Square Nail Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 Thats my kind of store Frosty! Almost what happened to the hardware store here. They had everything from horseshoes to canning supplies, then the dad retired and kids took over and now its a Best Buy! Still a huge selection but just like any big box store! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 12, 2017 Author Share Posted June 12, 2017 9 hours ago, rjs said: They were great back in the day. Yes, they were, but know is a different day. I don't see any of the people, like the daughter who used to run the plumbing department in the Renton store in years; they still try to hire people know what they're doing, but so does Loews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Square Nail Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 15 hours ago, Scrambler82 said: Frosty, And what may I ask is a Spinning Lathe ? Google it. Spinning lathes were/are used to make metal plates, bowls and other things like that. bells on bugles, tubas etc. or maybe burners! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 If you've ever looked at a metal piece, lamp shade, chalice, nose cone, etc. and noticed tool marks that make it look like it was thrown on a potter's wheel you've looked at a spun part. The basics are a die the same shape and size as the inside of the thing you wish to spin in the head stock of a heavy duty lathe very similar to a wood lathe. There is a heavy tail stock similar to a gate bolt with an adjustment wheel on the back. The tool rest is in the same rough position as a wood lathe's but is much heavier duty and consists of a thick flat steel bar with a series of pin holes drilled along the length. That's the basic machine. To spin you clamp a flat round piece of sheet metal between the die and tail stock. It's spun and you apply pressure on the disk with the spinning tool (Lots of wildly different spinning tools!) starting at the center and working towards the edge of the spinning disk. Passes are made until the disk is formed onto the die. Dad's was primarily a scissor tool spinning shop which is a compound lever with a roller that makes contact with the disk. Other types are called manual or stick spinning which is one of the oldest mechanized methods of metal working known. The action is very similar to turning wood. The first pic is Dad "polishing," maybe cleaning up a dent or ding, or maybe posing for the pic. The part is a radar dish. The tool rest is angled more or less parallel to the dish, you can see the post and part of the tool rest post below the shaft of the tail stock. I think this is one of the lathes Dad built himself, probably circa early to mid 50's. The second pic is Dad and Sherry holding torch spinning either Jet or rocket engine alloy tubing, a very high temp SS type alloy or perhaps a titanium alloy. Holding torch was one of my jobs. This pic is in the McClay Canyon shop, that's not the name of the street or business district but that's the name I remember it by. Anyway, this is in the San Fernando Valley cir mid to late 60's The next pics show one of the large swing over gap lathes. Swing is how large a radius can be turned in a lathe without rubbing, gap is a space that can be opened in the lathe's ways to allow larger dia. work. These are spun aluminum church bells. Dad got the contract for a couple thousand of the things when churches realized nobody can afford cast brass bells and switched over to speakers. These were later, plated. I got the joyful job of polishing the things to 200grt with 4" wide emery cloth and kerosene, it turned me silver gray head to tow for a couple days every time I polished. Anyway, the first pic shows the lathe a finish spun bell and the two stages or breakdowns to spin from blank (disk) to finish. It would work harden the aluminum too much to take it from blank to finish without annealing so it was done in two breakdowns. The last pic is Wolf spinning close to the beginning of the final breakdown. This angle shows the Gap in the lathe pretty well and I just realized the first pic of the radar dish is over the Gap as well and would show it better if the pic was in focus and not so heavily back lit. I spent most of my "spare" time working in Dad's shop, I remember the scenes in the last 3 pics very well. I think I maybe remember the shop in the first pic but I would've been really young. I really remember the door and windows. And that's old school scissor tool metal spinning. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Square Nail Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Thanks Frosty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mberghorn Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Frosty, that's cool as all get out! You've had one hell of a life, my friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 13, 2017 Author Share Posted June 13, 2017 Who produced the disks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 We did. We had two square shears and several circle shears, it was more efficient to have different ones going for different jobs than resetting them often, there was never just one job going. Our large circle shear would cut a 60" disk. A couple large runs paid for it's own circle shear. The "77 Sunset Strip" table candle lamp shades and bases were one such job. Not that they ordered that many for the show but they became very popular in bars and lounges and we spun tens of thousands of the things. Running the circle shear was one of my first power equipment jobs in the shop. The 77 Sunset Strip lamps were my first for running the punch press and spinning. I sharpened corners and rolled beads on those. I wasn't fast enough to spin the parts and by time I was the demand was zero. I have good memories of those parts. I can remember sitting in the living room after dinner, listening to the radio while Mother and Dad cut blanks with tin snips. Dad did side jobs on a spinning lathe in the basement. We always had a spinning shop at home until Dad opened his own commercial shop cir 64-65. