This video shows the different ways of heating the Forge, and in my opinion, what is best. I also show my forge which I believe to be one of the best systems there is!
Excellent video, however in my humble opinion, the biggest benefit of the ribbon burner is the ability to really dial in the air - gas ratio. Kranking up the propane makes a huge difference when forgewelding, because you can create an environment with way less oxygen in the burn chamber. I rarely use flux in my ribbon burner witch is unthinkable in my venturi. I don't experience a difference in fuel consumption between the two, however my ribbon is a lot bigger than the venturi and the venturi is an old valley forge, they are extremely effective, compared to other venturi's that I've tried.
Thanks, Ethan. I appreciate"quick and dirty". I don't have 45 minutes to sit and watch a video on forge burners! Thanks for your work and sharing your experience.
Thanks for the video Ethan. You have a great talent for explaining things consicely and in a way anyone can understand. I have a (forced) ribbon burner forge. These are the things I have learned, yet i don't hear many people discuss: 1) forced ribbon burners are usually paired with larger volume forges. Forced ribbon burners are much more efficient, but this larger forge size is probably going to require you to use more fuel gas. Maybe not, but it's something to consider. 2) No matter what you do, you cannot focus the heat from a ribbon burner onto a small section of your stock; whatever stock is in the forge will be heated, and evenly heated. This is desirable in some situations, but consider you are forging a pair of tongs and need to punch the rivet hole. You won't be able to focus the heat on your boss section (where the rivet goes in the tongs) when using a ribbon burner. When you try to punch the rivet hole out, your entire stock/tong is going to warp like warm taffy. Sure you can straighten it back out, but you will have to heat it more times to do this, and it's overall less time and fuel efficient, and not the best for the stock. If you had a single venturi burner or gun burner, you could focus the heat to about a 1 inch section quite easily. This is much better for punching or drifting, usually. I'm sure others can come up with exceptions. It's just something to consider. 3) Ribbon burners typically get hotter than venturi burners because of forced air. However, the heat cone of a venturi burner is more than capable to melt steel, but the venturi burner simply isn't going to get the WHOLE forge volume as hot as a ribbon burner. I actually believe if you are wanting to get a small area of stock really really hot, the best way to go is with a venturi or ideally a gun burner. Your entire forge won't be as hot as with a ribbon, but when working with smaller sections of stock, I'd argue this is better and more efficient in terms of fuel cost. Hopefully this helps someone. If you are getting into blacksmithing and building your first forge, I highly recommend starting with a single venturi burner, or maybe a forced air gun burner. You will be able to do everything you need to. However, if you have natural gas running to your shop, it's reasonable to just go ahead with a ribbon burner. Natural gas is much cheaper. You can hear that forge to hellishly high temps and you'll likely still be spending less money than you would using propane with a venturi or gun burner.
Interesting video! A tip for you.. if you ever go to propane, it's best to have your blower higher than where your gas input is. If power gets shut off while the blower is in operation, it could fill the blower with gas. If it were to come back on, it could cause an explosion. Thanks for the video...
shadowcastre Yeah that’s one of those life lessons we had to learn the hard way years ago when my cousin and I built our first forced air propane torch. We were using an old Squirrel cage blower motor and the stater shorted out during the first test fire and the torch flames instantly reversed direction and traveled back up through the air supply line. Of course that was back before CZcams, smart phones and internet was ever even thought of and all we had to go off of was a simple idea that we had conceived in our heads. It was only by the grace of God that we didn’t burn the barn down that day.
what @shadowcastre is saying is quite important. another solution would be to have an electro-valve that will only let gas through while its energized. if power goes off, the valve closes and stops the gas flow. its not only the risk of the gas going back to the blower, it could also happen that if the air stops flowing, gas could accumulate inside the yellow hot forge chamber.... all it needs is some oxigen. (of course, that would only happen if you werent around to notice the power went off and the gas was still flowing. but who leaves the forge running while not being around... right?)
