To big; a 1/4" would be the right size, if they weren't so hard to build correctly. Best to go with a 3/8" burner; they have a good turn-down range to accommodate such a small forge.

So, what kind of burner design in 3/8"? A standard Ron Reil tip linear burner, of course.

Thanks Mikey! Hmm I will have to do some research then. I have time though. Still have to order the new refractory.

Oh and you guys are going to LOVE this! So since this forge is now running and works great, I am planning a NARB! haha! I know, why not leave it as is when it really works great? Well I am going to for now but I would like a ribbon burner eventually. So Im going to do as Frosty did and experiment with wood blocks for now. But I will bug you guys with that later if I have problems.

Only question I have left, would KALAKAST AR ADTECH CASTABLE work for relining the walls/casting a NARB? I cant find any info about people using it in forges but it looks like its just a less expensive mizzou... and $30/bag cheaper then Kastolite. 

Sorry for being so all over the place here guys.

Looking at the SDS for Kastolite 30 and this Kalakast. the ingredients are not the same so unless someone has tried it can't say. I would send them a request.  https://thinkhwi.com/safety-data-sheets/

Thanks Frosty. That stuff is still beyond me... Im not entirely sure what needs to be in refractory.. I may just spend the the extra on the Kastolite but will do my research before I buy. Just wanted to see if anyone has experience with it here.

This is the site I should reference for the Reil burner I assume?

https://ronreil.abana.org/design1.shtml

there is soooo much on “Reil burners” that I dont which is “Reil” hehe

Yes that is the site for his burners.

Ron Reil 's burner plans are in the ABANA archives. Follow them exactly, he won't help folk who don't. Folk who do follow them don't need help. So many people would take a glance at the plans and start pestering him with questions that were already covered.  

Boy that page is cluttered. I did see a pretty clear reference to his EZ burner.

Good hunting. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Irondragon I meant to thank you a few posts back in reference to the refractory and I thanked Frosty instead sorry! So thanks!

Frosty, I will read it over a few times this week to absorb as much as I can. But from what I see SO FAR I think it makes sense! I hope.

Mikey, the Ron Reil tip linear burner, is that another name for the EZ burner? That seems to be what Im finding. I will continue to read up on It tho!

thanks everyone! Again haha!

It would be great if you could get a small quantity of the Kalakast to try it. That way you may get something, that no one has ever tried or heard of. Also we love it when someone is the guinea pig and a plan comes together.

Haha I would love to be the guinea pig if it was a bit cheaper... but I will call Canadian forge and farrier this week and see if theres a way to get a smaller amount. Now that Ive built and actually used this forge today, I am hooked... its bad. Like I need a forgeaholics anonymous group or something. I need to build more till I find the perfect one! I foresee possible near future marriage problems over this haha. 

Anyway, I spent the last hour going over Ron Reils page. I think Im more confused then when I started.. but I will continue on over the next week. I think I have an image of what it looks like in my head at least.

No, Ron designed the EZ Burner because the original Reil burner was too hard for too many folks to make so he simplified it. The original was more difficult than necessary but I think the original plans are there somewhere.

Frosty The Lucky.

Ahh I see! I will go over it again. Its very crammed with good info. I just have to go over it a few more times to understand it haha...

Ok so Ive put about 3/4 of a 100 pounder through the forge that this post was made for. I now know what I want out of a gas forge. 

1. Better fuel mileage! Lol

2. welding, welding, welding!

3. I really like my 8.25x12” floor (it was actually a little small today but it worked alright)

I think its about 550-580 cu/in running 2 - 3/4” T burners with .035 mig tips. So it has no problem hitting welding temps. But it uses a fair bit of fuel. Theres 2 layers of 1” wool around the whole thing. Would it work to simply build the floor up with another 2” of wool and swap out the 3/4” burners with 1/2”/.023 tipped burners? That would bring the interior down another 200 cu/in by my calculations and better insulate the floor, which is the flame face aswell. Would I notice a significant enough fuel savings to be worth it? And would it still hit welding temps pretty easy at ~380 cu/in?

You're getting into a personal preference area now.  With what you are doing and/or plan on doing which is more important to you - the space between the floor and the ceiling or the length of the forge?   If length is more important then build the floor up like you suggested.  If the space between the floor and ceiling is more important then consider a removable baffle wall (with a pass-through) which can be used to shorten the forge chamber.  You can probably get by with a single 3/4" burner in that case.

Floor to ceiling is not to important. And even if I raised the floor 2” there would still be 5” ceiling hight. What I am working on most is axes so they can lay on their sides with the wide floor. And I only really need 1 big door. The rear door is closed off 95% of the time. Welding heat is very important as I am working of 2 piece axes, wrapped mild steel body with high carbon bits. So there is plenty of welding.

One 3/4” burner could actually work for most of it. And would cut fuel consumption in half theoretically no? So raise floor and do a baffle wall maybe? I would need the pass through for sure if I were to shorten it that much. Would I need a plug for the other burner hole too then?

Thanks for the idea Buzzkill!

You would want to plug the other burner hole unless the baffle wall made it unnecessary.  Some extra fiber blanket rigidized and sealed with something like Plistex or Matrikote would probably suffice.

