Frosty "T burner help

[Grussingcustomknives]

Hey guys... So yesterday i asked about forges (i did ALOT of reasearch) and I decided to build one with a t burner (actually 2 ). And ive been talking to a friend on Instagram and he says 1.25 inch pipe for the burner and 1.5x1.5x1.25 inch tee but it looks like people on here use 3/4 inch pipe for the burner tubes. Also are you supposed to have it reccessed down in the pipe? And last question what length is good to start with? I will be using this forge to forge stuff and forge weld Damascus. Thanks in advance!

[Frosty]

A PERFECT example of why you should NOT consult people in the internet. If you want to bring say 2,000 cu/in to welding temperature then a 1.25" T burner is what you want.

I've posted a T burner plan in as simple language as I my dented brain can and I had help. Just STOP talking to people who made something work or FIGURED OUT HOW to make one work. I figured out how to make and tune a "Jet Ejector" from simple plumbing and basic shop skills about 20 years ago.

If you want to build a T burner search out the Illustrated burner plan here on Iforge and STOP talking to other people. If yo need a hand ask me. The plans have the rules of thumb for the ratios to make different sized burners. The most important factor you MUST build to is the size of the forge chamber, it's VOLUME. Forget stressing over "I want to make damascus." You don't know how to make a pattern weld, how in the world do you expect to design a forge to do it in? Pick an established forge and burner design and use it a while. Once you know what you're doing is time to start tweaking things to what suits you best.

IF you want to try and figure it out on your own with the enthusiastic help of random people on the internet have at it, I'll leave you alone. I'm getting REALLY TIRED of trying to help people debug half donkey muck ups some random guy on social media "helped" them with.

Frosty The Lucky.

[the iron dwarf]

2 hours ago, Grussingcustomknives said:

Hey guys... So yesterday i asked about forges (i did ALOT of reasearch) and I decided to build one with a t burner (actually 2 ). And ive been talking to a friend on Instagram and he says 1.25 inch pipe for the burner and 1.5x1.5x1.25 inch tee but it looks like people on here use 3/4 inch pipe for the burner tubes. Also are you supposed to have it reccessed down in the pipe? And last question what length is good to start with? I will be using this forge to forge stuff and forge weld Damascus. Thanks in advance!

I presume you have a LOT of experience of damascus and forge welding to go with the LOT of research on gas forges, so how many years of both do you have?

Frosty is one of the few I would recommend regarding gas forges

remember 95% on you tube is rubbish and at least 50% is dangerous rubbish so check with those who know and are well known for knowing what they are talking about.

read the instructions for T burners as posted by the person who invented them ( AFAIK ) and has been making them for 20 years rather than taking advice from those who have made 1 of them

[BlackMetalViking]

Frosty's T burner plans have a complete parts break down. If you choose to go with a 3/4" burner, stick to his plans they are well put together!

[MonkeyForge]

What BlackMetalViking said. If for whatever reason you cannot find the parts but think you can replace them with something similar, ask before you buy (include pictures if you can). There are some dirty workarounds (not many) And again, printing the parts list and taking that to the hardware store will is a grand plan

[Teachagmech]

On 8/2/2016 at 0:44 PM, Frosty said:

A PERFECT example of why you should NOT consult people in the internet. If you want to bring say 2,000 cu/in to welding temperature then a 1.25" T burner is what you want.

I've posted a T burner plan in as simple language as I my dented brain can and I had help. Just STOP talking to people who made something work or FIGURED OUT HOW to make one work. I figured out how to make and tune a "Jet Ejector" from simple plumbing and basic shop skills about 20 years ago.

If you want to build a T burner search out the Illustrated burner plan here on Iforge and STOP talking to other people. If yo need a hand ask me. The plans have the rules of thumb for the ratios to make different sized burners. The most important factor you MUST build to is the size of the forge chamber, it's VOLUME. Forget stressing over "I want to make damascus." You don't know how to make a pattern weld, how in the world do you expect to design a forge to do it in? Pick an established forge and burner design and use it a while. Once you know what you're doing is time to start tweaking things to what suits you best.

IF you want to try and figure it out on your own with the enthusiastic help of random people on the internet have at it, I'll leave you alone. I'm getting REALLY TIRED of trying to help people debug half donkey muck ups some random guy on social media "helped" them with.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm going to drag up this dead thread to seek advice on my build. 

I am making 2 3/4" T burners. I built them directly off the plans, using tweco .035 mig tips. The only difference between what I have and the directions is the 1/8mipX1/4 flare adapters that were available were 90* elbows. I used a milling machine to drill the holes in the tees. Indicated a piece of pipe to center, threaded the tee on, drilled, and tapped before moving anything. The jets point directly down the middle of the burner tube. 