tobias ripper i agree 100% but unfortunately the internet and CZcams didn’t exist back when I first attempted to build a forced propane forge and i ended up learning this lesson the hard way. I can’t even begin to imagine where I would be in life right now if had google at my fingertips back then like we do today. honestly it’s probably for the best I didn’t have it
@@richard102879 my dude, its the ppl from back when there was no internet that went through so many trial/error situations who later on pupulated internet with the "do's and do not's" that the current generation so much enjoys. if anything, thank you! hahaha. of course, there were books back in the day, but they weren't as available as pulling your phone out of your pocket and leaning how to do most anything right there in the moment. (btw i was just adding to what shadowcastre was saying. i was also around before internet. and oh boy many things would have been so different now if i had internet back then.)
Good job on a home system I have worked on a lot of burners including jet engines lol the burners used to dry hops were about ten feet away from huge fans and shot a flame that long and about 4 ft diameter you can use a supply to it that works on a stepped design think of ten small holes threaded and an Allen screw in each and each one is backed out a bit more it's a nice way to adjust fuel amount it would be done by hand on a forge instead of a modulating motor those are used to keep a constant temp. You hit it right on and your ribbon burner can be any shape you need if your forge is. Big enough you can move metal to cooler areas like for normalizing great video keep up the great channel
I have to agree that ribbon burners are far more efficient than venturi rigs. If you angle your burner tangent to the radius, and make the chamber round, you get a swirling effect which is even more efficient. I've been meaning to change over to natural gas too, so thanks for the kick in the pants. BTW, I like your videos. You have a good mind for this work.
Quick question: would blower btu be enough for a slightly bigger ribbon burner made out of a 2x1x13 long square tubing..for a 18" long brick forge? Thanks so much for your vids very inspiring.
most examples I have seen used a castable refractory for the holes in the ribbon burner, but I saw you just used a steel plate with holes in it. What do you reccomend?
How big would your forced air burner and forge need to be to get a crucible 2 litres (4 pints) in volume and its contents up to 1200 oC (2192 oF) for several hours?
That was a while ago, I wonder it you are still using ribbon burner? I sure would like to see one in action. Thanks for the video, really appreciate the info.....
Great video and well thought out design. Is there any reason (in principle) why a ribbon burner actually from a BBQ couldn't be used, or a T-fitting inside a forge running pipes with multiple small holes and end caps?
The main reason you don't want the burner steel pipes inside the forge, as I understand it, is that you'll literally melt them pretty quickly. See how HOT that thing gets inside? This is why many ribbon burner designs have the 'flame' end of the burner cast out of refractory. If you have the steel 'tip' up inside the hole where the flame exits a bit, like this lad's, it'll last longer. The cool air/fuel mix blasting out of it keeps the inside of the pipe cool while it's running and at least the inside/back of the tip, but if you had the pipes down in the forge itself, the heat would get all 'round them and they'd burn up quite soon. In a BBQ/grill, the flame's coming up from the bottom, with cool air fed in below it, which keeps those burner tubes cool (enough) and those only go up to maybe 500-800 degrees F, unlike forges, which can get over 2000 -- whole different ball'a wax. When your main goal is to build something that will literally melt steel (forge welding temps), you want to keep the steel that it's made of out of direct contact with that area, hence all the linings of kaowool, refractory, satanite, ITC 100, etc. See Essential Craftsman's and Old Hickory Forge's vids on how to build ribbon burners. If you can weld, those are a great design -- will last you a lonnng time. I suspect Ethan's version in this vid will too, but I doubt that steel end is going to last as long as one made of 3000 degree-rated refractory. If anyone out there has tried both types and knows, I'd love to know what their experience was.
