July 16, 20205 yr Author Yeah, that fan in the back does oscillate, and I've tried having it point directly at the forge to see if that would clear anything away. I'll try laying modifying it to lay flat and see what that does.
July 16, 20205 yr I was thinking of some pretty complicated things like ducting air from below the forge but that one's already more complicated than functional. It works as designed but I designed it before knowing what I needed. Frosty The Lucky.
July 16, 20205 yr Author Frosty, you glorious man. I'm trying not to get too excited just yet, but it seems to be working. I'm giving it a pretty serious test right now and if it passes, I owe you quite a bit.
July 17, 20205 yr Author Nope, test failed. It seems like it's a temperature thing to me. I got the forge screaming hot and it seemed to do fine at higher pressures, but I turned it off and let it cool down/air out for about 10 minutes to just slightly glowing, turned the burner on to about 5psi, and same thing. The one thing the original video I posted doesn't show is how quickly it changes over from burning clean to not. It just snaps over after running for a few minutes. Edit: I also picked my dad's brain on some of this. He seems to think my regulator is failing or that somehow, my batch of propane is contaminated. Neither of them make much sense to me, but I figured I'd throw them out there as possibilities.
July 17, 20205 yr If it were the regulator then you'd see pressure swings, probably even if it was something blocking the gas flow. So, if it runs correctly at a higher pressure lower it a LITTLE bit at a time until you find where it starts to act up and use the next higher pressure. Uh. . . Glorious? Frosty The Lucky.
July 17, 20205 yr Author I can hear slight fluctuations, but the gauge doesn't move at all. I can't remember if I heard them when they were working well. What gets me is that the pressure it starts burning weird at was my basic forging pressure before.
July 17, 20205 yr Uh . . . It's actually a smart forge trying to show you you were doing it wrong before? Frosty The Lucky.
July 17, 20205 yr Author I'm slowly becoming convinced the thing is possessed and just messing with me at this point.
July 17, 20205 yr Here's a thought, how close to the original forge internal dimensions did you stick to one of my earlier designs I made my forge a we bit to small for the size burners and they ran poorly at lower pressure after the forge was hot. I couldn't figure out why for the longest time and just assumed that my burners were poorly built. After some time of just running it how it was the furnace cement has sloughed off the back wall after an attempt at forge welding. I ordered some kast-0-lite 30 from Wayne co and replaced the kaowool linning with half inch instead of an inch. This made it run much better at lower temp but I still wasn't happy. After reading a bunch in the burner threads I changed my nozzle from .35 to .30 and it was way better. The first build was huffing at 9ish psi when it was hot the second change would run 6 and the last is about 4. Not perfect but good enough for this red neck.
July 18, 20205 yr Author So I ended up building a T burner, and it's already working better. I'm still in the process of tuning it and figuring out a mounting solution, but I'm fairly pleased so far. I'll update once I get it mostly dialed in.
July 19, 20205 yr Author Yessir. I didn't get a chance to work on it today, but hopefully tomorrow I can knock it out and get back up and running.
July 20, 20205 yr Author Alright, got a video of the best flame I can get out of it, and pictures of the burner if there's anything I need to change about that. I've tried .030 and .035 mig tips, and shortened one of each. Cutting 1/8" off either doesn't seem to do much, and 1/4" makes it worse. I've also played with the nozzles I made, the Zoeller nozzles I got, and a black iron coupler. The video is with the nozzles I made. Video of the burner running: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nmrQa-WcGLOYZi0JAaiX5mTIFi23fO4H/view?usp=drivesdk
July 20, 20205 yr A pic straight through the T so I can see where the jet is will help. It's sputtering just like the other burners. Did you plug the unused burner port so it isn't blasting exhaust gasses straight up at the burner intakes? I'm sure you told me but but I forget, how many cubic inches is your forge? Frosty The Lucky.
July 20, 20205 yr Author Huh, I meant to include the straight through shot. Looks like I accidentally uploaded the wrong one. Either way, I was playing around with it and got it to burn MUCH better. It still sputters occasionally, but it's doing the opposite of what it was before. Burns perfectly well 99% of the time, sputters for a split second, then goes back to burning just fine. Overall the interior is 384 cubic inches.
July 20, 20205 yr The flame looks good from here. That is a mighty small volume for two 3/4" burners they're really going to interfere with each other. The others may have worked but I bet they used pretty small jets, say, 0.023 so they run choked almost closed. They'd make fast flames and overcome the fast but not strong back pressure generated by the second burner. I don't think you want to trim 30 cu" off the volume and mount the burner in the center do you? Be easier than making it 200 cu" larger. As is I'm wondering about making it work with one 3/4" and one 1/2" or changing it to three 1/2" burners. I just don't see two 3/4" T burners playing nice with each other in that small a chamber. Maybe just over clock one center mounted burner, 35 cu" worth? Occasional sputter is just exhaust swirling around and the burner getting a puff. Not a thing. Leaning the burner away fro the opening rather than towards it might solve that little issue. Of course it might just be camera angle. Frosty The Lucky.
July 20, 20205 yr Author I think for now, I'm just gonna run it off one and throw a fire brick in there to reduce the amount of space it has to heat. I designed and built this before I really had any idea what I wanted to do, and I can't see myself needing a dual burner anytime soon. It's not an ideal solution, but it worked for me before, and if it becomes an issue, it's easy to undo. If that's a terrible idea though, let me know. God knows I'm not immune to those
July 20, 20205 yr Author Same thing, most likely. I've got some fire brick shards that are big enough to just lay across the top of the hole and block off most of the exhaust coming out of it.
July 20, 20205 yr Stuff it with a little Kaowool works a treat. You DID save all the kaowool bits you trimmed off didn't you? Frosty The Lucky.
July 20, 20205 yr Author Oh I've got kaowool for days. I bought enough materials to line my forge a few times over. I thought about doing just that, but wasn't sure how smart it was health-wise.
July 31, 20205 yr Author Alright gentlemen, not sure if it's a new problem or a continuation of the old one somehow, but I think the flame is burning back up the pipe a little bit. I'm getting similar results without the fluttering sounds.
July 31, 20205 yr What makes you think it's burning in the tube? Have you pulled it immediately after shutting it off to look at if and where it's heating up? A typical reason for pre-ignition is the nozzle reaching approx 2,000f, prop air flash temp. Is the flare turning orange? Frosty The Lucky.
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