Gas Forge pressure

A

Amescua

Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
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Hello everyone. This is my first question on the forum. I have built a gas forge from some plans I got off the internet and everything seemed fine, but when I fired up the burners there is a very low flame.

I bought the pressure regulator from our butane supplier and am wondering if I need a different type of regulator. I don't have a pressure guage so I can't tell what pressure I'm receiving. Is there a higher pressure regulator I need to be using?
 
Please tell us where you live (USA?) and whether this is a regular regulator or something made for gas grilling. Grilling regulators are low-pressure.

Welcome to the forums. You will find a lot of knowledgeable people here who will help you through your problem. We'll need a little more information:

Is this blower-driven versus venturi, and

What size is the gas orifice?

Do you actually mean butane? Most of us use bottled propane and a few use natural gas (methane).
 
Thanks Fitzo for your reply. I live in Austin, Texas. This is a venturi burner design using a #52 drill bit for the jet size and I'm using bottled propane. I do believe that the regulator is a gas grill regulator, I purchased it from my propane company.
 
You need a regulator similar to a cutting torch.It should have a gage and go up to 25# or so.You can get it from your propane Co. or a welding shop.
 
Thanks, Amescua. Knowing you live here can allow us to add a couple other things to what Stacy said. While I totally agree with Stacy about a regulator with a guage, there is a cheaper device called a "redhead" regulator that doesn't necessarily have the guage and is a bit cheaper. Still, I prefer Stacy's recommendation. It will allow you beter control.

Something else you may have to consider is whether the regulator will fit on your tank. The small (20 lb) gas-grill bottles have an odd fitting nowadays, so, if that's what you're using, be certain to ask if what you buy will fit your tank. Adaptors may be available.

As for the orifice, I run a .035" welding tip and run at higher pressures for more gas velocity. My forge, however, has a blower.

The thing that has me a little stumped is that an orifice that size will "pass a lot of gas" at lower pressures. It should produce a good flame. i think my problem is i simply don't know what pressure you're running at.

Good luck. People will help the more info you can provide, like pipe size, bell size, etc, on your burner.
 
I do believe that the regulator is a gas grill regulator
Click to expand...

In that case you're running at 11" water column pressure ...less than 1 psi, which is too low for the forge to operate correctly.

My (atmospheric) forge will fire up at 4.5 psi, and normally operates at around 6 psi or so ...but I'm at sea level, so YMMV.

You need a 0-25, 0-35, 0-60psi (take your pick) regulator (with a gauge to tell you what the hell is going on) ...and the higher you are above sea level, the higher your regular needs to go, as you lose pressure at altitude (something like 5 psi per 1000' elevation, if memory serves me correctly). In other words, if I were to move to Denver (5000' elevation), my forge would need the regulator set at 29.5 psi to get the same flow it has now at 4.5 psi at sea level. I think that's right, anyways.
 
jiminy said:
You need a 0-25, 0-35, 0-60psi (take your pick) regulator (with a gauge to tell you what the hell is going on) ...and the higher you are above sea level, the higher your regular needs to go, as you lose pressure at altitude (something like 5 psi per 1000' elevation, if memory serves me correctly). In other words, if I were to move to Denver (5000' elevation), my forge would need the regulator set at 29.5 psi to get the same flow it has now at 4.5 psi at sea level. I think that's right, anyways.
Click to expand...

jiminy, do you by chance have any reference for that? I did some searching and couldn't find anything. Wrong search string....

I'm not busting yer balls here. I honestly didn't have a clue there would be that much difference in gas flow. Very interesting, I'd like to read some more on that.

Thanks for any help.
 
Sorry, I had that wrong. Here's the wording from my forge instructions:

"Atmospheric propane forges suffer about a five percent decrease in efficiency with each 1,000' increase in elevation. If you live above about 4,000' in elevation, you may need a 30-pound tank and 5-35 or 0-60 regulator to achieve satisfactory heats."

And I can't find any other confirmation of that information either.
 
'Sokay. Thanks for checking. I knew there was a difference with elevation but was surprised at the original figure. It had me scratching my head because I run my forge at 21 psi and I was trying to figure out what the h*ll one'd do trying to get more head pressure than the tank could provide. (I run high pressure but throttle back flow with a needle valve. More gas velocity.) That's still more change than the actual atmospheric pressure changes, so there's more going on than that.

Interesting topic. Maybe an engineer will come along and explain it to all. Thanks for the info. Have a good one. :)
 
Thanks everybody for your help. I put a high presure adjustable regulator on my forge and it is working great.
 
I'm always happy to hear we have another forger in our midst. It's a lot of fun to forge. Not to confuse the issue, but you will use different pressure settings
depending on what you are doing. If you start making damascus you will need welding heat whitch means more pressure. I run well head gas and use any where from 10 to 16 psi depending on what I am doing. Good luck and show us that first forged blade.
Fred
 
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