You Can make a venturi Inducer run a ribbon burner head - sometimes called NARB's (naturally aspirated ribbon burner), they are designed a bit differently but work quite well. My current forge is run on two 3/4" class venturi inducers, using 0.030 (mig gun tip) orifice, running the ribbon burner blocks, my ribbon burner blocks are about 2.5x9.5 with 18x 5/16"ports. Many of the advantages of the forced air ribbon burners you were listing also apply to NARB's. My forge is about 4.5x4.5x24" internal (about 486 cu inches) and I can run one side or both as needed. It will forge weld, I've made Knives, Gate hinges, hammers, and even a 1.5 x2.5x 14" swage block with it. The NARB's are also Very quiet, most of the noise from a gun style is coming from the nozzle side not the induction side. one thing I like about my burners is the fairly wide range of temps I can run the forge at, from a low orange heat at 5-6 PSI to forge welding heat at 12-15 PSI. I also have a fairly small "dragons breath" from my setup, only about 6" at forge welding heat, I run my burners just barely on the fuel rich side of neutral to stop scale build up. Efficiency is ALL in the air fuel ratio - so Tuning is what will get you the efficiency not actually the type of burner. This style of burner does take a bit of tuning to get working just right, and is a bit more complicated to design and build than just a gun style or a basic forced air system.
You're the first person I've heard mention natural gas with a ribbon burner. Is a municipal supply really high enough pressure to make that work out? I'm shocked! Perhaps it's different in Canada, as you mention 20PSI NG, where I think all of mine is 10PSI. I'll have to call my power company and see what they can do for me, perhaps I can get a higher pressure supply to my shop.
Does your pipe get hot all the way back to where the gas feeds in? I've tried a similar design but my concern was with burning inside the tube, should you use flash arrestor and check valve at the gas feed?
No. The flow of air coming out of that blower motor as well as the pressure from the gas line keeps the flame from backtracking. The only time flashback arrestors are required is when you’re operating a closed duel fuel system like oxy/acetylene. The idea being that if one of the tanks runs low or empty it won’t draw the flame back into to the depleted tank. You also have to understand to that’s dealing with compressed oxygen as well which is by far the most flammable gas you will ever encounter. This set up is single fuel and any single fuel system will keep the gas flow oriented in a single direction and since there is no air inside the gas line the flame will never recede past the nozzle so a check valve won’t be needed either. That said, it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to use a check valve or a flashback arrester if it were to make you feel better but it’s not necessary for this type of setup
Ol James no difference. And about once every year, more for me however because I do a lot of Damascus. The flux eats away at the refractory much faster.
Sounds just like mine, but yours is a bit louder, I built one with 6 bricks a weed burner and a hair dryer for the top blower. It's not as large, but it looks to get just as hot. I have to turn it down to heat treat blades or they will carbon out.
Hey there. Great clip. I’ve just built a ribbon burner forge, a little larger than the one you show here. I have pretty much the same blower, with an adjustable tap, but I can’t get her as hot as this. I’m wondering if it’s the size of the gas jet hole? which is One millimeter diameter fed into the pipe pretty much in an identical set up as yours. It burns beautifully and I’m forging well with it, but if I crank The fan up it will blow out, not get hotter... Any tips?
This gas inlet is just coming out the end of the pipe. You don't need a small jet because it is not a venturi. Just get the gas in and make sure it has a chance to mix with the air. As for your burner blowing out with more air, you either need more/larger holes in the burner and/or more gas to mix with the extra air. Try getting rid of the jet and have the gas coming out of the pipe. It is a three way balancing act. Air, fuel and nozzle size. If you have a look at this one running he has the blower mostly closed off. The blower is waaaayyy to big.
In your experience, what burns hotter more easily?Dave Lisch uses a venturi burner for his Damascus steel, and so do many other smiths. My own forge, however, has a hard time getting to those temperatures. It may be because my forge is not well enough insulated.What insulation do you use? I am planning on relining mine with kaolwool and coating it with several layers of satanite or similar refractory cement.
