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Heating problems


Evan Blackburn

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Hello all, 

This is both my first attempt at posting as well as forging. Please let me know if this is not the appropriate place to post this! My problem is heating the steel I have. My set up is a propane tank forge with the front cut off and a back vent. The open space inside may have a diameter of 6". The single burner is simply propane running to a perpendicular pipe with a small hole drilled. The flame I am getting may be 85-90% blue with the rest being yellow. I blocked off both the front and back entrances as best I could and was running it at about 15-20psi. The steel never received enough heat to even get to the dimmest glow after about 30 minutes of trying. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Cheers

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I actually have read through almost that whole thread. It just seems like I have too many ideas in my head to even know where to start. I'll get some pictures of the set up and burner operation shortly! How would I go about getting a better air intake? Bigger vent holes on the side of the burner? The jet is just a 1.2mm hole drilled in a 3/8 pipe

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Without some photos of the burner to see what type your building it's very difficult to tell from what you're saying it sounds like you're trying to make a reil style burner and it sounds like your dimensions are way off 1.2 mm is the equivalent of a 56 number drill bit that's way too big of an orifice also 3/8 inch pipe is going to create too much turbulence and prevent enough air flow on a reil style burner. Please get us some pictures and include the specs for everything you were using pipe size drill size Etc

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Thats a very modified reil style burner. So issue one is that you need to induce more oxygen. Few different ways to do that open up the top of the pipe above where the feed for the propane comes in so it can induce oxygen from above. You can also in large or add more holes I would recommend doing that. You can go with a smaller orifice however for a 1in burner 1.2 mm is about right.

 

The next issue is is that is a lot of dragon's breath the angle is kind of bad so it's hard for me to see but I'm guessing that you are getting a secondary burn because your flame is not being held in place get a flare or coupler or something on the end of that pipe to use as a flame retention.

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Binesman, is there a better place on the pipe to add the holes for air flow (close the the burner end possibly?)? I actually went out today and changed the jet pipe to 1/8” and the hole to a #60. The flame seems to be considerably more consistent. 

Mikey, if this doesn’t work out, I think I’ll have to do that design. It looks like it can get more air flow than I’m getting that’s for sure! Haha. 

I’ll shoot a photo up in the morning to see if there’s been any improvement. Thanks for all the input! Hopefully I’ll have at least a functional forge eventually.

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If you are set on that burner put new holes in the same vertical axis but at a 90degree change on hirizontal axis.  Doubling your air intake holes.

If you have the tools and are willing switching to a tburner as suggested is a great idea.  If you like the reil style and want to stay with it but are willing to start from scratch i would recomend following his design closer https://www.abana.org/ronreil/design1.shtml

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