buying a burner

Hey guys. I am about to build my first gas forge, and am looking for advice on a burner to buy. I was thinking about making a smallish, 1 burner forge, and right now am not doing any forge welding. I just want to find a good, straightforward, probably venturi, burner. Hopefully something that doesn't consume tons of gas, and that I can tune in pretty accurately (with temp probe) for heat treating.

Also would be a bonus if I could later reuse the burner if I decide to build a larger forge.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Jay Wilson
 
I have been wanting to order from Larry Zoeller for some time now. I need some extra accessories like hoses, fittings, gages, etc., and his prices are lower than the welding supplier a couple of blocks away from me!
He is located in Louisville area, and I go over there every couple months on business anyways.
I've been wanting to meet him, but, unfortunately, I have heard he has lately been down on orders due to a surgery. I heard sometime about the end of June?
Go to his website link provided by Wayne and get Larry's email; see what you can find out.

You have many options for a burner, both blown and venturi. Both types have references available for building one from parts if you choose that route, and both types are available ready to go from several suppliers if you just want to buy and get busy.

You seem to indicate a preference for a venturi burner.
No matter how well the burner is designed, keep in mind it is kinda like getting the best fuel mileage in your vehicle- best results are going to be obtained if you stay within a defined operating window.
The "performance standard" for the venturi burners seems to be a 3/4" burner having the ability to reach forge-welding heat in a 350ci chamber. But remember that this assumes proper forge design and construction.
If you stick with the general guidelines based on the experiences of others, you shouldn't have a problem.

If you cannot make any headway with Larry, I think Ellis sells burners, too. I don't have his contact info handy, but will do a search later and post it if you need it.

With that said, I have had very good luck with Rex Price at Hybridburners.com.
Rex offers burner sizes from a 3/8" "torch" (which will absolutely put a hardware torch to shame!) all the way up to a monstrous 1-1/4" burner.
At first glance, his prices look higher than others out there. But it has been my experience it is well worth it!
For instance, his 1/2" burner can do the work of many 3/4" burners on the market (and yes, this is speaking from personal experience).
I also have one of his 1" burners. I needed a larger burner for a casting furnace. The first time I used it was for a "trial" aluminum melt in a steel crucible. No worries about enough heat in that instance- I ended up melting the crucible!
He's done his homework, and makes every burner from parts machined for the intended purpose. I think the precision, fit, and finish of his products are superb. The first one I received, I almost didn't want to hook it up- it seemed like something I should display on the wall, it looked so good!:biggrin:

All fun and laughter aside, it's worth checking out all available references. Don't get too confused about all the hype- most of the stuff out there will probably serve you well starting out, and you can separate the wheat from the chaff as you advance.
Here is the link to Rex's website if you want to check it out:
http://www.hybridburners.com/index.html


Good Luck,
Rob
 
"...with Rex Price at Hybridburners.com.
Rex offers burner sizes from a 3/8" "torch" (which will absolutely put a hardware torch to shame!) all the way up to a monstrous 1-1/4" burner.
At first glance, his prices look higher than others out there. But it has been my experience it is well worth it!"

Rob,
That would my first choice if I was going to buy a burner, provided you have plenty of money! They aint cheap, but worth every cent! I built a blown gas forge, with the help of this group, several guys on here were very patient with me, explained some thing several times, so I understood it completely, I still haven't gotten it fired up just yet, I've had several things come up in the last few months, once I pick up a few more of the items I need, it will be ready to FIRE UP!!!

If I remember correctly, you told me you were a stock removal guy, have you ever done any forging? If not, do try to find someone you can sit in with, at the very least watch, videos are a start, but being there and watching, you will or should get the chance to hammer some yourself, most makers will let you forge out a knife while your there. You're welcome to come to my shop ANYTIME!! I try to make sure that anyone that wants to come to my shop know they are welcome anytime I'm home, I truly enjoy helping anyone I can help. I know that sounds like I'm a nice guy and all, but it's for purely selfish reasons. See, when you share your knowledge with others, the person doing the teaching will almost always learn something in the process!! I would almost guarantee it, depending on the individual teaching. Everytime I have helped anyone, I came away with some little nugget of info, and on occasion have gotten an idea for something, be it a knife, or a tool, or a better way to do the things I've been doing a certain way, the exchange is almost a guarantee, even Newbies have something to share, they may not know it, but it will be there.

What ever you choose, just know it isn't easy, it is fun, just keep working at it,the longer you work at it, the better you will get, the more you will learn. And finding someone that will share knowledge with you will be a huge help.

BTW are you going to BLADE? If so, I'd like to meet up with you, PM me, and let me, Rex
 


If I remember correctly, you told me you were a stock removal guy, have you ever done any forging?

BTW are you going to BLADE? If so, I'd like to meet up with you, PM me, and let me, Rex


Rex,

Sorry I haven't had a chance to call you yet. Things changed drastically at work last week, throwing my schedule out of whack. Plus I know you've been busy with the new shop, and did not want to disrupt.

