Oh come ON Mike, everything needs a computer chip and several pages of instructions that cover everything remotely related to the device except how to operate it.

So, what is it, an Apple or PC tooth brush?

On the other hand Deb bought me rechargeable Li pruning shears that nip through anything that fits in the blades AND a one handed rechargeable 6" chainsaw.  But of course, the triggers are connected to a computer chip, I believe "on/off and stop when it gets weak" is just too much for a mere human brain.

Frosty The Lucky.

Unfortunately, their sales departments are not listening. I also would prefer nothing more than on/off switches on everything I buy.

Have you ever spent time on the patent server, Mike? Before doing a patent search was opt marketing I was looking at building a self contained power hammer. The basics are as easy as a hydraulic teeter totter, one piston goes up, the other goes down and vise versa. It's the cycle control valving that's "tricky." The early versions, I liked the IIRC 1898+/- Massey fluid drive hammer control valving. It was basically a 1/4 turn shut off valve with a pressure bypass to prevent the slave piston (tup) from bottoming or topping out. 

The control was crazy simple and having used a later model Massy once it was as sensitive as a surgeon's kiss. 

Looking at later hammers the valving got more and more complicated and went to spool valves. I think they did that because you can make spool valves in many configurations just by changing the port distances. That was enough change to avoid paying royalties on other patents.

Everything about them got more and more complicated and now I expect a new power hammer is computer controlled. A magnetic sensor, wire, chip and solenoid valve to reverse direction on the tup. It's a LOT easier to alter a chip, sensor, wiring, batteries, etc. to avoid royalties than making a "significant" change or "improvement" in a machine. Royalties is why you see "Improved" in so many product names. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Who would have thought that game playing would get so bad in power tool design, that building one's own tooling would start making a come back

If I had a background in 3D printing, this is exactly what I would be doing these days.

                                                                   Avoiding scale...the right way

Does a neutral flame create more scale on heating parts? NO! The problem is that most guys don't see the difference between a neutral and slightly oxidizing flame. Also, lots of propane systems pulse; they do not feed a steady gas supply, and so the burners they serve, will end up running with a neutral flame part of the time, and with an oxidizing flame the rest of the time.

The answer to both problems is to turn your burner down to a lightly reducing flame

So, where does a reducing flame begin? Think of a neutral flame as a balancing point between reducing and oxidizing flames. A neutral flame has a single light blue flame envelope, with no white inner core, and no lighter blue secondary flame envelope beyond it. So, as you tune your burner to reduce that secondary envelope, at the point it disappears is the point of a neutral flame. As you continue tuning the burner to a leaner flame, that single blue flame envelope begins to darken. The minute you continued leaning the flame beyond that secondary flame envelope, you began creating an oxidizing flame. As the flame darkens, that finally becomes obvious. However, you have been creating a more and  more oxidizing flame all this time!

So, what about pulsing? A minor amount of this comes from cheap gas regulators, but most of it comes from super cooled propane, which is not completely turned to gas, before entering the burner. This problem can be solved with a better burner, which requires less gas, or the addition of a second propane cylinder, connected to your gas system.

If you continue leaning the flame with added air, it continues to darken. Rarely, is a burner capable of inducing so much excess air that the flame turns reddish purple; I have built two burners which could do so. The first was a linear burner, and the second was a high speed tube burner.

On the other hand, heavily reducing flames, begin to have a tinge of green in them, which becomes more pronounced as the burner's incoming air is reduced. I remember a burner system in a Tacoma foundry that was burning so rich, it drove us out of the room...gagging!

You too, can do these tricks, although, why would you want to?

I prefer to stay out of your masterful discussion of burners but this suggestion might be of interest.

Another solution for the too cold to mix propane issue you raise above is to use copper tubing for the final part of the propane delivery circuit. 8" or so is more than enough to completely vaporize propane unless you are drawing silly high volumes. I run copper from my propane manifold to the burner fittings. The manifold has a 1/4 turn shut off valve for each burner and the manifold's black iron pipe is large enough to equalize psi across all final feeder lines. When running all four burners the hose gets cold to the touch as does the manifold pipe but the copper tubing barely sweats and it's exposed to exhaust gasses from the forge.

I considered running a coil or two of the copper tubing through a chamber exposing it to the dragon's breath from the forge but a couple experiments proved it to be less than an improvement. Sure hot propane mixes more easily and thoroughly with air but it's moving much faster and is less dense so I'd have to redesign all the burners.

Anyway, 8-12" of copper tubing in the circuit takes care of cold propane issues.

Frosty The Lucky.

Well, I think the choice of tubing is a fine example of "circumstances alters cases"

I used to avoid copper tubing, just to preserve the cold in the incoming air/fuel mixture, strictly as a safety measure, for small burners that are deeply impeded witin a forge. Howsomever, since I'm not authoring another book here, I probably don't need to stand with my back to a wall all the time.