Cave of Skarzs I have experience with David Lisch’s burners, they, for some reason work very well. But forced air is always more efficient...therefore it can get hotter, but it all depends how much fuel you put through them. I use kale wool insulation
How efficient would a forced air Venturi burner be? I have a small devilforge and seem to go through a fair bit of gas with just Venturi burners. So would a forced air Venturi burner be alright compared to a ribbon burner?
There's no such thing as a forced air Venturi burner. A Venturi burner sucks it's own combustion air with it. As for efficiency, that's also a myth. Efficiency is mostly a function of your fuel/air mixture. A neutral flame - only as much air as is needed to burn the fuel - will produce the highest efficiency. Forced air gives you better control over the fuel/air mixture. If you have huge amounts of flame escaping the forge, you're wasting fuel. A well made Venturi burner, with adequate and adjustable air intake will do you just fine. If you've got things tuned just right, you'll have just a small amount of dragons breath leaving the forge.
I made a forced air forge a year ago but it's been giving me fits. I can't seem to get the fuel/air ratio right. I only need it to go up to about 1100°C (or 1950°F), but I'm running off of propane tanks and the only way I can seem to get it up to that temperature is to crank the regulator up so high that the tank starts freezing (~20-30psi). I'm sure it shouldn't take that much fuel. It's a 16" ribbon burner with baffled plenum, and I'm using a dust collector as a blower and a 55gal. Steel drum lined with inswool and satanite as the forge. Maybe it's just because of the size of it, or maybe it's an issue with my blower, I don't know. It's been pretty frustrating, though. I never had these problems running a venturi burner.
The inside of your forge may be too big, the inside dimensions should be fairly small, it needs to get really hot to burn the fuel completely. Like he shows in this video it doesn't burn well at first because it isn't hot, a large area would take a tremendous amount of fuel and heat to burn hot. If you need a big fire you should consider coal or coke.
Kire Du'Hai your Forge is too big. His forge is compact on purpose, it’s easy to heat and keep hot. You’re only putting at the most projects a few inches wide. A much smaller burner too. Use what these other guys are using. Pipe 1-1/2 - 2” and keep your exit no more than a couple square inches. The burner should build a slight back pressure or close to it.
I also have a 55 gallon drum and initially I was having problems as well. The key is to really reduce the amount of air going into the system. I had to add a gate valve and its barely open. You tune the flame by its color.
Good stuff Ethan, can't hear you with forge on, would like to see the ribbon burner they sound good, but look too hard to make.what insulation do you use in your forge?
Lenblacksmith as I explain in the video, I use a small steel plat with holes in it. If you have a round hole like mine, it is an acceptable way to make a simple ribbon burner
Ethan, where are you located that you have Natural Gas at 20 PSI inside your facility? From my research, (typically in the USA), the standard delivery pressure, (past a residential gas meter) is 1/4 to 1/3 pound-per-square inch. The street gas pressure to the house may be much higher, but the typical home meter can only handle putting a maximum pressure of 5 PSI into the system. If I understand correctly, and what you say is true, your Natural Gas system has high enough pressure that it could almost handle many venturi systems. I'm confused. What am I missing?
Chuck Bailey we have high pressure service at the ranch, because we use so much gas to heat the buildings. So that particular gas line has no low pressure regulator on it, it’s illegal, but works well. I run my oxygen torch on natural gas too, so the higher pressure is needed for that too.
@@EthanHarty So what you are saying is that your "opinion" in terms of choosing between verturi and ribbon burners only applies for the .01% of those people who have illegal high pressure systems? Or will the argument still work for those of us with the lower pressure NG systems too?