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 14, 2017 Author Share Posted June 14, 2017 Yes, a lot of what we both grew up working in is probably being sought by some of the young guys on this group; the freedom of competence. I never knew how blessed I was to work with my hands in a trade like that; not until I came to Seattle in 1971 and ended up making more money under the table on weekends than most guys earnd during the week. You remember; back when they had the billboard up that read "Last person out of Seattle, turn off the lights". I think about the only kind of guy I would rather have been in those days was a fry cook; they can work anywhere. A cook could have kept on going to Alaska, and been sure to find work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Hi, I'm new to this site. I accidentally posted this to the wrong thread, so I copied it to here. Sorry. I've been running a 3/4 Mikey style burner in a brick pile forge for about 3 years. I'm in the process of building another 3/4 burner with smaller air ports, from info that I got from this thread, just to see if I can tell a difference. I've been running a .030 mig tip orifice with good results. I'm at 5,200' Can anyone elaborate a bit on the sizing of the orifice? I'm going to be helping my friend (offgrid) with a forge that he will be running at high altitude , 9,800'. A commercial burner manufacturer who uses .035 mig tips in their standard 3/4 burners recommended to him that he would put an even larger orifice in that burner for high altitude. I have read both this thread, and the forge 101 thread and have not gleaned any info on how the orifice size is determined and how thinner air might effect this. Is orifice size just done by trial and error? Wouldn't a larger orifice result in a slower velocity, for a given amount of propane, and result in less air being pulled into the burner? I'm thinking that we will be wanting to pull more of the thinner air into the burner. Great thread! Victor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mberghorn Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 8 minutes ago, bluesman7 said: Wouldn't a larger orifice result in a slower velocity, for a given amount of propane, and result in less air being pulled into the burner? I'm thinking that we will be wanting to pull more of the thinner air into the burner. Great thread! Victor I'm no scientific mastermind but I would assume it would be just the opposite. The larger orifice is still running at the same psi so the pressure remains constant and the volume increases giving you a faster flow into the mixing tube and thus pulling more air into the burner. Also welcome to the forum!! At the risk of stealing Frosty's prewritten statement, if you put your location on your profile you might be surprised how many smiths on here are within visiting distance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Welcome aboard Victor, glad to have you. I don't understand your reasoning. You're using a burner that's performed well for 3 years but you want to modify it. You want to fix something that isn't broken. Your questions tell us you don't know how it works, even at the most rudimentary level. Do you really think we can give you specific numbers to make it work? What would YOU do with the information? Give me a break, do some reading of your own, there have to be thousands of pages posted in the gas burner section that have answered your question REPEATEDLY. Or would you rather one of us come over to your place and tuned it for you? Travel, food lodging for a week and I'll let you know when I'm free. Be of good heart, there will be advice flooding in from folk who have no idea how the things work either. And people wonder what causes curmudgeonly responses. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 4 hours ago, Mberghorn said: I'm no scientific mastermind but I would assume it would be just the opposite. The larger orifice is still running at the same psi so the pressure remains constant and the volume increases giving you a faster flow into the mixing tube and thus pulling more air into the burner. That's why I said "for a given amount of propane" I'm assuming that I would use less pressure for a larger orifice. 4 hours ago, Frosty said: Welcome aboard Victor, glad to have you. I don't understand your reasoning. You're using a burner that's performed well for 3 years but you want to modify it. You want to fix something that isn't broken. Frosty The Lucky. Did you stop changing things on your burners when you got one that worked? (rhetorical). Thanks for the nice welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Sorry, caught me in a bad mood and I get really tired of people just asking instead of doing some basic research. The kid gloves are about worn out so I save them for folk who actually do a little work before asking. Here's a bit of evidence I'm not just an old meany. I won't even take offense that you think I can't tell the difference between rhetoric and sarcastic. Heck, I don't mind good sarcasm, done well it's an art form closely related to puns. Of course you'd have to have done some reading to know how well I play puns and sarcasm with friends. I NEVER discourage experimentation I'm just not going to waste my time trying to answer questions so you don't need to. See if you can step back a little and imagine a person who (supposedly) made a Porter burner and has been using it for 3 years