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Ribbon Burner Problem?


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I will go ahead and get a gate valve - if I can find one - inserted before (right?) the gas inlet. Actually, I believe that will let me balance things to allow a little more air to cool the blower motor (don't want to have to buy another one - $70 is a lot, to me). Thanks!

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Yes, you should put it between the blower and the gas inlet.  I believe blowers such as that one are designed so that if you close off the incoming air they don't have to work as hard so there's not as much chance of burning the motor up as there may be with just blocking the air output, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

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On 4/24/2020 at 3:41 PM, Buzzkill said:

Yes, you should put it between the blower and the gas inlet.

Thanks. It looks like valves of that type are pretty expensive (this little project, like MOST "little" projects, is already too expensive - Ha), so I am going to try to modify a 1-1/4 tee joint in some way to restrict the airflow ... somehow.

Necessity is the Mother of invention, sure, but low currency is the father, lack of time is the uncle, and there are also brothers and sisters and cousins. They all live at my house.

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SUCCESS! But maybe not what was expected...

I taped over the blower inlet just to see what would happen if air flow was a bare minimum, and things really didn't change that much regarding the holes at the far ends. No longer concerned about the regulator pressure reading (Thanks again Buzzkill and others), I thought either the flow speed was too high on the ends or maybe my little baffle was too aggressive.  So, I drilled out the 3 holes on each end just a little to see if that helped. No. Things were the same, even if I let more air go through and adjusted the fuel a lot. Hmmmmm.

Long story short, I found an old coffee can and held it with long tongs onto/under the best flame I could make (but again, with almost no flames much on the ends) and like magic, the whole length of the burner suddenly became a thing of beauty -- and whoa! -- you could tell it's was way hotter!

Back pressure of some kind was apparently needed in my case. Who knew?

Time to get the little forge container finished, coated inside and assembled with the burner, and pretty confident now. And this thread had all the answers imbedded.

I'll let you know how it goes. THANK YOU ALL.

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"Who knew" is just an old (like me) expression meaning something is now obvious. Yep, you guys knew of course, and there it was in the thread when you answered Gate Keeper and the OP.

Anyway, this is definitely going to work, thanks 100% to you guys.

I'll report back when completed.

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Well, SUCCESS Again - Many thanks again to you guys!

The forge is REALLY hot in this test. The flames are very evenly spread and fast to heat the just end of a bar (the purpose of this rig).

Very unexpected to me is the fact I can run the whole range of the blower and interestingly the regulator shows 2 to 3 psi (though it probably doesn't matter, I now know). I am super happy with this test except I pretty much DESTROYED the inside coating  because I did not wait long enough for it to cure. (Just a thin mixture of sodium silicate and aluminum oxide powder over some kind of very lightweight 2" thick rigid stuff - not labeled anymore - I've had for years).

minburner2.jpg

miniburner1.jpg

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Congrats!  Looks like you can hit welding heat with ease on that setup.  Apparently the back pressure in the forge was enough to even things out for you - more than I thought it would.  For years Frosty has been preaching that burners should be tuned where they will be used - and he's right once again.

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Just a figure of speech, :huh: who knew?  Yeah I was ribbing you, I'm like that you know. 

MAN that's a HOT forge congratulations! Sodium silicate isn't going to survive in that environment and maybe not on the later behind the flame contact material. Heck, fumed silica might not do it. However, kaowool would be encapsulated in the hard refractory and you'd be safe enough. 

I'm betting your burner is pushing max temp for an air propane flame, you might need a better than 3,000f flame contact refractory! Have you melted a piece of steel in that baby yet? I would've made a puddle out of something soonest! 

Frosty The Lucky.

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I am fixing the forge walls, and will use kaowool inside with a coating as recommended. I have seen several of the really-high-heat refractory coatings but am really surprised at how expensive those are for just a small amount of material. Dang. Must have gold and diamonds and moon dust mixed in.

I will indeed try to melt a piece of steel when this is fixed up.

A thousand thanks.

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Good day all

I also recently finished my build on my forge and to be honest I should have just bought one and then later build one then I could have something to reference it against. Frosty gave me some advice on changing the piping I.E. removing some of the 90 bends to increase air velocity. After changing this I could immediately see a huge difference in the flames and the temps I was getting out of my ribbon burner.

Here is the little I have learned and those reading that have more knowledge can indicate whether I am right:

 1. The more heat you need the more gas you need to deliver to the forge.

2. The more gas you introduce the more air is needed to burn the gas.

3. So increase in gas = increase in air supply

4. If the flame blows out to little gas or to much air.

As Frosty mentioned you don't really need a huge amount of air and that is what I realized as well. I currently have my forge running with less air than a small hair dryer produces. It gets hot enough to forge and HT but if I need to start forge welding and making demascus I will definitely need to get a larger blower but not by much. I am not saying that a big blower will not work and that it will not heat up your forge at the speed of light my question is that am I not in the process 1 have an uneven forge heat with hot spots or using more fuel than necessary. I am new to forging and black smithing and forges hammers anvils and all the rest. So take this post with a pinch of salt as well.

I have had the forge pop once after running the forge for about an hour where after I switched it off. After thinking about this for a while I came to the conclusion that as the burner block starts heating up it eventually gets hot to a point where the hot surface of the burner block on the inside of the burner is hot enough to ignite the gas mix inside which caused the gunshot and and a extremely loud curse word and some unnecessary fowled underwear. Is this conclusion correct? Not the underwear but the reason for the pop, and will an increase in airflow mean that the burner block will run cooler?

One thing I am still trying to figure out is the surface area of holes in ribbon burner to the size of air pipe.

 

I would also like to thank the forum and Frosty for the help up to this point. Everything he has said was spot on.

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