Forge Burner Question

Big Smitty

Big Smitty

Joined
Aug 30, 2007
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509
I built a bean can forge to get me by for heat treat and now I am starting a horizontal forge with a 18" piece of 10" schedule 40 pipe. My question is what is the best burner to build? Blown or atmospheric (non blown). I am looking for the best overall decision on a horizontal forge: best fuel economy, easiest to operate / tune..... Any comments are appreciated!
 
I am very new to forging, but I will tell you my experience so far. I built a blown forge and couldn't be happier. I bought a gauge and regulator that goes from 0-30 psi not having any idea how much pressure my forge would need. I run it at about 2lbs until it gets hot and then turn the gas and air flow down so that the gauge needle is sitting on the zero peg. It is less than 1/2 psi. It is also very easy to tune. Just adjust gas and/or air until you get the flame you want. My forge is basically an Indian George style with a little different burner that uses a flame holder ala Don Fogg, I think.

I have never used an atmospheric burner as it seems a little more picky as far as tuning goes. Good luck with whatever you decide to build.

-Mike
 
If you're building your own, this can be a real quandry. Atmospheric / venturi burners are cheaper to build in that you don't need to buy a blower, however, the downside is that home made venturi burners are almost guaranteed to burn more fuel than you're going to want. The real problem is that for a venturi burner, you need to run higher fuel pressure and adjust the volume of flow to adjust the flame. This is because it is the velocity of the fuel being jetted into the combustion area that pulls the air in.

A professionally built burner, like the reil designs is significantly more efficient than a home made venturi burner.

However, I would suggest that with a blown burner, you have a greater degree of control over the atmospere inside your forge, as well as being able to run it on idle and burn next to nothing. By playing with both fuel pressure and fuel volume, you can really get a good feel for controlling the blame to gat exactly what you want, and with the addition of a simple gate valve to control the air inlet, you have absoloute control.

The forge I build has been referred to as a low output device, by people who have seen it humming along at idle. I can maintain a neutral to slightly rich flame and forging heat whilst burning gat at a very low rate (less than 1 psi). However, if I open the air gate all the way, I can run up to around 5 psi and roar up to temperatures that will slag iron in a few minutes. In an earlier test forge body, I did exactly that, and melted the end of my iron burner right off, resulting in a puddle of iron on the floor of the forge!

If you want to build your own, you basically have the tradeoff between the price of the blower vs the extra control that blower will buy you.

Check ebay stores for a store called Yeoman machinery. That's where I got the blower for my forge, and it works wonderfully. It has the added advantage of being able to slip fit into the female end of a 2" pipe with just enough tension to stay put. The guy bought a rediculous lot of like 5000 of these things thinking it was a great deal, and the price he paid for them really was a great deal, but now he's having a hard time unloading all these blowers!
 
Dan Zawacki said:
If you're building your own, this can be a real quandry. Atmospheric / venturi burners are cheaper to build in that you don't need to buy a blower, however, the downside is that home made venturi burners are almost guaranteed to burn more fuel than you're going to want. The real problem is that for a venturi burner, you need to run higher fuel pressure and adjust the volume of flow to adjust the flame. This is because it is the velocity of the fuel being jetted into the combustion area that pulls the air in.

A professionally built burner, like the reil designs is significantly more efficient than a home made venturi burner.

However, I would suggest that with a blown burner, you have a greater degree of control over the atmospere inside your forge, as well as being able to run it on idle and burn next to nothing. By playing with both fuel pressure and fuel volume, you can really get a good feel for controlling the blame to gat exactly what you want, and with the addition of a simple gate valve to control the air inlet, you have absoloute control.

The forge I build has been referred to as a low output device, by people who have seen it humming along at idle. I can maintain a neutral to slightly rich flame and forging heat whilst burning gat at a very low rate (less than 1 psi). However, if I open the air gate all the way, I can run up to around 5 psi and roar up to temperatures that will slag iron in a few minutes. In an earlier test forge body, I did exactly that, and melted the end of my iron burner right off, resulting in a puddle of iron on the floor of the forge!

If you want to build your own, you basically have the tradeoff between the price of the blower vs the extra control that blower will buy you.

Check ebay stores for a store called Yeoman machinery. That's where I got the blower for my forge, and it works wonderfully. It has the added advantage of being able to slip fit into the female end of a 2" pipe with just enough tension to stay put. The guy bought a rediculous lot of like 5000 of these things thinking it was a great deal, and the price he paid for them really was a great deal, but now he's having a hard time unloading all these blowers!
Click to expand...

Dan,

Do you have any pictures or design information? I agree with your explaination along with other information I have read and I am now thinking that a blown forge is the way to go. Is yours horizontal or vertical? I am also interested in setting a forge up to run off both propane and waste oil. I will look up the blower from Yeoman, do you have a model number for the blower? Thanks for your input.
 
I need a burner for my forge and was thinking about building a blower for it. I would like one day to try some forge welding and I doubt my HF weed burner will suffice. It gets metal plenty hot but not enough to forge weld in my opinion.
 
grump

The search feature is disabled...

That means I can't search for the older threads that have this information and then post links to them.

That also means I have to guess at what my photobucket username was so I can find those bloody photos again!
 
Here's a picture of the forced air burner I built for my welding forge. It's based on Darren Ellis' design. Very easy to make with standard black iron fittings available at any hardware store. The only parts you need which are in any way specialized are a needle valve and ball valve which are rated for propane. Any blower, even an old hair dryer will work for air. If you want to go the venturi burner route the best one to build is a sidearm type. Larry Zoeller's web site has instructions on how to build and tune one. I've built a couple of them and they are real handy for non-critical heating chores. I really prefer the forced air burner because of the ability to accurately control forge atmosphere. Keeps the scale down to a minimum if you get the mixture right.

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