Trouble Shooting A Burner

E

EastCompassoKnivery

Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Messages
77
Well I have recently built my own forge and burner. The burner is ok but I need some adjustments and any info on fixing it. The flame itself is green and it keeps going out inside the forge. Any tricks to fix it? I think my flare needs to be bigger.
 
A picture of the burner would be helpful. Green means it's not burning completely because it's not getting enough air. It might be because the orifice is too large for the burner tube.
 
Bill Burke said:
you ar going to have to provide more information .
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Well I don't really know what other information to give. The flare is maybe an inch and a half wide. I drilled maybe 8. 1/4 inch holes and I used a .025 inch mig tip for the gas. The forge is an empty propane tank with a simi circle hole maybe 6 inches wide and 4 inches tall and there is a hole in the back 2 inched wide and 1 1/2 inches tall. I used two inches of ins wool all the way around except at the front and back I only used 1 inch. Then I covered it all the way around on the inside with a layer if satanite. I believe another reason it keeps going out is the satanite has not fully dried.
 
zaph1 said:
A picture of the burner would be helpful. Green means it's not burning completely because it's not getting enough air. It might be because the orifice is too large for the burner tube.
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I will try to get a picture up. So I should drill more holes us what your saying?
 
View attachment 429192

Do you mean you have 8 orifices? A forge burner should have only one orifice. Where did you drill 8 holes? Are they around the burner tube for air intake? Try moving the nozzle just behind the air intake point.
 
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zaph1 said:
Do you mean you have 8 orifices? A forge burner should have only one orifice. Where did you drill 8 holes? Are they around the burner tube for air intake? Try moving the nozzle just behind the air intake point.
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I drilled the holes in the burner tube right before the hole for propane. Once I get out of school I'm going to finish an order then move around everything. So if I have a green flame that means that not everything is burning right? Should I add more are and lower the gas pressure to solve that? What I now believe is happening is the gas isn't taking Anouilh air with it so it's not burning right. Oh well there is only so much that can be done while I'm at school.
 
Also, how are you supplying propane? Is there an adjustable regulator with a gauge on the tank? If so (there should be) what psi are you running? Around 5 psi is a good pressure to start with, tuning a venturi burner.

As far as a photo url, you will need to upload whatever burner pic you may have to a photobucket, picasa, flicker, snapfish, etc. account. Then view the pic online, right click and pick "copy image url" and come here and paste that in the "insert image" tool.
 
I have a regulator but no gauge. I make put one in line but I am not for sure yet. I think that that my be a good thing to do is get a new tube so I can drill some fresh holes and get a gauge to regulate the psi.
 
Salem Straub said:
Also, how are you supplying propane? Is there an adjustable regulator with a gauge on the tank? If so (there should be) what psi are you running? Around 5 psi is a good pressure to start with, tuning a venturi burner.

As far as a photo url, you will need to upload whatever burner pic you may have to a photobucket, picasa, flicker, snapfish, etc. account. Then view the pic online, right click and pick "copy image url" and come here and paste that in the "insert image" tool.
Click to expand...

I have a regulator but no gauge. I make put one in line but I am not for sure yet. I think that that my be a good thing to do is get a new tube so I can drill some fresh holes and get a gauge to regulate the psi.
 
Go to the tech help section and try to get pics to show up,they will help you.Then come back here and put up pics so we can see what you got.In this case a pic is worth a thousand words.
 
Is it an adjustable rgulator? It needs to be. Most adjustable regulators will have a 1/8" or 1/4" npt port for a gauge. You can get a guage at many harware stores, in the propane grill or RV stuff, or at a welding supply (a good place to go for an adjustable reg, too). That way you will know how much gas you are pushing thorugh the burner, and it will help you isolate whether your gas or air supply is the problem.

I do feel though that you are not getting enough air. To make an ejector-type burner, or "mini-mongo" in the Reil vernacular, you will need to drill pretty big holes in the top of the burner tube and have them pretty evenly spaced. Another very good way to go about burner building is to use a reducing tee or "sidearm" design. That makes for an easy, reliable build.

I don't know if you've read any of this stuff, but here's an immense resource on venturi forge burners from scratch:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=3TvExC0ENzPH_4ErjUVrOw&bvm=bv.64125504,d.aWc

And here is another very good site, both to buy parts at and to learn about burner and forge design.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=7NZCFWXDVYqYPPHraV1_KA&bvm=bv.64125504,d.aWc

Burner building is easy enough, but on your first few you really need to follow some reliable instructions closely. Everything is just so, because it needs to be.
 
That's a really long flare- and burner tube for that matter. I don't know, the flare looks shaped wrongish too. You want longer taper, less angle to the flare. Maybe part of the problem is that due to the flare shape/size, it's not holding a flame very well. Also, it would be a burner that would perform OK installed but not so good in open air.
 
Salem Straub said:
That's a really long flare- and burner tube for that matter. I don't know, the flare looks shaped wrongish too. You want longer taper, less angle to the flare. Maybe part of the problem is that due to the flare shape/size, it's not holding a flame very well. Also, it would be a burner that would perform OK installed but not so good in open air.
Click to expand...

See that's the thing, it works great in open air but not when installed. I will probably replace the burner tube and I'll forge out a new flare I guess. My friend who is also a blacksmith told me that I need to change the position because the flare isn't able to control the flame so I guess I'll work on that.
 
You know, just a non-flared chunk of pipe the next size up from your burner tube works well to hold a flame, tacked onto the flame end of the burner tube with 1" to 1-1/4" running past the burner tube end.

To forge a taper of an approximately correct flare ratio, read about it at Ron Reil's site which I linked to above. The actual flared section needs to be significantly longer/less severe than that.

Try turning the fuel supply down a good amount when running it in the forge. You may be trying to run too big of a flame for the heat chamber to stably handle. Or, if your doors are really small the forge could have a back pressure issue, not allowing the venturi to accumulate enough pressure for a fast flame.

Also, how and where is that burner mounted? From the pic, it looks as if you have the burner running through a torch-cutout section of the tank, maybe from the top, and using the original tank valve thread to hold the tube end? If that's the case, your flar would be protruding WAY too far into the chamber. You don't even want the flare end to protrude at all into the chamber past the kaowool, in fact it is best if your flare or burner tube end is recessed into the wool a little so it doesn't get directly burnt. This works best with 2" or more of blanket lining the forge, not sure what you've got.

If you can, take more pics and post them here and explain a bit more about your forge construction. We'll figure it out if you don't on your own, but this stuff is a little complex for a new builder and having a complete picture of the situation would be helpful.

One more request: filling out your profile info is always a good thing. For instance, you may be near to someone on the forums who could help in person.
 
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