Chuck Bailey you can absolutely run a forced air system with low pressure NG, because you can get more fuel in the system just by having a bigger gas inlet pipe, for example, Paul from Toronto Blacksmith, uses NG ribbon burners for his big forges, and he only has residential pressure, so the inlet pipe is 1/2” I think, and it works perfect. The beauty of the forced air system versus the Venturi, is that it doesn’t matter what pressure of gas you have. It’s all about the volume of fuel coming into the system, not the velocity out of an orifice. 🙂
@@EthanHarty Wonderful! That's good to know. No, it great news! I've read so much contradictory information on forums, with the majority saying it can't be done with regular residential pressure. I so much didn't want to go with propane, and I actually have 3/4" NG line I can use - so here's to ribbon burners. I plan to build one real soon! Again, thanks for the clarification!
The prices people charge for those burners are laughable, but they charge that because they can -- people buy 'em! Those people always say they're "too busy" or "don't have the time" to learn -- translation: They're too LAZY to put in the mental effort to figure out how to do things themselves. I'm one of the busiest people I know and I've watched literally dozens of hours of vids on burner design -- probably hundreds of hours on blacksmithing in general, over the years. The way I see it, you're going to 'pay' either way -- I'd much rather pay with research and my own effort, spending the lowest amount of actual cash. That takes more time, but you come out of it way richer in knowledge and skills -- and you still have most of your money in your pocket. ;-)
Excellent video, however in my humble opinion, the biggest benefit of the ribbon burner is the ability to really dial in the air - gas ratio. Kranking up the propane makes a huge difference when forgewelding, because you can create an environment with way less oxygen in the burn chamber. I rarely use flux in my ribbon burner witch is unthinkable in my venturi. I don't experience a difference in fuel consumption between the two, however my ribbon is a lot bigger than the venturi and the venturi is an old valley forge, they are extremely effective, compared to other venturi's that I've tried.
Thanks, Ethan. I appreciate"quick and dirty". I don't have 45 minutes to sit and watch a video on forge burners! Thanks for your work and sharing your experience.
Thanks for the video Ethan. You have a great talent for explaining things consicely and in a way anyone can understand.
I have a (forced) ribbon burner forge. These are the things I have learned, yet i don't hear many people discuss:
1) forced ribbon burners are usually paired with larger volume forges. Forced ribbon burners are much more efficient, but this larger forge size is probably going to require you to use more fuel gas. Maybe not, but it's something to consider.
2) No matter what you do, you cannot focus the heat from a ribbon burner onto a small section of your stock; whatever stock is in the forge will be heated, and evenly heated. This is desirable in some situations, but consider you are forging a pair of tongs and need to punch the rivet hole. You won't be able to focus the heat on your boss section (where the rivet goes in the tongs) when using a ribbon burner. When you try to punch the rivet hole out, your entire stock/tong is going to warp like warm taffy. Sure you can straighten it back out, but you will have to heat it more times to do this, and it's overall less time and fuel efficient, and not the best for the stock. If you had a single venturi burner or gun burner, you could focus the heat to about a 1 inch section quite easily. This is much better for punching or drifting, usually. I'm sure others can come up with exceptions. It's just something to consider.
3) Ribbon burners typically get hotter than venturi burners because of forced air. However, the heat cone of a venturi burner is more than capable to melt steel, but the venturi burner simply isn't going to get the WHOLE forge volume as hot as a ribbon burner. I actually believe if you are wanting to get a small area of stock really really hot, the best way to go is with a venturi or ideally a gun burner. Your entire forge won't be as hot as with a ribbon, but when working with smaller sections of stock, I'd argue this is better and more efficient in terms of fuel cost.
Hopefully this helps someone. If you are getting into blacksmithing and building your first forge, I highly recommend starting with a single venturi burner, or maybe a forced air gun burner. You will be able to do everything you need to. However, if you have natural gas running to your shop, it's reasonable to just go ahead with a ribbon burner. Natural gas is much cheaper. You can hear that forge to hellishly high temps and you'll likely still be spending less money than you would using propane with a venturi or gun burner.
Forced air burners are alot cheaper when you have a scrapyard nearby.
Change my mind.
Ethan!! thanks for the forge comparison information. your blacksmith work is looking very professional, keep it up!!
Interesting video!
