Small Propane forge WIP

[Denzer]

I'm making this WIP to show you all what I've been working on and to get some input on what I can do better and what I am simply doing wrong.

Thank you for your time and any input you may have. Hope you enjoy me efforts.

I decided to do this after making a bit of my burner so there are a couple skipped steps, but I hope to keep up from here on.



I started by machining a propane jet to fit into a 3/8 inch compression sleeve out of 3/4 inch brass.



the compression sleeve and jet attach to a 1/4 inch ball valve

 

[Denzer]

The burner tube is made out of some scrap 3/4 inch steel pipe from around the shop.



The oxygen vent choke is made out of part of a 1 inch steel pipe that had a tiny bit of material removed from the inside so that it slides along the burner tube easily but snugly. The choke is also drilled and tapped so that a set screw can be attached to it in order to hold its place tightly on the burner tube.

The nozzle is made out of the other side of the 1 inch steel pipe, but this time I removed a small amount of material from the outside of the burner tube to that the nozzle can slide on tightly and stop at a specific distance from the end of the burner tube. This fit does not need to move so was made tight enough that it did not need a set screw.



The assembled burner can be seen below. To the left of the ball valve is a pressure gage and the entire assembly is attached to a regulator.



After testing the original jet I thought the diameter of the hole was too large and with this format I didn't have enough variability on the oxygen entering the burner.

To fix these issues I machined a new propane jet that would attach to the compression sleeve just as before but tapers to a 1/4 inch OD 5/32 inch inner diameter tube that extends for about 2 inches. Near the end of this tube, the inner diameter opening reduces to 0.04 inches. The oxygen vents on the burner tube are now 6 milled 5/16 inch slots that start 3/4 inches from the end of the tube and extend parallel to the axis of the tube for 2.25 inches.

This is where some steps are missed. I assembled the burner without taking pictures of the new propane jet. I hope you can get an idea of what I did anyway.

 

[Denzer]

Below is the ball valve side of the assembled burner. In the picture you can clearly see the milled slots that extend just past the propane jet opening, three set screws holding the jet assembly to the burner tube, and a closer view of the hardware attached to the ball valve.



It is important to aim the propane jet down the center of the burner tube. I did this using the three set screws visible in the picture above. I machined the compression screw nut to fit snugly in the 3/4 inch pipe burner tube -- this part is denoted below with the black arrow. the three radial set screw connect to the part denoted below with the white arrow. Because the front (black arrow) is stationary I can use that as a pivot move the back (white arrow) wherever I want with the three set screws and effectively aim the propane jet down the tube.



I assemble the rest of the burner and tweek the aiming of the jet by attaching a water hose to the ball valve and aiming the stream of water down the center of the tube. I then sealed all the connections with that yellow gunk and hooked it up to gas and see how it worked.

Below you can see the burner assembled with the choke mostly closed and with it wide open to see the variability.

 

[Denzer]

I first tried to light the burner with a longer nozzle than showed above. It would not light well at all. I shortened it so that the nozzle pipe extended about 1.25 inches past 3/4 inch burner pipe and tried again and it worked almost perfectly. The pictures below show the burner at about 4 psi.






[video=youtube_share;WqDSrHcQ_Zc]http://youtu.be/WqDSrHcQ_Zc[/video]


If you have any questions or input please let me know. I hope I did everything correctly so far both on the forum and on my burner. Thank you for looking.

 

[Denzer]

The forge will be made out of a 9.75 inch diameter stainless pipe. I have plasma cut a hole in one side for the burner to enter. I have to bore out the hole to make it fit the burner.



There wasn't enough length on the pipe to make the front and back lids out of the same material so I am using a piece of scrap steel sheet cut into strips. I bent each of the strips into partial circles to fit around the tube. I will then add in supports and insulate the two lids. The lids will attach to the forge body using hinges and a latch at each side.





I was planning on having a 2 inch diameter circle opening on either end of the forge. Do you guys think this is the right size?
I was also wondering if I should use ceramic wool coated in statanite to make the lids or if I should use soft firebrick.

Thank you for any input in this matter.

 

[Mike Reilly]

Are you planning on putting anything in there bigger than 2" wide?

 

[Denzer]

I plan on having the lids on hinges so I can just open them if I need to forge setting wider.

 

[Denzer]

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it so far

 

[canid]

Nice work. Keep us posted and I'll keep watching. I'm waiting on a forge burner project til I get or make a boring bar holder for my lathe to try make nozzle flares that way (on the compound).

 

[Denzer]

Yeah I'm trying to make my forge in such a way that I can change out its parts when I'm able to get or make better parts, especially the nozzle. Good luck on your project as well.