A mistake of sorts-

Acetylene is damn expen$ive, that's the main drawback with using it for fuel. Oxy isn't cheap either. Granted, the fire is a lot hotter, about

2000 degrees hotter, but the long run expense cancels out the advantages right away. LP and air makes about 4400 degrees of flame, which should be more than enough fire for most iron applications. It's not so much the temperature of the fire, it's the amount of energy (BTUs) you can confine in the box. Get a box that really holds the heat in and you can run on a bic lighter, so to speak. Everything that combusts carbon generates CO, there's no getting around chemistry. The only way to get rid of the CO is to get the carbon out of the reaction. Hydrogen is even more expensive than acetylene. You get what you pay for.

Charly

Grind it out. That burner was designed specifically for that forge. For many years people have been asking me "what if I -----?". The "---" is them thinking up some sort of untested modification and asking my opinion. The general answer is that I don't KNOW. I have seen, with my own eyes, several forges where the owner guessed at these mods, and then was unhappy with the results. I know that YOU have the capability to do this little repair and, since the size you need is bigger, it'll never show. Whereas, if you choose a modification the only works marginally, you will have a new piece of junk to deal with (or apologize for) for the rest of your life.

Build this one according to the plan, use it for a while, then start trying things out.

If you want to see how this forge SHOULD work, come on over to my house and I will demo mine for you. Then, at least, if you try something else, you will have some sort of standard to compare against.

I used to work for a major mfr of heat treating furnaces. They had many engineers designing state the art furnaces. When they needed a new burner, (Rockford, Il) they went outside to get it done right. Maybe that's why I check to the proven setups, especially in this area.

Pete Stanaitis

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Prometheus wrote:

The save work he could make a flare for the burner, that makes up the difference. Could plug the hole with Kaowool and harden it.

Personally I would grind off the tube and start again.

Regards Charles

spaco wrote:

Gotcha- I'll grind it out, then. The idea wasn't to try and improve the design, it was just a glitch in my memory when it came time to get the pipe from the rack. A little wishful thinking was more than likely involved as well, as someone was already running a job with the pipe I used, and had a neatly stacked pile of scrap ends all ready to go. While I found a burner that would fit, it was signifigantly more complex and, like you said- might not be the right thing for the job.

I'm extra glad I used 14ga now! That's going to be a whole lot less grinding than if I had a piece of 10" pipe.

I might take you up on that- I was planning to travel that way to get the kaowool anyways. Any chance you'll be around late afternoon on Friday or Saturday? Sometimes a look at something in action makes the whole project much clearer than any number of paper plans.

I'll gladly bow to experience, then- no need to re-invent the wheel, after all (especially when I've never seen this particular wheel rolling along...)

Truer words were never said. :) The internet kicks butt, huh? :)

Alvin (keeps forgetting to call for brick prices) in AZ