Ribbon burners are the way to go!

cliffrat

cliffrat

Active Member
About every other year I have upgraded my forge to a new design. When I went to a blower and a 2 inch pipe burner, I thought I had the ultimate set up. I actually melted a piece of 1/2 inch plate in that thing! well a few month ago, I got a ribbon burner and set up my newest forge. The burner is 12 inches long and has 24 holes in the castable refractory. 3 rows of 8 holes each, off set and about 1 inch apart. It goes from dead cold to welding temp in about 7 minutes, runs at 3.5 pounds of propane with a 50 cfm blower. The second pic is it running. It was not easy to get a photo of it running that you could actually see anything, so this was the best of the lot. I got a better photo once I turned it off (first pic).

Forge off.jpgForge Running.jpg

It's made from the top of an old water heater. 2 inches of Inswool surround, 2 inch thick by 4 inch wide fire brick for the floor.
I found the instructions for building the burner thanks to John Emmerling of Gearheart Ironworks at this website:
http://blacksmith.org/forum/tutorials/ribbon-forge-burner/
and I created a Word doc with the entire tutorial (hopefully John didn't copyright that one!)

View attachment ribbon burner V2.doc
 
It is hard to believe that John first had that article published in the "Hammer's Blow", the how to publication of ABANA (www.abana.org) in 2006. The Ribbon Burner has been slow to take off but each person that comments about it has positive comments. I have John's information as an attachment on my Forge Supplies page on my web-site along with much more information that I have gleaned from the forums and web-sites. I need to update my web-page with some new information.

John now builds his forges with the burner coming in from the side so that the direct flame goes over the metal rather than directly onto it. With the forge built from a 20# Propane bottle, which is the size that I recommend a 6" burner is a good size.

I will be at the Alabama Forge Council conference (www.alaforge.org) and at Quad State Roundup (http://www.sofablacksmiths.org) and will have my forge there for demonstration.
Let me know if you have questions or if I can help you.
 
I think concerns about burner placement and direct flame against the metal are largely unfounded. Think about how a coal forge works for a moment, and you will soon realize that getting the metal in direct contact with flame or very hot stuff is exactly what is desired. It also appears that the design of the ribbon burner produces a very uniform heat throughout the forge area with no "hot spots" typical of single or even triple burner types. How many of us use an oxy-acetylene torch for heating up localized areas? any concerns about that? Probably not, because it's what is desired for the job you are doing. Observation of the flame in a ribbon burner forge at first start up shows you that this design produces a very wide flame balloon by the time it crosses from the top of the forge to the work piece. At least in my forge, which is 14 inches in diameter (Less 4 inches for refractory), the flame appears to be about 6 inches wide after traveling to the brick floor. That's more than double the width from outside to outside of the rows of holes in the burner. Even with my standard starting billet of Damascus, that's wide enough to fully envelope the stack. Speaking of which, if you use the forge to make Damascus, it really doesn't matter where you put the burner, it is going to blow directly onto one of the faces of the billet. In my not-so-humble opinion, indirect contact with the flame is inefficient use of the fuel.
Fuel costs money. Heating the metal up to working levels takes time. Both of which are in short supply for most of us. I say use them both as efficiently as possible.
 
good post. I think I need to make one of these.
John is coming to our hammer in with Rome in a few weeks and they are going to show how to make one.
 
I've seen these burners work, and from everything I've seen, they appear to be well worth the effort. I've had it in the back of my mind for a while now, to try to build a welding forge.... an oval shaped, vertical type, and have one of these type burners setup vertically at a tagent that would create the "swirl" I've come to like so much. Maybe the next time my welding forge shell needs an overhaul......I can give it a go an see what happens. I guess only one of two things could happen.....it either will work... or it won't. :) Either way it would be a great learning experience, and its always a ton of fun to build something that I think is "new and exciting".
 
EdCaffreyMS said:
I've seen these burners work, and from everything I've seen, they appear to be well worth the effort. I've had it in the back of my mind for a while now, to try to build a welding forge.... an oval shaped, vertical type, and have one of these type burners setup vertically at a tagent that would create the "swirl" I've come to like so much. Maybe the next time my welding forge shell needs an overhaul......I can give it a go an see what happens. I guess only one of two things could happen.....it either will work... or it won't. :) Either way it would be a great learning experience, and its always a ton of fun to build something that I think is "new and exciting".
Click to expand...

Ed, We can talk more about that next month in KC. Let's go get some BBQ and make some sketches.
 
Tracy that would make a great WIP Video when they show how to build the ribbon burner forge. I bet you could WIP of the month. :9:
Doug Adams
Jn. 3:16
 
I have tried, on two different days, to open the RibbonBurner.pdf that Tracy posted both unsuccessfully. If you are having trouble opening it go to the Forge Supplies page on my web-site and open the attachments. That has John's tutorial along with a bunch of other information that I gleaned from this and other forums and other web-sites. John and Rome are treasured friends. Come by my canopy at the 2016 Batson's Blade Symposium (www.alaforge.org for more information) to visit with all three of us.

Let me know if I can help you.
 
Wayne Coe said:
I have tried, on two different days, to open the RibbonBurner.pdf that Tracy posted both unsuccessfully. If you are having trouble opening it go to the Forge Supplies page on my web-site and open the attachments. That has John's tutorial along with a bunch of other information that I gleaned from this and other forums and other web-sites. John and Rome are treasured friends. Come by my canopy at the 2016 Batson's Blade Symposium (www.alaforge.org for more information) to visit with all three of us.

Let me know if I can help you.
Click to expand...


I just tried the link and it worked for me and I was able to down load the file. This is something very interesting and definitely something I am going to look into building.
 
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