This is a page for those who have made burners and forges to tell of problems and solutions encountered in the process.  Tony has promised something, I wish I had waited for it. He picked up a lot of stuff I missed on Ron Reils page and he avoided most of my problems.  If you have anything to add please send it to  My e-mail address

    I (Tom Strode) went to a side draft with a 2 X 2 X 3/4 tee reducer.
    I couldn't get the schedule 80 1/8 nipple called for so I took schedule 40, fullered down the end, tapped it, and it worked.  I didn't want have to deal with burning galvanizeing so I gently heated just the end where the galvanizeing had been taken off by the threading and fullered that. I didn't go undersize and drill it out, I just fullered it and tried the tap and it worked fine. Beginners luck, I was amazed when it worked. It didn't leave much wall for threading.  You're much better off starting with schedule 80 and just tapping it, or schedule 40 black iron so you can cut off the threads and work with fullering the full wall thickness.  It's just that galvanized was all I could get locally so I tried it and got lucky.
    I used a size 14 Tweco tip instead of the 14T that's called for.  The 14T is described as being tapered and the 14 is straight so I guess the T stands for "tapered".  I'm looking forward to trying a 14T.  (Tony says he couldn't get the 14T either so he chucked a 14 up in the drill press and tapered it with file and sandpaper.)
    The tip didn't go into the end of the nipple perfectly straight so I mounted it in the tee, sighted in through the 3/4 hole, turned it so the offcenteredness had it over closer to the opening side, reached in with a drift and tapped it back to center. It looked real good, well centered, maybe there is still some angle in the flow but if so I really don't think it's enough to matter.
    When I lit it, it worked.  It probably gave as much flame as the simple burner that Ken made.  But, it was real pressure sensitive.  It had very small range between starting and having the flame blow out from to much gas pressure.
    So I made a flared end and put that on it.   Wow! What a difference. Looked like half again the flame and I cranked the pressure way up, way past where the flame quit getting bigger, and it never did blow it out. So the flared end really is important.
    I tapered a piece of axle to the correct 1:12 taper to be sure of getting it right.  If someone has a lathe with a taper attachment he might be able to get it a little better but what I have is pretty close.  Certainly close enough to make a big improvement in how the burner works.  So we have that if we want to make our own flares.  Does anyone have a source of stainless pipe 1 1/16th ID?  I used black iron because that was all I had.  Even with the tapered drift it took several heats and a lot of hammering and it doesn't come out as pretty as the pressed stainless one you can buy ready made at c http://www.geocities.com/zoellerforge/flare.html  for $6.50 plus shipping. Having made one, that does seem like a good price, but then, we have 15 people signed up for the workshop. If everybody just makes one burner that's $97.50 + shipping.  With four foot of pipe we could make our own.  We are blacksmiths after all.
    We need to find out how many burners each person wants so we'll know how much pipe it will take.  And, how much the pipe will cost.
    I tapered mine back 2 inches and it looks like he only went 1 1/2 so that may make a difference too.  When I put it on I got a pretty dramatic pulsation.  And according to Ron Reil the reason for the flare was to take low end pulsation out.
    I wedged a piece of wire in the pipe to create turbulance and that helped.  So I replaced the 9 inch pipe I had been useing with a 15 inch piece and that pretty much fixed it.  There's still a little fluxuation but then I haven't tried it in the forge yet either, and that may help it too.

    Fillis came our on Sun. (12/1/02) and we made another flared end that was only flared 1 1/2 inches back and tried that.  It didn't work nearly as well, so we went ahead and made it just like the other one... and it still didn't work nearly as well ???   After some experimentation we determined that it was how far you slid it onto the 3/4 pipe that was critical.
    My 3/4 pipe had been part of a pipe clamp and had some concrete on it so the flare needed to be pressed (hammered) on.  I had been putting it so only about an inch of pipe was in it.  We found that it needs to have the end of the 3/4 pipe well past where the flare starts, it gives maximum flame at 2 1/4 inches in.
 

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