Natural Gas with a High Pressure Line

[CyDuck]

Hi all, new around here.

I've been forging consistently for about two years, though still not as often as I'd like on account of finishing college and a lack of a proper setup. Now that I've settled down I've got my own little shop with everything I realistically need. It's in a small shed that houses a grain-dryer off the side of my family's grain storage facility, and that grain dryer has a12-15 psi natural gas line attached to it.

I figured while it's there, I might as well build a gas forge, so I've done a few weeks worth of research; I just want to confirm because there's not a ton of information out there. The problem most people run into with NG is that it's supplied residentially at very low psi; but at comparable psi ratings, the only difference between LP and NG burners is orifice size, right? (Edit: And mixing chamber length) Please correct me if there's something I'm missing.

[Latticino]

My recommendation with low pressure, residential, natural gas forges is to forgo the naturally aspirated style (NA) burner and go with a blown burner.  You should putmore of a safety system in place, but it is a lot easier to design.  That is what I use in my forge with a 1" diameter NG pipe..  

If you want  to consider a natural gas forge with a NA burner I would strongly consider working with Dudley Giberson of Joppa Glassworks for your forge burner design.  He has a great chart on orifice sizes for a variety of pressures here (however these are most likely just the correct orifice sizes to provide the quantity of gas needed for combustion at this heating rate, the inducer design for the required air is still a question mark that needs to be worked out):

http://www.joppaglass.com/burner/lowp_chrt.html

 

[Mikey98118]

Latticino is right. While you technically have sufficient gas pressure, it is on the low side; NG also has less available heat than propane. Don't paint yourself into a corner; go fan-blown, and use the fan for best advantage by choosing to make a ribbon burner

[JHCC]

Just be careful of open flames around grain dust. Fuel-air explosives can put a crimp in your afternoon.

(Also, having used Latticino's forge, I can vouch for its effectiveness.)

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome to IFI... I suggest reading this to get the best out of the forum.https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/53873-read-this-first/

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

And generaly speaking blowers can be quieter than naturally aspirated. Now I talked to my gas service man and he said it was a simple mater of changing the meter to one that handles maines  pressure and is this regulated after the meter for your domestic uses. That said the gas gurus have much more experimce than I do.

[CyDuck]

Thanks everybody for the replies, I wholeheartedly welcome the advice. After reading what I could find I was planning on making the widely-famous ribbon burner design from the 2006 Hammer's Blow article with a blower on it; I guess I was just wondering if it was possible to make an NA burner with NG on principle. There seems to be much more control involved with a blown burner, and I appreciate fine tuning control.

On 11/2/2018 at 2:04 PM, JHCC said:

Just be careful of open flames around grain dust. Fuel-air explosives can put a crimp in your afternoon.

Yeah, I'm always aware of how easily the whole thing could go up. The fans and accompanying shed are on the other side of the facility from the grain intake, and I'm never in there when the fan is running so as to not suck in an errant forge-flea or coal bit.

On 11/3/2018 at 1:35 PM, Charles R. Stevens said:

And generaly speaking blowers can be quieter than naturally aspirated. Now I talked to my gas service man and he said it was a simple mater of changing the meter to one that handles maines  pressure and is this regulated after the meter for your domestic uses. That said the gas gurus have much more experimce than I do.

According to my dad, there's a domestic regulator on the house but no regulator running from the line to the dryer itself. If that sounds wrong, I probably phrased the question to him incorrectly or misunderstood him. I was planning on finding a regulator to install between the forge and the line running to the dryer, I'm just not sure what psi to shoot for with the pressure available to me.

There's a glassblower in one of the historical villages nearby and a glass-blowing studio in Toledo that I was planning on talking to, just so I had someone local to speak with.

[Charles R. Stevens]

On a farm you may very well have a high pressure meter already (high pressure being a relative term) you also may have 3 phase power as well. 

Mike wrote the book on burners, and I believe he started out on the glass blowing side of things. I would realy suggest running your design buy him and the other gas’s gurues in residence. They have even gin so far as to combine naturally aspirated propane burners with ribbon burners. 

One note, with gassers for effecencies sake you will probbably end up with more than one. Forging small projects in a big forge works but is waistfull of fuel, wile forging large projects in a small forge can be impossible.