How is preserving cold propane is a safety measure? 

Preheating propane it is pretty common in commercial burners, some like those used in hot air balloons exposes it by firing the flame directly through coils of stainless steel tubing directly before the burner jet.

At one point I experimented with laying the supply tubing between the kaowool and flame face refractory but copper melts there and I didn't want to buy stainless tubing as it's way more expensive and harder to work with. 

The other thing that makes copper tubing work so well is how it helps support the burners in my way too large shop forge. Those burners just rest on the flat top using stair flanges as bases and the copper supply tubing to keep them there. 

So, tell me Mike, what's this wall you would be backed up against?

Frosty The Lucky.

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

So, tell me Mike, what's this wall you would be backed up against?

The wall of solid safety advise, given in any how-to book that I author; ambulance chasers being what they are! Why do you think I refused to ever sell a single burner in all these years?

Which brings us to what is possible in burner design versus what is as close to fool proof as possible. Because the biggest dummy in the world can always find a lawyer to claim that its all your fault that he hurt his poor little self!

Yeah, we're on the same page then.

I refuse to sell a burner, forge, etc. and in fact when Glenn posted my burner how to, here without my permission or knowledge, we had a long phone call with a lot of yelling on my end. I'd shown it to a couple people and Glenn decided he owned the copy right and could use it as he wished. 

Happily it's so close to the "sidearm" burner Clarence Darrow would have trouble pinning blame on me. Unfortunately lawyers don't really care who wins so long as they get paid. The T burner is really a very old type Jet ejector I only made it with plumbing fittings. 

Heck, your burner is ancient, the earliest example I found was used to ventilate mines in China maybe 2 millennia ago. Jet ejectors were used to lift water out of mines as much as anything else.

To quote the earliest person I know of who said it, R. A. Heinlein, "You can't make anything idiot proof because idiots are to clever."

Frosty The Lucky.

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

"You can't make anything idiot proof because idiots are to clever."

Yes; he could by casually chilling at times.

Chilling idiots is frowned on isn't it?

Frosty The Lucky.

Certainly, by  the idiots

                                                                              Hybrid flame retention nozzles

A ring of small holes, surrounding a larger central hole, has long been used, successfully, in the flame retention nozzles on air/butane torch-heads. I believe, but do not know for certain, that this configuration is used to create long "pencil" flames from these nozzles, for pin-point heating of jewelry and electronic parts, for silver soldering and silver brazing; this is supposition--I could be wrong about all of this
    I have also seen it used, occasionally, on air/propane torch head-heads, where it does not work worth beans. I think the difference is input gas pressure. Butane cylinder pressures are much lower than propane pressures at the same ambient heat levels.

    The point of interest for you people, is that flame shapes and lengths can be modified with hole filled rings or discs, placed in the forward ends of of slide-over step nozzles. Although my memory is more than a little shaky, I seem to remember three different burners that people posted with different versions of drilled discs in their flame retention nozzles, which were able to control flames very nicely.

    The bottom line for all this jabber, is that there is more than one way to come up with a multi-flame burner head; as three different guys on this group have proven

 

Ayup, this came up in another thread in the last day or two. I don't have a better answer for why a ring of holes in a propane nozzle but they've been around for a while though they don't really work. I think they're likely a cross over from butane torches by companies wanting to adopt propane fuel and now have become a legacy . . . thing.

The screen or perforated plates in the output end of burners are the actual "flame holders" of urban myth. My first experience with them was  Fisher burners in jr. high science classes. They replaced the venerable Bunsen burner long narrow flame with a short almost flat series of flames. Fishers did a great job of heating everything we needed from test tubes to flasks with close clean flames, Fishers never turned glassware black from getting too close. Nor did anybody light something on a stand, clothing or hair on fire with a Fisher though Bunsens did occasionally.

Remove the screen flame holder and a Fisher burner doesn't work at all.

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes; I think the Fisher burner screens and drill stainless steelplates in flame retention nozzles work in similar fashion.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

and now have become a legacy . . . thing.

Good one, Frosty; I will have to swipe that one. Only, I will change it to "legacy thingy."

 You know you made almost identical posts in 2 different threads yesterday or maybe this morning?

Will you be attributing, "legacy thingy," to me when you use it? Just adding a Y isn't enough change to dodge copy infringement you know. Hmmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

I did mention "swiping" from you, right? Your good buddy, Dishonest John (us bandits all use masks and phony monikers).

"Two wrongs is probably not going to be enough."  #59 from, "70 Maxims Of Maximally Effective Mercenaries."

Frosty The Lucky.

Please put the gun down; we can work this out peaceable

Ominous hummmmm.

Frosty The Lucky.

Big toothy grin

D. John

Hey Sharky, did you know.

"If it only works in exactly the way the manufacturer intended, it is defective."

#50, "70 Maxims Of Maximally Effective Mercenaries."

I should quote that on the T burner directions, eh?

Frosty The Lucky.