I'm not sure you can automatically assume your fuel consumption would be cut in half.  If you halved the volume of the forge and other factors remained the same then it would probably be around half the fuel used.  However, if you cut the forge chamber volume by only 1/3 then one burner may still work, but it would have to work harder to maintain the same heat.   A single well designed and properly tuned 3/4" burner should be able to bring a well designed and insulated forge up to forge welding temperatures for a chamber around 350 cubic inches - as a guideline.  YMMV a little one way or the other.

I think I could get it down to the 300 cu/in range with some creative insulating and still keep at least an 8x8 floor which would work well and give me an even better insulated forge as well. I like the 2 burners for heat treating long blades. But thats not very often. And may even be worth just keeping the wood fired forge running for just that. 

Thanks for the brainstorming help Buzkill

One other thing to keep in mind for a single port burner (as opposed to a ribbon or multi-port burner), is that you do need enough space between the end of the burner and the opposite surface in the forge chamber for complete (or very nearly complete) combustion to occur.  In other words you don't really want the flame from the burner impinging directly on your stock, the floor, or the walls.  The bigger the burner the more space is needed.  You should probably figure around 6 inches for a 3/4" burner, give or take a little.

Still another reason for two or three smaller burners, rather than a single larger burner.

Ah I didnt realize that. So say I raise the floor 1”, that brings me to a 6” from burner hole to floor then and puts it at about 480 cu/in. Then use another 1” of wool over the back opening with just a small pass through hole. That takes me to roughly 450 cu/in. And I might be able to shrink the back half down another 30-40 cu/in with more insulation. Then like Mikey says, stay with 2 burners but go down to my plan of 1/2” burners. 

Does this all make sense?? Welding heat is still very important to me aswell.

Oh snd for the 1/2” burners, I can get some 1” x 1/2” x 1” T’s and 4” x 1/2” nipples from work. Boss doesnt care, it all came in a big lot of shop supplies he bought a long time ago. With T’s like that, could I adjust the air/fuel by screwing a cap into one of the 1” holes?

Another option I just thought of, could I use a few 2800° ifb’s carved to fit the rear of the forge?? They are 101 cu/in each so would be an easy cheap way to take up about 200-250 cu/in of space (after carving) while also insulating. And they are 2800°, not the standard 2600° so should handle the heat better I would guess.

I'll have to defer to Frosty on the effects of that size reducing T.  I've always used the 3/4" by 1/2" T's for 1/2" Frosty burners.  I'm not sure if the fuel to air ratio would remain constant enough at different pressures with the larger openings on the T.  The nipple length should be about right and you'll want to drop down to .023 mig tips.

I see no significant problem with carving soft IFB's to fit inside the rear of the forge to reduce the volume.  I've done it myself, but not specifically to reduce the volume.  Regardless of the temperature rating of the brick, my experience has been that repeated heating and cooling cycles combined with the occasional mechanical damage when you bump/scrape them with your stock will inevitably cause them to crack or crumble.  As with other parts of your forge they have to be viewed as consumable items.  You'll probably have to replace them more frequently than the lining, but you should be able to get many forging sessions out of them unless you knock them out of the forge and onto the ground or something like that.

If I were in your position I'd probably want to shorten the chamber length with bricks or other means of making a baffle wall and leave the floor where it is.  If you make the wall removable it's pretty easy to get your full forge length back when/if you need it.  If you raise the floor and coat it with a castable refractory it's much harder to get that space back.  For me the height and width of the forge seem to be more limiting dimensions than the length since stock that is straight, or close to straight, can be passed through the other end.  Most of us can only work about 6 inches of hot steel at a time by hand before it needs to go back in the forge for reheating, so there's not a lot to be gained on most projects to have significantly longer forges.  I like about 9 inches of forge chamber length personally, but everyone should figure out what works best for them and build accordingly.

Hmmm you have given me a lot to think about Buzzkill. Maybe what I will do then is some experimentation with my old wood stove bricks. Ill carve a baffle wall out of them and adjust chamber size that way. Then I can actually cut the volume of the forge down and it wont cost anything but a few old bricks. Then Ill have an exact idea what I need later on. Even if the bricks only last 1 firing it wont be any loss cause they are garbage anyway. 

Thanks again!

If you use 1/2" x 1 Ts it should only be a matter of tuning. If you start trying to solve problems you don't know about you'll be chasing rabbits down holes till you give up.  Trying to block one side off will probably disrupt the mixing tube vortex and seriously diminish effectiveness. 

If it burns too lean, simply extend the jet further towards the mixing tube. Closer = richer (more fuel rich) / farther away = leaner (less fuel in the ratio).

Frosty The Lucky. 

Ah thanks Frosty, I didnt realize that. I figured I could just block half off and good to go. Good to know! 

For now maybe Ill just play with chamber volume with bricks and see what I come up with. Then once I know what works, Ill buy materials accordingly.

One last question, and I will follow your instructions on it to the T if I go this way, how do NARB’s do for welding heat? I have seen that they seem to work well. And I read through your build a few times Frosty and from what I understand, they seem to work quite well. This is all just really early pre planning, but I do now see why a ribbon burner would be nice. Even just a square one would be beneficial I feel.