A tip for you.. if you ever go to propane, it's best to have your blower higher than where your gas input is. If power gets shut off while the blower is in operation, it could fill the blower with gas. If it were to come back on, it could cause an explosion.
Thanks for the video...
shadowcastre Yeah that’s one of those life lessons we had to learn the hard way years ago when my cousin and I built our first forced air propane torch. We were using an old Squirrel cage blower motor and the stater shorted out during the first test fire and the torch flames instantly reversed direction and traveled back up through the air supply line. Of course that was back before CZcams, smart phones and internet was ever even thought of and all we had to go off of was a simple idea that we had conceived in our heads. It was only by the grace of God that we didn’t burn the barn down that day.
what @shadowcastre is saying is quite important. another solution would be to have an electro-valve that will only let gas through while its energized. if power goes off, the valve closes and stops the gas flow.
its not only the risk of the gas going back to the blower, it could also happen that if the air stops flowing, gas could accumulate inside the yellow hot forge chamber.... all it needs is some oxigen. (of course, that would only happen if you werent around to notice the power went off and the gas was still flowing. but who leaves the forge running while not being around... right?)
tobias ripper i agree 100% but unfortunately the internet and CZcams didn’t exist back when I first attempted to build a forced propane forge and i ended up learning this lesson the hard way. I can’t even begin to imagine where I would be in life right now if had google at my fingertips back then like we do today. honestly it’s probably for the best I didn’t have it
@@richard102879 my dude, its the ppl from back when there was no internet that went through so many trial/error situations who later on pupulated internet with the "do's and do not's" that the current generation so much enjoys. if anything, thank you! hahaha. of course, there were books back in the day, but they weren't as available as pulling your phone out of your pocket and leaning how to do most anything right there in the moment.
(btw i was just adding to what shadowcastre was saying. i was also around before internet. and oh boy many things would have been so different now if i had internet back then.)
Your Forge Rocks! Good job 👍
I have always known there was a better burner than the jet, or venturi burner.
But I didn't know what to look for, and now I do! Thanks!
Great video Mr. Harty.
Excellent thanks I am just going to a forced air burner and this is a big help with the final design Cheers
Thank you very much I’m glad that it helps!
Really nice set up ,
forced air demo starts at 6:57
You made me decide to make one, Thanks for the info!
Good job on a home system I have worked on a lot of burners including jet engines lol the burners used to dry hops were about ten feet away from huge fans and shot a flame that long and about 4 ft diameter you can use a supply to it that works on a stepped design think of ten small holes threaded and an Allen screw in each and each one is backed out a bit more it's a nice way to adjust fuel amount it would be done by hand on a forge instead of a modulating motor those are used to keep a constant temp. You hit it right on and your ribbon burner can be any shape you need if your forge is. Big enough you can move metal to cooler areas like for normalizing great video keep up the great channel
Awesome! Thank You Ethan!
Very impressed!!!
good explaination mate , thanks
I have to agree that ribbon burners are far more efficient than venturi rigs. If you angle your burner tangent to the radius, and make the chamber round, you get a swirling effect which is even more efficient. I've been meaning to change over to natural gas too, so thanks for the kick in the pants. BTW, I like your videos. You have a good mind for this work.
Quick question: would blower btu be enough for a slightly bigger ribbon burner made out of a 2x1x13 long square tubing..for a 18" long brick forge? Thanks so much for your vids very inspiring.
Where did you get the plans for the ribbon burner especially the part inside the forge
Essential Craftsman channel has a huge forge and he went for ribbon burners due to their economy. I like you explanation.
Question, where did you source your natural gas regulator set up? Also, the hose from the regulator to the forge, is it anything special?
most examples I have seen used a castable refractory for the holes in the ribbon burner, but I saw you just used a steel plate with holes in it. What do you reccomend?
Hay Ethan, I want to use a similar forced air natural gas burner for a foundry furnace. Do you think it would work as a horizontal ribbon burner?
