ihavea4 Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 Hi all, first post here. I'm in the middle of building my first forge setup, and I followed Frosty's T Burner instructions as closely as I possibly could. The burner came together just fine, but I'm seriously struggling trying to understand how to hook up my propane bottle. I got the parts listed in the guide, but also added a needle valve and shutoff ball valve. After looking around a bit, I noticed pictures of people with the rubber hose connected directly to the back of the burner, but my fittings are all wrong for that since I have a flare fitting. (I know basically nothing about plumbing and these fittings, so please go easy) What kind of connector/fitting do I need to hook up directly to the propane hose, and is that recommended? I can't seem to find anything that is similar to what's listed in Frosty's guide, and I don't want to have 10 different adapters throughout my setup, haha. Ideally, I think I'd like a needle valve right after the burner to adjust the amount of propane in my forge, then a shutoff valve somewhere near the forge itself in case I need to kill the gas quickly, then the hose would go over to the regulator/propane tank. Does that sound reasonable or am I making it too complicated? Thanks for your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 Propane hose connects to standard tapered pipe thread. Don't quote me but I THINK 3/8"MPT. I recommend you put the 1/4 turn shut off valve on the output port of the regulator. That way if something goes wrong, say a screaming HOT piece of steel falls on the hose, cuts it and there's a cheery bright flame at your feet you can shut it off as far from the fire as possible. Make sense? Needle valves are good for fine adjustment. They control the volume of flow and work just fine next in line between the shut off valve and propane hose. Putting either of these valves close to the burner doesn't improve things. In fact putting the shut off valve at the burner means everything from the regulator to that valve is under pressure when the burner is shut off. Having it at the regulator means the entire propane circuit after the regulator is depressurized and can NOT leak. You can plumb it like you say above it's just not my preference, I'm kind of conservative where safety is concerned. You've kept it nicely simple, you done good. Give me a shout if you have questions. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihavea4 Posted January 16, 2022 Author Share Posted January 16, 2022 Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. I briefly thought about that aspect but for some reason I dismissed it. I like that layout a lot better though, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 You're welcome, it's my pleasure. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 17, 2022 Share Posted January 17, 2022 I live rural in New Mexico and I can go to the local propane place or even Ace Hardware and say I need to connect these two things together and they will build an assembly for it on the spot. (Of course after a couple of decades using propane forges I tend to scrounge fittings at the scrapyard and build my own now.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihavea4 Posted January 17, 2022 Author Share Posted January 17, 2022 Oh, that's super helpful. I may have to take the few pieces I have in and see what they can do to help. Thanks for the tip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 17, 2022 Share Posted January 17, 2022 Well, not everywhere is good, however being rural they tend to have a lot more experience trying to figure things out. We once bought a 50 year old gas stove and it turned out that the shop guy at our propane place used to repair that very model! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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