I forged out merchant couplers(thread protectors) to mimic the rough 1:12 taper for the flare nozzles. 

The problem I'm having is getting the flame to sustain off the end of the nozzle. I have to choke one side completly off and almost 20% of the other side to get it to stabilize. It seems like the gas orifice needs to be further into the burner tube. I tried trimming it down (in vain) thinking it needed more space to mix and more air. I trimmed it all the way down to about 3/8" from the face of the brass fitting.

after fiddling with that for quite some time(including trying .030 and .045 mig tips since I had them) I finally pulled the gas apparatus out of the burner, pulled the tee off the end and held it in place in the burner tube while a few assistants helped with lighting and manning the gas valve. I was able to get a much bluer, louder flame. 

I'm at a loss. I bought some 3/4" tees hoping to get the mig too closer into the burner tube, but I'm not sure if they will work. 

 

I know YouTube is not a reliable source of info, but my flames do. It resemble those of other t burners I've seen. My flames look green. If I add more air(or choke less) the flames go out. 

 

Thanks!

[Jasent]

What pressure are you running at? I get stable fandom my t Buber at 9 psi but 12-14 psi is best in my forge? Are Y you using a 3/4"" t or 1" with 3/4" chase?

[Teachagmech]

14 minutes ago, Jasent said:

What pressure are you running at? I get stable fandom my t Buber at 9 psi but 12-14 psi is best in my forge? Are Y you using a 3/4"" t or 1" with 3/4" chase?

Anywhere from 4-25. Nothing would stabilize unless I choked it. Choked it was very stable through the whole range, but it lacked "fury" if that means anything. 

 

I currently have 1" with 3/4" chase on them. I picked up the 3/4 on my way home. I won't get back to it until tomorrow. 

[Buzzkill]

Is what you're describing happening inside the forge or outside?  It makes a difference.

[Frosty]

Do you have pictures? Are you tuning in or out of the forge?  How long is the mixing tube?

The distance the jet is compared to the brass fitting isn't too meaningful, it's where it is in the air intake ports that counts. In general I use 1/2 way looking straight through the air ports and usually have to trim farther back.

However if you're having to choke that much there's something else going on, it shouldn't be inducing air that strongly. I really want to see some pics please.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Teachagmech]

7 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

Is what you're describing happening inside the forge or outside?  It makes a difference.

Out. Forge isn't built yet. 

[Teachagmech]

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

Do you have pictures? Are you tuning in or out of the forge?  How long is the mixing tube?

The distance the jet is compared to the brass fitting isn't too meaningful, it's where it is in the air intake ports that counts. In general I use 1/2 way looking straight through the air ports and usually have to trim farther back.

However if you're having to choke that much there's something else going on, it shouldn't be inducing air that strongly. I really want to see some pics please.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'll take some pics today when I get to work.  We're on a pretty tight budget, so I don't have the kaowool and castable or the IR reflective coating to finish my "good" forge yet. I bought some hard bricks yesterday to make a little bench too cubby forge to make some stuff to hopefully sell at a craft fair coming up next month. I know they won't be as efficient, and the burners likely won't act te same as in the 20lb propane cylinder forge, but I'm just hoping to get a hang on how they're supposed to work. Buzzkill made a good point that I was overlooking: back pressure from the forge. I'll get an update and post back later today

[Teachagmech]

Alright. I put together my stacked brick forge. Mounted the burners, cut two new mig tips to half the diameter of the tee for an air gap and fired it off. It's actually not too bad. Depending on if I have both ends open or not it will occasionally fall out of tune where the flame goes out and the gas is ignighted my the other burner. It's pretty hard to get a picture of that though so I put a video on youtube

 

 

[Jasent]

I'm no expert but turning up the pressure helped mine stable out. How long did you run it? May clear up when it heats up

[blacksmith-450]

More pressure and maybe,... turn the «T» 90*... your set-up make a kind of air tunnel.

[Frosty]

They look to be running a little lean but not bad. Turning the Ts can be helpful in two ways. First it gets the air intakes farther from exhaust gasses from the forge opening. That doesn't look to be a problem with yours but it is a plus. Secondly they wont be fighting each other for air.

You can experiment with making the flames more rich by partially blocking the intake ports with tape. If the burn improves you can make more permanent changes.

No matter what you do though, hard brick will suck up a LOT of fuel without getting hot enough.  Payback for better forge liner is sooner than you think, even at only $2.50 a gl. for propane. Say $12.50 per fill on a 20lb. tank plus time gas end hassle.

