it wouldn't be useful after the kiln wash.  

I always enclose the back wall, and leave a small opening, with a flap; this is just one way to do things. Bricks standing against the back wall, which can be rearragned in a similar manner too a brick baffle wall standing a little distance away from the front opening is probably a much better method for the serious blacksmith; that ain't me. I am a tottering old man who's hobby is heating equipment.

How far away from the forge opening to place the baffle wall should be the subject of trial and error. Just be sure you're happy with the distance, before attempting to make it permanent. I will suggest that 1" will probably work out best for most people.

Your understand about the efficacy of ITC 100 needs a little fine tuning. I do not suggest that people spend their hard earned bucks on this product, but if you already have some, then by all means go right ahead and use it...BUT, first take a little of that mud and place it in half a glass of water. Stir it up into soup, and leave it sit, while the course particles fall out of solution. Paint the remaining solution as a thin coating onto your Pistix, or any other hard refractory surface. I predict that your forge will go from orange incandescence to lemon yellow.

Note that I said your understanding needed a little fine tuning; not that you were wrong. Whoever told you that ITC 100 would not improve the re-emissive qualities of Plistix was half-right. If you don't separate out the  course particles, it will make no noticeable improvement. Why? Because how much heat reflection this or any other particle coating can produce is only partially dependent on what the material is; it is just equally dependent on how fine the metallic oxide particles are. Colloidal is the goal, because the particles have to be minute for metallic oxides to stay in solution.

[Mikey98118]

How fine are the zirconium oxide particles in zirconia flour? between 20 and 30 nanometers. The shortest (narrowest) wave of visible light is 400 nanometers.

[Frosty]

Aren't zirconium particles rectangular platy? 20nm x 30nm might be the actual particle size. Of course my memory may be as reliable as usual.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

I think stabilized zirconia crystalline structure is rectangular, if my memory is not misfiring, and un-stabilized zirconia has a crystalline structure that is triangular at room temperature and changes to rectangular past about 900 F and then changes back to triangular as it cools below 900 F. During both changes, the particle increase in sizes, and this is why plain zirconia is okay in some coatings, but has very limited use in hard refractories...or I could be "full ah beans."

[Mikey98118]

It would be nice if we could talk Justin into creating a thread about his zirconium silicate experiments; it is an important topic, and the information is only going to increase in value, as our forges continue to grow hotter. We need a permanent thread on this subject, to keep it from sliding under the waves of forgetfulness, as it has repeatedly over the last two years.

[Frosty]

It would be nice to have this conversation in a thread of it's own, this is a long way from T burners. I'm in hearty agreement, this stuff gets so spread out I can't keep track of it. There's another discussion right now about zirconium using bentonite or plistex as a binder. I could've used the info in the last couple posts in the other thread. It makes my head hurt.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

Very well, Frosty. I will try to get that thread off to a flyihg start; the rest is up to the rest of yous guys

[Frosty]

 I saw it and PMed you. Please ignore the PM I got the order backwards, the second post was to include a missed subject in the first. 

This should help organize things so folks will have one place to look and we can maybe keep things straight. I say maybe, I can rarely remember what I had for breakfast so the more help I can get the better.

Did you mail out the invites?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

I will. First, I have to clean up the mess I made of the first effort, and try posting again. Will be in less of a hurry this time.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Your thread was moved into the Insulation and Refractories section and it looks like your second post was merged with the first. Doesn't seem to be too bad to me.

[Frosty]

I applaud the new section but I don't know how the entire, "t-burner-illustrated-directions" thread fits though. Not saying our current conversation fit that thread and shouldn't have been moved but. . . ? It could open a can of worms trying to separate all the refractory and kiln wash threads in the T burner thread. 

I'm out of my depth. I should be more used to that by now. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The t burner thread wasn't moved by the moderator, only the new one as far as I can tell. 

[Frosty]

Yes, it's in tack the refractory thread has a new post and it hasn't shown up in the t burner tread. I should've left the gun un-jumped but I confuse so easily anymore. <sigh>

Thanks Randy.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ymber]

I've spent the last 4 weeks messing around with different parts trying to make the build work with parts that are available in Britain and I've finally got it burning. I had to go with a 1/4" BSP equal fuel line union instead of the 1/8" NPT to 1/4" flare fitting because the 1/8" BSP end of a reducing union was too narrow to tap for M8 without cutting right through the walls but it doesn't have the wall thickness in the first place to tap for M6. The jet nozzle is 1mm so about 0.11mm larger than the 0.035" in the design document but we'll see how that plays out in tuning the thing. Going down to 0.8mm would be an option.