How big would your forced air burner and forge need to be to get a crucible 2 litres (4 pints) in volume and its contents up to 1200 oC (2192 oF) for several hours?
That was a while ago, I wonder it you are still using ribbon burner? I sure would like to see one in action. Thanks for the video, really appreciate the info.....
I built a venturie style burner. Would it be worthwhile to add a fan at the air intake ?
Where did you buy your needle valve?
Great video and well thought out design. Is there any reason (in principle) why a ribbon burner actually from a BBQ couldn't be used, or a T-fitting inside a forge running pipes with multiple small holes and end caps?
The main reason you don't want the burner steel pipes inside the forge, as I understand it, is that you'll literally melt them pretty quickly. See how HOT that thing gets inside? This is why many ribbon burner designs have the 'flame' end of the burner cast out of refractory. If you have the steel 'tip' up inside the hole where the flame exits a bit, like this lad's, it'll last longer. The cool air/fuel mix blasting out of it keeps the inside of the pipe cool while it's running and at least the inside/back of the tip, but if you had the pipes down in the forge itself, the heat would get all 'round them and they'd burn up quite soon. In a BBQ/grill, the flame's coming up from the bottom, with cool air fed in below it, which keeps those burner tubes cool (enough) and those only go up to maybe 500-800 degrees F, unlike forges, which can get over 2000 -- whole different ball'a wax. When your main goal is to build something that will literally melt steel (forge welding temps), you want to keep the steel that it's made of out of direct contact with that area, hence all the linings of kaowool, refractory, satanite, ITC 100, etc. See Essential Craftsman's and Old Hickory Forge's vids on how to build ribbon burners. If you can weld, those are a great design -- will last you a lonnng time. I suspect Ethan's version in this vid will too, but I doubt that steel end is going to last as long as one made of 3000 degree-rated refractory. If anyone out there has tried both types and knows, I'd love to know what their experience was.
You Can make a venturi Inducer run a ribbon burner head - sometimes called NARB's (naturally aspirated ribbon burner), they are designed a bit differently but work quite well. My current forge is run on two 3/4" class venturi inducers, using 0.030 (mig gun tip) orifice, running the ribbon burner blocks, my ribbon burner blocks are about 2.5x9.5 with 18x 5/16"ports. Many of the advantages of the forced air ribbon burners you were listing also apply to NARB's. My forge is about 4.5x4.5x24" internal (about 486 cu inches) and I can run one side or both as needed. It will forge weld, I've made Knives, Gate hinges, hammers, and even a 1.5 x2.5x 14" swage block with it. The NARB's are also Very quiet, most of the noise from a gun style is coming from the nozzle side not the induction side. one thing I like about my burners is the fairly wide range of temps I can run the forge at, from a low orange heat at 5-6 PSI to forge welding heat at 12-15 PSI. I also have a fairly small "dragons breath" from my setup, only about 6" at forge welding heat, I run my burners just barely on the fuel rich side of neutral to stop scale build up. Efficiency is ALL in the air fuel ratio - so Tuning is what will get you the efficiency not actually the type of burner. This style of burner does take a bit of tuning to get working just right, and is a bit more complicated to design and build than just a gun style or a basic forced air system.
You're the first person I've heard mention natural gas with a ribbon burner. Is a municipal supply really high enough pressure to make that work out? I'm shocked!
Perhaps it's different in Canada, as you mention 20PSI NG, where I think all of mine is 10PSI. I'll have to call my power company and see what they can do for me, perhaps I can get a higher pressure supply to my shop.
Thanks ethan...next as achim wirtz say i will do a bigger forge with forced air 😉
Does your pipe get hot all the way back to where the gas feeds in? I've tried a similar design but my concern was with burning inside the tube, should you use flash arrestor and check valve at the gas feed?
