[TheForge] Gun Burners (AKA fan blown)

[Kathy]

Chuck,
You want to take the ITC #100 and deliberately separate it by using too much
water. Fill an 8 oz. water glass half full. Next, dump a couple of spoons of ITC
#100 in and stir; wait a few minutes while the heavier particulates settle to
the bottom, forming mud. What contents are left suspended in the water are by
definition colloidal; this will be true of the zirconium particles and also of
whatever they use for a binder. Once you understand the process, continue
spooning in ITC #100 until you are satisfied with the mixture. Painting the
mixture on Satenite with a cheap brush will be quite easy.

My forges typically reach lemon yellow heat with regular ITC #100. By separating
the colloidal content and only using that portion, the same forge will go to
yellow-white heat. Of course, this same trick can be done with zirconium powder
(typically available as #200 mesh for about the same price as an equal volume of
ITC #100. When you look at the amount of heavy particulates which settle out of
both sources, try not to get mad about the price of ITC #100. Ah, but what to
use as a binder? Well, common old clay can be separated into colloidal
particulates also :-))) As to the mud on the bottom of the water glass, toss it
into the Satenite bottle and mix them together.

A word of caution:
Sustained yellow-white heat within the forge will damage 2300 degree rated
ceramic blanket. You need 2700 degree blanket at a minimum and it is better to
use something like Kastolite 3000 for the forge lining.

I designed the forges in "Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns" to be
efficient and portable. If someone wants to play with billet forming
temperatures, they should replace ceramic blanket with high temperature
refractory. I really must stress the point that for higher temperature forges,
ceramic blanket must go. Also, you will have to replace the burner nozzle by
building its shape into your refractory. At higher internal temperatures, SS
burner nozzles melt.

Now, as to your disappointment with atmospheric burners, it is necessary to
remember that their designs are meant to produce a high temperature flame along
with fuel economy. They will suffer from back pressure if too large a burner or
too many burners are stuffed into any given area. Once you create back-pressure,
the burner's performance plummets. So, if you want more heat input within a
given time period than you can get with naturally aspirated burners, you need to
employ a burner with positive pressure; that would mean a gun burner or
compressed air-fuel burner. Either of these burner types will provide more heat
input because they have positive pressure to overcome the back pressure
with--but at the price of throwing away a lot of fuel heat. So, your next
consideration is how to buy fuel dirt cheap; that would be natural gas. This
once again leads us full circle to a discussion of gun burners and oxygen
enrichment; or of gun burners, oxygen enrichment, and aromatic hydrocarbon
"doping."
Mikey       

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Chuck Robinson
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 4:22 PM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Gun Burners (AKA fan blown)

Hey Mikey,
I'm using 4 propane forges and a propane fired salt heat treating furnace.
#1 is a blown vertical birdcage forge that is used for knifemaking and 
forging Damascus.

#2 is a 30" x 16" blown horizontal pipe forge with a Mizou cast floor  and 
inswool shell lined with satenite. This is the forge with the ribbon burner.
It is used to weld large powder Damascus billets  and heat other large 
billets for making hammers etc.

#3 is a stainless horizontal forge with arched ceiling about 1/2 the size of 
#2.
It has 3 "T" Rex atmospheric burners and a castolite cast floor. I built it 
to test out and tweak atmospheric burners. Use it occasionally for  lower 
temp multiple forging ops.

#4 is  a S/S 1/2 beer keg sawed in half at the middle, and completely lined 
with castolite.
one end has a 6" square hole in it and the other end has a3' round hole in 
it for a "T" Rex foundry atmospheric burner.
It is used exclusively for heat treating the adjustable blade anvils I make 
for the blade makers.

I've been pretty disappointed with atmospheric burners for the higher heat 
ranges I often need. So I only use them for temperatures 2200F or cooler.
I still plan to try to coat my forges with the Zirconia solution you 
recommended.
How should I apply it over the satenite?
can it just be sprayed as a final coat?
I've been using an optical pyrometer to test the forges and still haven't 
gotten the atmospheric burners to exceed 2350F. I'll test them with the 
Zirconia coating to see the improvement.
Chuck 

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