actually asks if you have to tune a it by trial and error! Could you respond without sarcasm, oh say ask, "how'd you get it tuned when "you" built it?" Without letting a little derision show? So, yes. Experiment, take notes of cause and effect and get back with good questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mberghorn Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 1 hour ago, Frosty said: Welcome aboard Victor, glad to have you. I don't understand your reasoning. You're using a burner that's performed well for 3 years but you want to modify it. You want to fix something that isn't broken. Your questions tell us you don't know how it works, even at the most rudimentary level. Do you really think we can give you specific numbers to make it work? What would YOU do with the information? Frosty I think he's asking the questions to help build a burner for his friend that is at an altitude that is 4,600 ft. higher than he is. Like you mentioned I'm definitely not one to give advice as I'm still learning about them too but the question about burner functionality at higher altitudes does seem like an interesting, albeit easily solvable, question. Of course I could be way off in the way that I read the OP's post too in which case I'll just grab my bowl of popcorn and watch the comments 31 minutes ago, bluesman7 said: That's why I said "for a given amount of propane" I'm assuming that I would use less pressure for a larger orifice. Like frosty said, I'm not the best person to give advice but from what I've gained from my readings the only thing that enlarging an orifice does is help with getting a stable flame, i.e. tuning the burner. If you want a hotter flame then all you need to do is turn up the pressure at the regulator. I'm not the best at putting thoughts to words and having other people understand them so basically what I'm saying is that you'll run the same pressure to get the heat that you want from your burner regardless of orifice size. Frosty has a point though. Before I found this site I had no idea about gas burners other than what I saw on youtube and Pintrest. My first two months of being a member were spent reading through the Burners 101 forum and the Forges 101 forum in the Gas Forges section of IFI and after reading all that stuff (a few times over and taking notes) I GREATLY improved performance on my modified sidearm burners. Also since you have a Mikey burner it might behoove you to snag up a copy of his book Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, and Kilns. It's available online for free though you might have to do some digging. There are TONS of pages of information on tuning burners. I'm not sure if I've come across the altitude question but I'm sure that once you have a good grasp on how to do it without taking that into account, you'll be able to do it at altitude. And yes, sometimes trial and error can be the best method as long as you learn from the results. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Maybe if I try being more specific. Mike has stated that on his 3/4" burners he finds an .023 tip to be too small and a .030 to be too big. It would seem that the .023 would run on the lean side and the .030 would run on the rich side. Now, the altitude part. I would expect a burner that runs fine at 5,200' to run rich at 9,800'. It confuses me that the commercial burner manufacturer that my friend talked to recommended a larger tip for operation at high altitude. A larger burner makes sense to me, but not a lager tip in a 3/4" burner. I will be taking my burner up to his house in the near future along with some different size tips to experiment with. Just need to have our schedules match up and find the time. Thinking things out ahead of time is just part of the process. Mberghorn, your post came in while I was typing. Yes, I built my existing burner based on 'Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, and Kilns'. I bought the book and it arrived on the day that I completed the burner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 My gut feeling is the same as yours. It should be better to have less volume of propane at higher pressure to bring in more air at higher elevations. However, I have discovered over the years that what seems intuitive to me is not always correct. I'm interested in the results of your experimentation though, so please keep us informed with your results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 Hi Victor. Okay, in 3/4"Mikey burners, a tip for .023" welding wire is given as being a little bit under sized, and a tip for .030" wire is given as being a little bit oversized, with the gentle hint that those desiring perfect performance (at sea level) can get it by enlarging the smaller tip a few thousandths of an inch with a set torch tip cleaners. At 9,800 feet he will probably just want the smaller tip. A smaller gas orifice will ALWAYS draw more air per volume of gas, and therefore the burner will burn leaner, than with a larger orifice. At high altitude the burner needs more of that thin air; otherwise it will burn rich; so, leaner is better. I believe the smaller air entrancea I recommended were on a 3/8" burner, which is not in the book; it is being perfected. Miniature burners--of all designs--have a strong tendency to run hotter than their larger brethren. That particular burner runs so wild, you want to get out the whip and changes! So, please don't take that to mean that smaller air entrances are necessarily better on all my burners, 'cause it just ain't so. On the other hand, three openings, adding up to the same amount of square inches overall as were originally recommended, is always better than more openings. Before you ask; yes I know it back when I was