Yeah, for the most part, I do mostly stock removal.
I got bitten by this knife bug a couple of years ago whenever I wanted to make a few kitchen knives to go with my butcher blocks.
Interestingly, general blacksmithing seems to hold a good level of interest here, but bladesmithing/blademaking (in my direct area anyways) seems to be harder to find people to connect with.
Maybe they're here; just not coming out of the woodwork!

Forging was sort of a do-it-as-I-need-to sort of thing until recently. Made some various trinkets for gifts out of scrap like RR spikes, rebar, etc.
Didn't want to pay the exorbitant price for a set of crank-neck chisels, so I made my own.
Concerning blades, the only forging experience I have is a few Japanese-style blades; I have a friend who has an affinity for various Japanese martial arts, so of course I had to start learning about that. (Reunion gifts.)
Man, that's a lot to learn! Not just the forging, but the entire process.
The tanto turned out good for my first-ever forged blade. The wakizashi project took three attempts before I felt comfortable with the outcome.
I'm sure the "newbie" factor was a huge contributor to the mistakes and the ridiculous amount of hours put into it, but I also come from the school that says experience gained from mistakes can sometimes be the best teacher.
Now that I look back at it, I probably should not have attempted that type of stuff until I got more forging experience under my belt.
Oh, well, live and learn.
One thing is for certain, I will "keep forging ahead". (Pun definitely intended.):biggrin:

Recall from our previous conversation that the overwhelming majority of my experience with "heat" has been with casting, a lifelong passion of mine. (Yes, I still want to learn about tamahagane. Give it time, I'll get there.)

I tried to leave options open to artificialj, and want him to realize the options available to him. No way do I wish to open a discussion about what he needs (blown vs. venturi), or from whom he should purchase, or whether he should build rather than purchase.
But something I see come up on several threads is that a blown burner is needed for forge welding. Maybe, maybe not.

We all have different needs and budgets. More (or less) stringent requirements from one person to the next.
Concerning Rex Price's burners, I'm simply saying where I have had good experience, and I hope others contribute their experiences as well. Like I said in the earlier post, most of the stuff out there will probably suit him just fine.


Regarding Blade, I'm still trying to reschedule prior commitments. But I've got these seminars for work I have to attend before end of the year, and I need to see if fall classes have openings I can shift into.
If I cannot switch, I will try to schedule vacation (what's that?!) for sometime this fall and plan a trip down South.

Will contact you soon.

Rob
 
Thanks a bunch guys, got some deciding to do. Didn't email Larry Zoeller, but his website says he's not accepting any new orders . Those burners on Rex Prices' site look beautiful. Anyone have experience with using the 3/4" one in a single burner forge? How'd it perform? Gas usage? Ability to really dial it in?
 
Do you have any ideas on chamber dimensions? Both the T-Rex and the Z-burner should be great providing you don't go too small or too large on chamber size.
 
No firm ideas on chamber size - I was going to just try to build the chamber according to whichever burner I end up getting. Although, now I have another question: lets say the burner is best suited to a chamber of x in^3, do I subtract the area of the chamber taken up by insulation (kaowool, or whatever) when designing it?
 
The chamber size is the actual area to be heated, all of the insulation is included in that area, it was highly recommended to me by Ed Caffrey (and a bit of a hot topic) to go with 1" thick insulating blanket, whatever you choose, there are so may out there, the one that I was told not to use, was Super Wool, it is safer, in that it doesn't have the particles floating in the air while it is burning, but it takes longer to reach the desired temps. AND NOT an issue once you cover ALL of it with refractory, I found it best to follow his advice.

You can contact Wayne Coe, he sells everything you need for forge building and is a Knife Dog, he is very knowledgeable on the subject, his prices a pretty great as well as his service. Between Wayne and Ed, I felt like I was on the right track when I built mine, I still have yet to finish mine with everything going on with me, but will get it finished up her after BLADE.
Keep in mind that all the fittings you need are for GAS, not water, I didn't think about that little thing when I was buying the items I felt like I could get locally, all I could find for a neddle valve was for water. I later learned that those are NOT rated for gas, and would most likely leak, so I decided to wait to finish it up when I could get the right components needed. So All I need now is:
1. Needle Valve
2.A new gas line (my old one on my old forge is showing cracks in the rubber, best to replace it)
3.A pyrometer. ( Actually, not a necessity, but I want to be able to record the time it takes to get to XXXX temp, at X psi, so I can see exactley how efficient my forge is running) BTW a pyrometer is basically a temp gauge, they can be very expensive, they can also be built relatively inexpensively with off the shelf parts. But, so far I have'nt been able to find one that will register in the 2000+ degree area I'm looking for.

Once I get everything together, I should be able to put it all together and install it in an afternoon, it is worth waiting on and since I haven't taken anything from my old forge I can still use it until then.
Hope this helps, Rex
 
I corresponded with Larry Zoeller (www.zoellerforge.com) yesterday and he confirmed that due to sholder surgery he has been shut down since March but expects to be back up and filling orders in 4 or 5 weeks. For the most reasonably burners try to wait on Larry to be filling orders. For the highest quality check out T-Rex burners at www.hybridburners.com. There are a couple of others out there but I was short sighted and did not save the information.
 
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