Identify and assess manufactured burner

[Adair]

Hello all, 

A friend is trying to set up a workstation for his shop program.  He was given this forge and a small forge chamber lined with refractory brick.  

He asked me for help getting this burner assembly set up.  I've built a few naturally aspirated burners, but I don't know where to start with this thing.  The orifice is machined integrally with the threaded brass insert at the supply end of the burner, so there is currently no adjustment of that component. 

Currently, when set up with a regulator at 20 psi there is a large amount of unburned fuel (blue flame).  I intend to add a variable pressure regulator.  It has an 1/8" gas line and ball valve.  The only other variable that I am accustomed to would be a secondary air supply where the burner enters the forge chamber.  

Does anyone recognize this burner?  If I can identify it then perhaps I can take some of the experimentation out of setting it up. 

 

[Frosty]

Have you checked to see if there is an obstruction in the gas jet? It doesn't take much to break up the propane stream so it won't induce combustion air properly but still deliver a full volume of propane. 

I'd remove the hose, pull the fitting holding the jet and CAREFULLY insert a torch tip file. Torch file indexes can be had at a welding supply for reasonable and they have many different diameter orifice files. Just do NOT force the file or get carried away stroking it in and out or you'll alter the shape of the orifice damaging it. Make sense?

Give me a shout if you have questions.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Adair]

Frosty,  

Thank you for your quick reply.  While I did not do it myself, I was assured that the jet was cleaned before trial.  

The geometry of this burner strikes me.  The venturi burners I've built and most all that I've seen are much longer than this.  

-Adair

[Mikey98118]

Exactly so; its first problem is that the mixing ''cone'' (we can't really call it a tube), is way too short. On the other hand, its air funnel section looks fine. Bottom line is, that you would have to cut most of the mixing section away, and insert a pipe, with a ground taper into the air entrance to produce a proper burner. I am assuming that the burner is cast iron, so that the pipe would need to be glued into place, since even brazing cast iron is a troubling proposition.

What to do? Make the guy a real burner; this one will never be worth the trouble. Or, buy a Mr. Volcano burner for him; mine cost a whole $25...

[Adair]

Mikey, 

Thanks for your evaluation. Were it my forge, I would just build a burner, but my experience is limited.  I thought since this was a manufactured item that there may be something more to it.  

Curious why a moderator changed my post title from Assess to Access.  I have plenty of access to the burner, it's an assessment that I'm interested in. 

[Steve Sells]

that was my fault I changed it back, I miss-read the title, Dyslexia can be funny at times, I saw a typo where there wasnt one

[Adair]

Thanks for your thorough moderating, Steve!  

-Adair

[Mikey98118]

If I where trying to figure out who the OEM is, the hunt would starts with turkey fryers and portable gas stove, etc.

[Latticino]

Looks to me like the ventauri burner is connected to some form of multi outlet burner head as an aftermarket modification.  If that is the case you may not need a longer mixing tube, as the current configuration may have enough mixing as is.  However, that part of the assembly may put too much of a backpressure to flow to not allow enough air induction by the gas jet.  This kind of setup needs a lot of testing and tuning (see the NARB burner threads for details).  This is one of the reasons I run a forced air burner.

A couple of things to try before dumping this burner and swapping out:

• Definitely get an adjustable regulator.  Even some of the great burners can't run "all out" (at maximum gas pressure) until the forge chamber is heated up enough to speed the flame front.  Typically that results in the flame lifting off the face of the burner, so may not be an issue here, but still worth checking.  Start your burner at 5 psi and see how it responds.
• While the orifice size may not be able to be adjusted, the position might be.  If you can shift it back and forth in line with the burner axis, you may be able to get to a point where the gas jet induces air more efficiently.  This is known as tuning the burner.
• Open the air gate fully
• Secondary air induction is certainly worth considering, but I don't see how it can be varied with the existing setup.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

That burner looks like an old GACO MR-100 Kiln burner. They are designed to run large pottery kilns and should have a removable orifice and should not be mounted like that one is. We used a smaller GACO MR750 in our forge we built. When used in a kiln they have an orifice size around 0.1015 our burner had a .0625 orifice way to large. If you google that burner they are still in business.

Might check out this thread for burner problems we encountered and the fix, a .035 orifice.

20 pound propane tank forge in progress - Gas Forges - I Forge Iron

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Adair]

Latticino, Clayworks, 

Thanks for the input, recommendations, and especially the link to the other thread.  Maybe we'll experiment with that burner in the future, I am intrigued now. 

For now I've offered to help my friend build a side arm burner for his forge.  We'll spend less time fiddling and experimenting since I've made a few for my shop.  

Cheers, Adair

[Mikey98118]

On 1/29/2024 at 1:32 PM, Steve Sells said:

that was my fault I changed it back, I miss-read the title, Dyslexia can be funny at times, I saw a typo where there wasn't one

My best friend, Dan, has dyslexia. I have thought for years that he has a secret desire to author a book, and truth to tell, he has the two main requirements: A strong urge to write, and something valuable to say.

At a recent breakfast, the subject came up again, and I could finally suggest something positive; chat bots. After all, A I can take care of the biggest problem, which also produces the least contribution to any topic; sentence structure, etc., leaving dyslexic brains to deal with what they are good at; real content.

What-ya think?

[Steve Sells]

Glenn conned me into writing my first book,  

It started as me just cleaning up the chat room knife talks, getting rid of the normal banter of a chat room, then it was organizing the stuff into coherent grouping,  then filling out the missing information,  after about one year of that then filling in what Rich and I never got around to writing, next thing ya know I have a book, which I never would have done if Glenn had just came out and said I needed to write a book in the first place...

[Mikey98118]

Good for Glenn. This generation has seen the mechanics of authorship grow easy, while the passion and expertise needed to know something worth passing on, has become scarce. Perhaps, publishers will take a page from the military, and station recruiters in likely locations to sucker the unwary...for the good of the country

[Steve Sells]

Understandable,  Rich didnt want to write anything for the book, so I was going to edit what he posted in the chat and try to get that usable, and he was not happy about that.  He refused to allow it, so after a while I gave up and did it by myself

[Frosty]

You done good Steve. What's next?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mikey98118]

34 minutes ago, Frosty said:

You done good Steve. What's next?

Frosty The Lucky.

Sneaking up on Frosty, and getting him to start his own book?

[Steve Sells]

I got  titles for him, Attack of the killer birch? or for Whom the tree falls?

[Frosty]

"Under The Old Birch Tree"? "The Great White And The Chainsaw." would probably sell better, bet they'd think it was a "Sharknado" sequel. "TimbeMFFF!"?

Frosty The Lucky.