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Making Burners Do's And Don't's


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I thought the more burners the better the oxygen to gas ratio will be at each burner seeing as I will only have the venturi and no chimney on the top of the kiln. Does it make sense that the smaller the orifice the better it will create a negative pressure with the same PSI?

 

I have seen some of the two burner downdraft but doing that I would lose space in the kiln so I thought an updraft was the way to go. Can't decided if I want to use power burners or not. Probably better with the updraft kiln but I don't want constant fan noise when firing and extra problems to deal with. 

 

6 could be overdoing it. Is it better to have 4 bigger flames or 6 smaller flames?

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My commercial updraft (12 cubic feet) has no stack -small orfices low pressure (7 inches) 6 burners (cast  from refractory material venturi)

Burners are on 4 corners coming stright up on one control and two on sides in middle on another control.

For a 5.5 cubic footer 4 would be plenty for venturi-if you go forced air two would be fine as they produce pressures into the chamber.

I would stick to keep it simple with a small kiln.

As far as orfice size that needs to match whatever burner you make to get the best mix of air /gas.

Orfices come in brass and you can drill them out to whatever you need-start small and work up would be my suggestion. On this side of the pond we use letter/number drills.

In a 5.5 cubic foot kiln 4 burners with whatever size flames will be enough-your orfice size will be small

Mark

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Way too many burners for a kiln that small. With that many you'll probably have issues with keeping them turned down low enough to do the job properly. Make sure you're sizing your burners off the total interior volume of the kiln, not just the stacking space. For a kiln that small you should be able to use one or two burners.

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I think you are both imagining some of the sized burners you are using for your kilns. I am more envisioning 4-6 over sized Bunsen burners with a max BTU output between 10,000-20,000 BTU.

Maybe I am being stupid somewhere along the line but in my head that works :D

 

After a quick google it seems Bunsen burners put out around 1000BTU so then I need one 10x that for my burner.

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I think you are both imagining some of the sized burners you are using for your kilns. I am more envisioning 4-6 over sized Bunsen burners with a max BTU output between 10,000-20,000 BTU.

Maybe I am being stupid somewhere along the line but in my head that works :D

 

After a quick google it seems Bunsen burners put out around 1000BTU so then I need one 10x that for my burner.

 

I think you'll hate having to adjust that many burners. Plus it will probably come out cheaper to buy fewer larger burners.

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So it is best to have individual adjustments on each burner?

I saw this photo in The Kiln Book
post-23281-0-92329800-1425162757_thumb.jpg

So I was thinking having some pipe/manifold that I can control the pressure on and then having four screw fittings so I could try different orifice sizes and different burner tube shapes and sizes. Slightly crude but simple enough that I can mess around with the variables and see changes.

 

Something like this. 
post-23281-0-65688600-1425188506_thumb.jpg

 

What is the best material to make the ends of burners out of? Been looking into flame retention nozzles.

post-23281-0-92329800-1425162757_thumb.jpg

post-23281-0-65688600-1425188506_thumb.jpg

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In your second diagram the burners are all controled ny one valve as the gas is in the tube-thats how my small kiln is except it has 4 on one tube two on another.

My has cast refractory venturi shape burnes -pipes will work but casting them you can get a better venturi.

If you go pipes flame retention nozzels are best I feel for venturi burners out of pipe. 

Mark

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So it is best to have individual adjustments on each burner?

 

I saw this photo in The Kiln Book

attachicon.gifimage.jpg

 

So I was thinking having some pipe/manifold that I can control the pressure on and then having four screw fittings so I could try different orifice sizes and different burner tube shapes and sizes. Slightly crude but simple enough that I can mess around with the variables and see changes.

 

Something like this. 

attachicon.gifimage.jpg

 

What is the best material to make the ends of burners out of? Been looking into flame retention nozzles.

 

That first one is just a pipe sitting on a pipe. Not a good or safe way to do it. It's good to have one gas control for the whole setup, but if you need to adjust air flow in venturi burners that has to be done individually. Retention nozzles are good.

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Ok, so it is probably worth my money to find some good cast venturi burners. I do like the idea of making my own, it would be satisfying to see fire burning from a homemade one.

 

I am thinking something like that second picture is good with the four burners. I am never really going to be firing bisque in this kiln so if it was a little hard to control temps at the start it shouldn't be much of a problem.

 

I keep looking at regulators and getting lost. All the low pressure LP seem to be fixed and the high pressure goes from 0.5bar to 2/4bar which seems useless  :wacko:

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HBP

Is this kiln really 5 cubic feet or larger???If thats a yes only 2 burners

4 will be overkill.

As I said you can cast your own from refractory materials-Mine are just that on my little 12 cubic updraft.

They are commercially made but easy to knock off-Our clay supplier even has a refractory clay body for just a use-I'm sure there is one in England as well.

They could even be thrown.They sit over the orfice on a pipe.

Mark

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Yes it is only a small one, I will go with 2 burners then. Save me some work if 2 will be plenty. I will have to look into making some refractory burners. I do have an old friend who is into blacksmithing who I am going to talk to. Could be fun trying to forge my own burner.

 

By refractory clay do you mean some kind of fire clay? To my knowledge that is the most refractory sort of clay, right?

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  • 4 years later...

I made the most basic burner ever.....18 inch one inch Black pipe that screws into the main line with a valve to adjust the gas at the top. A cap fitting on the bottom of the one inch pipe. Then about 4 inches from the bottom, a 1/4 inch orifice drilled into the black pipe. Then get two inch black pipe of the desired length....mine was 18 inches.....attach black pipe couplings to both ends of the two inch pipe. Center the coupling on the one inch pipe with the orifice in the middle and weld it in place.  Open the gas valve and light the gas at the end of the burner.  If it gets windy, It can back burn, but most of the time it's good. Really good control of flame length. 

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