Right now the problems are a probable leak around the MIG tip thread and the hose is directly connected to the gas assembly which gets concerningly hot after it's been on a while.

When I've got it tuned I'll write up a document for the build. It wasn't difficult to build in the end, it just took a while experimenting with parts to find out what works in this country. I'll report back with tuning results.

[tinkertim]

It looks too rich to me.  I think your going to have to try a smaller jet nozzle to get a better (and hotter) air/fuel ratio. But then Frosty will have a better idea of whether you can pull that in by trimming the jet length alone.

Also it sounds a bit windy in the video clip, which will affect how well the T-burner induces the air into the gas stream.  How does it behave when the burner is sheltered from the wind?

You will need to post a photo of the jet, looking straight though the air intakes of the Tee piece so Frosty can judge the length, and a photo of where the flame comes out, just after it has been lit in a cold forge. Also probably a closer photo of what the forge inner looks like once it gets as hot as it can.

With those photos he will be able to give you more accurate advice on the best way forward for your forge.

Good luck.

Tink!

[Frosty]

Ymber: From what I can see your burner is running rich. I don't use jets larger than 0.035" mig tips as they're starting to be more trouble to tune than they're worth. Call it just over the line of diminishing returns and more trouble.

T burners don't like breezes let along strong breezes. I have a pretty ugly wind shield when I use my large forge outside. NARB burners work well in strong breezes. 

Better pics will help evaluate what your burner is doing. Not videos please, A still of the dragon's breath has all the information your video has to offer. The sound is about the only useful info videos offer. 

A pic straight in the forge when you light it so we can see the flame and another after it's as hot as it gets. One from the side to get a look at the dragon's breath (flame exiting the forge opening) is useful. 

As Tink says, a pic straight through the air intakes on the T is useful, Not a super closeup please, seeing the fitting and supply line connection in the shot doesn't hurt.

We'll get it tuned and working properly.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ymber]

Yeah when there were wind gusts you could see it affecting the burner. I didn't want to try it indoors because I figured it's probably burning inefficiently and producing carbon monoxide so I couldn't say how different it is without wind. I'm planning to put together a windbreak and rain cover in the corner of the yard outside the shop to keep everything under. I'll be back in the shop tomorrow and hopefully some 0.8mm MIG tips will have turned up. I'll get some photos of the burner and how it works in the forge once I've sorted out the leak around the MIG tip.

[Frosty]

No you don't want to run any propane forge indoors unless it has excellent ventilation and not something connected to the house! 

If the smaller mig tip is too small, it's easy to enlarge them a LITTLE at a time with torch files. They're made for cleaning torch tips and come in an index like a wire feeler gauge. Don't run them in and out very many strokes though, they CAN make the hole oblong or worse and make the propane jet weak. 

Leaks around the mig tip don't have much effect unless they're bad leaks. The leaking propane will just get drawn into the burner and burn. At worst you MIGHT have to tune for it. Be careful what you use to stop the leak, I highly recommend a flammable gas rated, paste joint compound rather than tape. Tape can shred and disrupt or even plug the jet.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

I really like that modified "D" shape on your little forge; it should give a lot of room for parts from the area being heated...but, you need some distance between its bottom, and that excellent table it rests on.

[ymber]

It looks like the leak around the MIG tip thread was a serious problem. I tightened it up and checked it with leak foam and now most of the problems I could see on Thursday are gone. I've got a feeling the tapered BSP thread in the top of the T is making it easier to get the gas seal just by tightening it than it would be with a parallel thread. All the connections between parts have good gas seals now without using any tape or gel or similar.

That's what it looks like when it's just fired up. The photo doesn't show it very well but you can see a blue flame coming out of the burner.

That's after leaving it for 10 minutes to get up to heat. The blue flame is much less visible at that point. There's never any dragon's breath but there is a very noticeable heat haze coming out of the forge openings if I don't put a fire brick over them.

That's the burner. The jet gap looks shorter than I think it should. Would that make the flame too lean and explain the total lack of dragon's breath? The jet is possibly slightly off axis too but not by as much as it looks like in that photo.

I got it fired up and forged a few test pieces and it's definitely workable now. Mild steel was coming up to orange-yellow temperature and with a fire brick over the front it didn't take long at all to heat 10mm bar stock. Do you reckon I could get even more out of the burner with some tuning?