writing the Gas Burners; I was just being overcautious, way back then. Why then shuld smaller be hotter? It's not. However, smaller need mush more exact size match-ups between parts. So, after we through out the weak combinations, which we're not about to put up with, we are stuck trying to "tame the tiger". Its ia just a natural progression That Mikey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 14 minutes ago, bluesman7 said: Maybe if I try being more specific. Mike has stated that on his 3/4" burners he finds an .023 tip to be too small and a .030 to be too big. It would seem that the .023 would run on the lean side and the .030 would run on the rich side. I--yes even I--make mistakes; what do you expect from a guy on the phone? He is wrong, and I is right Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns cost me four years to prepare and write...and it has typos.The first copy had two outright errors (gasp!). What it did not contain was obfuscations, and double talk. If you could be trust me for 206 pages, choose my version of "the facts" now; your friend will be oh so glad you did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 27 minutes ago, Mikey98118 said: Hi Victor. Okay, in 3/4"Mikey burners, a tip for .023" welding wire is given as being a little bit under sized, and a tip for .030" wire is given as being a little bit oversized, with the gentle hint that those desiring perfect performance (at sea level) can get it by enlarging the smaller tip a few thousandths of an inch with a set torch tip cleaners. At 9,800 feet he will probably just want the smaller tip. A smaller gas orifice will ALWAYS draw more air per volume of gas, and therefore the burner will burn leaner, than with a larger orifice. At high altitude the burner needs more of that thin air; otherwise it will burn rich; so, leaner is better. I believe the smaller air entrancea I recommended were on a 3/8" burner, which is not in the book; it is being perfected. Miniature burners--of all designs--have a strong tendency to run hotter than their larger brethren. That particular burner runs so wild, you want to get out the whip and changes! So, please don't take that to mean that smaller air entrances are necessarily better on all my burners, 'cause it just ain't so. On the other hand, three openings, adding up to the same amount of square inches overall as were originally recommended, is always better than more openings. Before you ask; yes I know it back when I was writing the Gas Burners; I was just being overcautious, way back then. Why then shuld smaller be hotter? It's not. However, smaller need mush more exact size match-ups between parts. So, after we through out the weak combinations, which we're not about to put up with, we are stuck trying to "tame the tiger". Its ia just a natural progression That Mikey Thank you, thank you, thank you. In regards to the smaller air ports that I'm experimenting with. (This has nothing to do with the altitude questions that you answered so well.) The burner that I have been using was built before receiving your book and I pretty much figured that the larger the air ports the better. Some of the posts in this thread have made me want to experiment with that. On the experimental 3/4" burner I'm planning three 3/8" by 1-1/2" rectangular slots. Also on my first burner I have the choke sliding in from the burner side. I've seen the chokes either way, but I want to experiment with the choke sliding in from the gas supply side. Have you noticed differences either way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey98118 Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 38 minutes ago, bluesman7 said: On the experimental 3/4" burner I'm planning three 3/8" by 1-1/2" rectangular slots. Also on my first burner I have the choke sliding in from the burner side. I've seen the chokes either way, but I want to experiment with the choke sliding in from the gas supply side. Have you The guaranteed way is add up the total width of all the air openings on a given burner, divide by three, and you will keep the area at a proven value. Your burner will still improve structurally, because the the width of the ribs between those openings will increase strength a lot. The burner will gain improved performance, a litlle, because the wider openings improve airflow; it was to deliberately back off performance that I chose all those extra ribs, back then. After many years, and thousands of burners built all over the world, I now realize I was being paranoid. And since they were the hottest burners around, I figured to get by with it. That was then, and this is now. The choke is supposed to slide forward from the rear of the burner, to give a smooth increse in air flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 33 minutes ago, Mikey98118 said: The guaranteed way is add up the total width of all the air openings on a given burner, divide by three, and you will keep the area at a proven value. I thought that the total area of the openings was to be at least 40% bigger than the burner ID area. Am I mistaken? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 Victor: I apologize, I was in a bad mood for some reason this morning. You didn't deserve the way I treated you. I don't know why I go off sometimes, even looking back later. I found myself writing angry replies everywhere and deleted most of them completely till I just went out to the shop. My bad, no excuse. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesman7 Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 Apology gladly accepted Frosty. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 Thank You. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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