T-Burner Test Fire and Troubleshooting

[mountmyfish]

I did a test fire of my forge this morning.   My questions/progress around that are covered in the following:

Lots of thanks to Mikey98118 for getting me through all of that.    Thought I'd share what happened this morning both to get ideas on what's next and to serve as a resource for other people building/tuning similar gear.

I have a pair of 1/2" Frosty T-burners in my forge.  Call them the 'near' burner and 'far' burner in the pictures.  I decided to start with .025 MIG tips cut down to 1/2 size, as I have a box of them laying around.  They protrude about 5/8" into the Tee.  I set my propane regulator to 5 psi. 

On initial fire the far burner seemed to do fine with the chokes all the way open.  I could barely get the near burner to fire and opening the choke all the way invariably caused it to blow out.    I also noticed that the color on the far flame was blue while the near seemed to be teal/green with lots of orange splash on the floor.

I swapped out the .025 tip for a 1/2 length .035 tip on the near burner to see what would happen.   I got much more fire/heat but still a green flame.   This did not feel like progress. 

At this point I decided to let it cool off so as not to overdo it on the first fire.   Looking around at old posts it seems like a green flame indicates a fuel rich burn.  My first step in troubleshooting was to swap the 1/2 length .025 nozzles between the two burners.  I was trying to isolate this as either a nozzle issue or a problem with one of my burners.    I got lucky here I guess, as now the far burner was green/teal and the near burner was blue.  I pulled both out and chased them out with a torch tip file (back to front) and that magically fixed the problem.

Here's 1/2-length .025 tips with the chokes fully open.  Both flames seem to be the same color to me.  I believe these are the 'neutral' flame I'm looking for but please correct me if I am wrong.

Here is he same configuration with the chokes about 1/2 way closed, which made the flame turn teal/green.   I believe this indicates a richer mixture and was a good validation that taking time to put chokes on there was time well spent, as it gives me another knob to adjust in addition to the regulator pressure.

This one shows where the flames impinge the floor.   I might have a bit of fine tuning to do with the aiming of the burners but that should be pretty simple with the ports I made.

I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far after the initial troubleshooting.   I couldn't get the burners to stay lit in a vise outside the forge so was pleased that they both could hold a flame the first try.   Troubleshooting was just a case of RTFM (in this case previous posts) to see what I needed to think about.   

On my to-do list is a set of big washers on top of the burner ports to control air flow through there (they're stuffed with fireplace door rope at the moment) and an application of kiln wash once I've got it fired a few times and all the moisture driven off. 

Please let me know what else might make a difference here and/or what else would be good to think about.  Thanks in advance for your help.

[Mikey98118]

The flames look well controlled to me.

[mountmyfish]

I did a few 10 minute firings and cooling off sessions today.   My last one was about 1 hour with K26 bricks piled up at the back and things looked pretty good.  I was using the laser thermometer to check all around it periodically and am satisfied that everything is working more/less the way I want it.  The legs got up to around 120 degrees and the part touching the table was around 80 F.  All of the copper/brass was about ambient temperature through the whole cycle, around 50 degrees F.   The burner tubes are around 100F at steady state and the middle of the shell around 250F.  

I managed to get a few chunks of scrap I have laying around up to about orange (?) heat.

I did buy a pint of ITC-100 because I found a coupon and am wondering when the right time to apply this is.  I didn't find a post that said how many hours of fire time on the Kast-O-Lite 30 I needed to have before I put it on so figured I'd ask. 

In Forges 101 I found the following instruction:

"For the first layer, simply coat the ITC-1-100 straight out of the jar. Heat it to stabilize it on the forge surface, and then paint on a second coat that you have first separated in some extra water. Here's the deal; the active ingredient in ITC-100 is zirconium oxide. BUT, the amount of re-radiation zirconium gives off depends of the particle size in its coating. Mixed into enough water (a couple of inches in a water glass) the crude particles will separate out of solution, sinking to the floor; the rest is colloidal particles; as in super small, which re-radiates over 90% of the heat that falls on the coating."

