Inexpensive nozzle that picks up liquid and atomizes it

I have one made by Milton that is a standard item at any auto parts store. You would need to reduce the output with an orifice in the feed tube.

Are you talking about a engine washer?

When I was about 7 YO, my brother (about 12 YO) did this with a 1-pound coffee can, a birthday candle, and the hose from the "hot water bottle". It blew off the coffee can lid. He did this in the dining room. ;-)

In Minnesota, there are farm co-ops with HUGE grain elevators, that look like about a half-dozen silos side-by-side, like this:

stairway shows the scale).

Every few years or so, there's a grain dust explosion in one of them, that kills from a few to a half-dozen people.

Cheers! Rich

What's the thing that looks like a propane tank?

Thanks, Rich

It holds compressed air.

i

It is often used for that. It's the one that looks like a brass blowgun with a siphon hose under the nozzle.

S157 Milton

I found a Harbor Freight engine cleaning gun and tried it. (first with water to look at the shape of the stream). It sprayed water quite vigorously. However, when I sprayed diesel fuel, a regular propane torch would not ignite it. I am not willing to go with anything more volatile than diesel fuel, so I will have to try to find something that atomizes fuel better, like a paint gun.

i

I did something like this as a teenager. I had an old insecticide sprayer, the kind that one pressurized by means of a built-in hand pump, that I filled with gasoline. The tank was made of galvanized steel and the wand and nozzle were made of brass. The hose was oil-resistant rubber. Many insecticides are oil based.

I tied a bit of cotton rag to the nozzle with wire, dipped it in gasoline, and lit it. Whenever I turned the spray on, I got an intense fireball about 18" in diameter (if the nozzle was set for wide spray) or a flamethrower effect (if set for a stream). The heat radiation from the fireball was such that one had to dress as if for welding, although goggles were not needed.

I used it as a weedburner. But only when the vegetation was a bit damp.

So, you are all wondering why didn't the sprayer explode or the nozzle melt or something. Easy - the nozzle was cooled by the liquid gasoline it was being fed by. I got the idea from articles on how the V2 rocket engine worked. Nor could the flame propagate through liquid gasoline, for lack of air, and because the liquid has considerable cooling ability. The gas-air mix in the tank was thus inaccessible.

But the fireball sure worried the neighbors.

Joe Gwinn

Ignoramus11401 wrote: I am not willing to go with anything more

Why would you not use an atomizer nozzle from an oil burner with an air-over-fuel pressurizer?

Kevin Gallimore

He wants it bare-bones simple?

Cheers! Rich

Babbington Burner. Simple to make, burns darned near anything liquid (though the really thick stuff should be pre-heated to thin it) and almost impossible to clog.

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How about an REI multi-fuel camp stove or an old flame gun for heating up paint? Other alternatives are rather dangerous. But if you want a big impressive burst of fire, buy a propane roofing torch.

or the Special Forces Handbook...