Propane burners, old and new.

I have been pretty busy trying to find and negotiating used power rolling mills. A lot of jewelry workshops are sadly going out of business in this country, and there is a multitude of used machinery that if not resold will go for iron scrap. I think I managed to clinch a deal on an old massive power mill with 9cm thick, 20cm wide rollers for 500 Euros, which is quite a deal, if it goes through...

I have also been building new forges, one for melting wootz steel, and another which will be able to hold a steady 750 C temperature for silver mokume gane. The first one is easy, just build it as massive as you can; the second one is a lot trickier, as most forges and burners will easily overshoot that temp.

Another ongoing project is casting some shibuichi and shakudo. I cast an ingot of both, and have been running to and fro a guy with a rolling mill to flatten them out to 0.5 mm sheet. I will make a silver, shibuichi, shakudo mokume billet, once I have managed to make the 750 C forge...

Anyway, just to keep this blog going here are my two propane burners. My old sidearm burner, with a 1.0mm (ignore the 0.8 in the photo, it does not work) gas port. The cast iron nozzle has to be switched with a proper stainless steel one, as it is deteriorating fast.

Here is my second, more powerful burner I finished today. It is a forced air burner, using the same gas feeding head as the previous one, but built out of 1.25 inch plumbing tube, and a 2 inch blower (I really like the BLOWER stamp on it; as if it looks like it could be anything else).

The whole thing look like a huge faucet, only, it shoots out fire!!!

Here is a useful and necessary detail, a flame holder made out of a 0.75 inch tube held inside the bigger tube by radially arranged screws. Some people go without it, but I could not keep a steady flame without one. 

The flame of this one is massive, and by controlling the blower speed one can easily switch between an oxidizing and a reducing flame.