Is this still the recommended way to go?    Before the "heat it to stabilize on the forge surface", how long should I let it dry (i.e. how short is too short and long is too long)? 

Really looking forward to getting started hammering on hot metal after thinking/reading about it so much. 

 

[Mikey98118]

I recomended it then, and still do. BUT, did you drill a little 1/8" steam hole in the bottom of your forge shell? That hole, among other things, will tell you when no more water needs gotten rid of. You want that refractory dry before you seal up your forge.

[mountmyfish]

I have not drilled a hole, as I didn't know that was a thing. I'll drill a hole there tomorrow morning. 

[Frosty]

Looks like you've tuned your burners well. The initial problem with the bushy flame was the bur left in the jet from trimming. 

Kastolite does NOT DRY, it sets by absorbing and bonding with water at a molecular level. The chemistry is so close to the same as Portland cement concrete you can use the same methods and time table for Kastolite. Heat curing Kastolite is unnecessary. It's used to patch HOT furnaces commercially. 

Happily we don't operate on those levels, just treat it like you were patching a sidewalk and you'll be okay. Drilling a seep hole to allow it to drain is a good safety precaution, properly curing Kastolite means keeping it at 100% humidity for a considerable length of time and a ceramic wool refractory WILL absorb water like a sponge and you want to leave it an easy way to escape. Steam explosions are NOT good things in your equipment. 

MIke's technique for separating colloidal zicronium oxide from ITC-100 is good. However, I wish you'd asked before spending ITC product prices, I hope it was a GOOD coupon. You can purchase Zircopax flour for less than 1/4 of retail ITC-100 prices and Seattle Ceramics Supply doesn't (or didn't) charge shipping for minimum purchases. 

No harm no foul, your forge looks good. Once you get "doors" on it you'll be stylin. 

Well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

[mountmyfish]

Thank you Frosty.   

I got a hole drilled in the bottom this morning, thanks to both you and Mikey98118 for the suggestion.  Makes perfect sense.

When I set out on this build I had grand visions of making super fancy doors but then read the following post from you in the thread https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/26663-doors-for-a-propane-forge-please/ and decided not to do it:

"Doors can be a pain, the fire has to exhaust somewhere and out the door is the usual. This means metal is going to warp unless you put enough refractory on and around it to shield it from the fire. I've made doors but haven't liked them much. The forge I use now I stack firebrick to restrict the openings."

Has your opinion on doors vs. well-restrained stack of fire bricks changed?    Perhaps "doors" above was blacksmithspeak for stack o' bricks? :-) 

I will say that I didn't have any trouble with 3 x K25 bricks stacked up at the back during my test yesterday.  I was able to cover most of the opening, save for a few small spots where the tank curves. I was going to think about how I could make the stack less likely to fall over and/or a way to temporarily attach it to the forge while I'm using it.  

[Mikey98118]

What Frosty wrote was:

"Doors can be a pain, the fire has to exhaust somewhere and out the door is the usual. This means metal is going to warp unless you put enough refractory on and around it to shield it from the fire. I've made doors but haven't liked them much. The forge I use now I stack firebrick to restrict the openings."

He is perfectly right, and I have suggested more than once that someone start with movable bricks, while considering how and if they want to make a door. But, "do door or not tp door" is an open question. To do them well take some effort. On the other hand, if well done they go well be on a brick wall in effectiveness. I think everyone needs to decide if "the shoe fits."

After looking at your work I would say the shoe fits for you, so here's a timely hint. What might you do make by starting out with a round high-alumina kiln shelf?

[mountmyfish]

Thank you for the encouraging words and the hint on where to start. I'll work on it and post back when I get there.

[Mikey98118]

Look at the latest page of Forges 101 for a fuller explanation.

[Frosty]

Just remember you can't close the forge off completely. Directing the exhaust in a least harmful direction is a good thing.

Frosty The Lucky.