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I Forge Iron

Frosty T burner freaked out


natenaaron

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My son, being a teenager, neglected to seek out items he needed for a science experiment until the night before the items needed to be in class.  Then he was perturbed that I was MAKING him get off his butt, put down the computer and head for the shop.  I suppose the items were just going to magically appear.  Teenagers.  One of the items he needed was a silver disk, which meant I needed to melt some sterling silver shot.  I am out of fine silver.  The below happened while he was gleefully cutting out brass and copper disks on the drill press.  Funny how grumpiness disappears when power tools and fire are involved

I fired the forge to heat the crucible up before melting the silver. It just works faster  Nothing was in the forge when I fired it up except a piece of burning cardboard which I have used a lot with no issue.

Here is what I did to start the forge exactly as I did it

Put burning cardboard in the forge Maybe a 2x2 inch piece

Opened the valve

turned the regulator knob on not quickly but not slowly

I heard the gas ignite and I turned up the regulator

I heard a little wet sounding pop and the forge started sounding wet.  Hard to explain it outside of that description.  Not puffing, not chugging, like water spray from a hose

I went to look in the forge and there was quite the flame vortex going inside the T, with pinkish, orange, and purple flames blowing into the forge.  I quickly shut it down.  got the kid to work warming the crucible with a propane torch and then restarted the forge in the exact same manner to see if it happened again.  Nope.  A perfect lighting.

The tank is still a quarter full so I am not out of gas.  Any idea what happened?

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The first thing that occurs to me is the pressure was too low. I use a 1/4 turn ball valve as the on off valve not the regulator. Regulators aren't on off valves any more than a 1/4 turn ball valve is there to regulate flow. You have more than enough ignition source try turning the fire up faster and let me know how it works. I crack the 1/4 turn and slowly open it till the burner fires off and slowly open it all the way. The whole process takes maybe, MAYBE a second give or take.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Yes. 

After some playing I think it was where I tossed the cardboard in.  It was directly under the burner.  The burner aims down the port side of the floor and I usually toss the card board in on the starboard.  So, as Frosty said there was too little pressure when the gas hit the flame.

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