It's cheaper to pay up front and save over the long term than gradually upgrade over time, honest, been there done that, wish I hadn't.

Frosty The Lucky.

[LiveWire]

Yeah I think it's just too wet.  Now that it's dryer it seems better.  Takes a minute to get going but after a minute or so it's going better.  The brick have me a good flat surface.  I planned on covering the brick with the kast-o-lite and then a layer of plistix just like the kaowool.  Just made a nice flat surface.

[chris freeman]

 Questions, questions, questions. Ok, I built a Frosty T burner. In fact I'm building two. I live in  Denver. it seems that I,m getting an oxidizing flame. Maybe not though.  I've been playing around with it and here's what I've got. First I used a .025 mig tip because I've heard apparently it's better for higher altitudes, but the .035 seems to get a better flame.  I did have to cut it off about half way though.  How far down should the tip sit in the T?  Should I use a 1 3/4" hole with set screws to mount the burners or is that going to cause blow back? or should I use a 1" hole? I wan't to be able to adjust the depth of my burners. I have about 2" of insulation in my forge. Also I think I need to install some air baffles. Idk, I still have alot of playing around to do tomorrow. Thanks, Chris

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

[Frosty]

Who's plans are you following and have you asked the author? 

What size burner are you building? Looks like 3/4" but pics can be deceiving. My eyeball guesstimation says the tube is too long. 

By color and secondary flames it's burning pretty rich trim the jet back farther about 1/32" at a time and remember to clean any burs from the hole. Torch file sets work best.

Test it IN the forge, the confined volume effects back pressure and combustion air induction, they perform differently in or out of the forge.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[chris freeman]

Frosty,

I'm going directly by your plans but I got 8" 3/4"  pipes instead of 6". Also does it really matter where the holes are placed? I was thinking of putting the new holes directly on top instead of at a 45. What is a torch file set? 

Chris

[ThomasPowers]

Side note: VENTILATION---are you getting enough air into the shop?

One thing about top mount burners is that they often put out more CO as they can re-run the exhaust that rises as it comes out of the forge.

[chris freeman]

Re-run meaning???  Do you mean blow-back or as in liquid terms, blow-by, as in coming back up through the burner or through the hole?

Edited December 20, 2019 by Mod30
Remove excessive quote.

[ThomasPowers]

In use the burner sucks in air from around it.  If it's positioned such that some of that air containing exhaust from the forge can be drawn into the burner and so re-run through it----CO production will SPIKE.  Two most common ways this happens are:

 1: not enough ventilation and so the percentage of exhaust products in the ambient air goes up---often a problem in winter as the forge makes such a nice shop heater as it's trying to kill you.

2: design/alignment/ventilation such that the hot gasses from the exhaust travel up and towards the burners that are sucking air into them. Less of a problem for burners sourcing their air LOWER than HIGHER. (Hence my dislike of top mount burners; though with proper ventilation this is not so much an issue.)

Both can occur simultaneously.

Remember that CO is cumulative in a leaky bucket system---you can build it up faster than you get rid of it.

So every winter we start hammering on folks that while the gas forge makes a closed shop nice and warm; we would prefer to argue with you on IFI rather than attend your estate sale.

[chris freeman]

Thomas thanks for the explanation. And I would have to agree 100% about having a vented shop opposed to a warm and toasty death chamber. I'll be fine tuning today and I think I'll go with the 45 degree instead of on top. The forge body is round anyway. I'll keep you all posted. I sure wish there was someone that lived close to me for some one on one hands on advice while fine tuning. I need forge welding temp!!

Chris

One more question though. is it in fact better to use a .025 tip opposed to a .035 due to the altitude? I'm in Denver. Or maybe split the difference with a .030? Idk.

Chris

Edited December 20, 2019 by Mod30
Remove excessive quote.

[Buzzkill]

What you're trying to achieve is a neutral to slightly fuel rich flame with little to no secondary or tertiary flame envelope. Whatever works to get you there is what you want to use.  In your situation I'd probably be trying the .030 mig tip, but it is possible that you may need to go smaller.  

If you've verified that your jet is properly aligned with the mixing tube and you've built the burner exactly to the specifications given then you can start to work on the tuning by trimming the mig tips.   If you've trimmed a .035 tip enough so that it protrudes less than halfway across the openings when viewed from the side of the T and you still have a significantly rich (light blue to greenish) flame then you'll want to try again with a .030 tip.  If you repeat the process with that tip and still have a heavily reducing flame then you'll want to drop back to the .025 tip. 

A kind of soft medium blue color is what you're after here.  If you go to vibrant blue, especially with some purplish hues in it then you've trimmed too far and need to start over with a different tip.