No. The flow of air coming out of that blower motor as well as the pressure from the gas line keeps the flame from backtracking. The only time flashback arrestors are required is when you’re operating a closed duel fuel system like oxy/acetylene. The idea being that if one of the tanks runs low or empty it won’t draw the flame back into to the depleted tank. You also have to understand to that’s dealing with compressed oxygen as well which is by far the most flammable gas you will ever encounter. This set up is single fuel and any single fuel system will keep the gas flow oriented in a single direction and since there is no air inside the gas line the flame will never recede past the nozzle so a check valve won’t be needed either. That said, it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to use a check valve or a flashback arrester if it were to make you feel better but it’s not necessary for this type of setup
..Nice job Ethan. How often do you expect to replace the lining in the Ribbon Burner Forge compared to the Venturi??...
Ol James no difference. And about once every year, more for me however because I do a lot of Damascus. The flux eats away at the refractory much faster.
Sounds just like mine, but yours is a bit louder, I built one with 6 bricks a weed burner and a hair dryer for the top blower. It's not as large, but it looks to get just as hot. I have to turn it down to heat treat blades or they will carbon out.
Good
Hey there. Great clip. I’ve just built a ribbon burner forge, a little larger than the one you show here. I have pretty much the same blower, with an adjustable tap, but I can’t get her as hot as this. I’m wondering if it’s the size of the gas jet hole? which is One millimeter diameter fed into the pipe pretty much in an identical set up as yours. It burns beautifully and I’m forging well with it, but if I crank The fan up it will blow out, not get hotter... Any tips?
This gas inlet is just coming out the end of the pipe. You don't need a small jet because it is not a venturi. Just get the gas in and make sure it has a chance to mix with the air. As for your burner blowing out with more air, you either need more/larger holes in the burner and/or more gas to mix with the extra air. Try getting rid of the jet and have the gas coming out of the pipe. It is a three way balancing act. Air, fuel and nozzle size. If you have a look at this one running he has the blower mostly closed off. The blower is waaaayyy to big.
In your experience, what burns hotter more easily?Dave Lisch uses a venturi burner for his Damascus steel, and so do many other smiths. My own forge, however, has a hard time getting to those temperatures. It may be because my forge is not well enough insulated.What insulation do you use? I am planning on relining mine with kaolwool and coating it with several layers of satanite or similar refractory cement.
Cave of Skarzs I have experience with David Lisch’s burners, they, for some reason work very well. But forced air is always more efficient...therefore it can get hotter, but it all depends how much fuel you put through them. I use kale wool insulation
Thank you for the recommendation!
6:55 In Alberta, natural gas LITERALLY comes right out of the ground !
How efficient would a forced air Venturi burner be? I have a small devilforge and seem to go through a fair bit of gas with just Venturi burners. So would a forced air Venturi burner be alright compared to a ribbon burner?
There's no such thing as a forced air Venturi burner. A Venturi burner sucks it's own combustion air with it. As for efficiency, that's also a myth. Efficiency is mostly a function of your fuel/air mixture. A neutral flame - only as much air as is needed to burn the fuel - will produce the highest efficiency. Forced air gives you better control over the fuel/air mixture. If you have huge amounts of flame escaping the forge, you're wasting fuel. A well made Venturi burner, with adequate and adjustable air intake will do you just fine. If you've got things tuned just right, you'll have just a small amount of dragons breath leaving the forge.
hat is the natural gas pressure in Canada?
I made a forced air forge a year ago but it's been giving me fits.
I can't seem to get the fuel/air ratio right.
I only need it to go up to about 1100°C (or 1950°F), but I'm running off of propane tanks and the only way I can seem to get it up to that temperature is to crank the regulator up so high that the tank starts freezing (~20-30psi). I'm sure it shouldn't take that much fuel.
It's a 16" ribbon burner with baffled plenum, and I'm using a dust collector as a blower and a 55gal. Steel drum lined with inswool and satanite as the forge. Maybe it's just because of the size of it, or maybe it's an issue with my blower, I don't know.
It's been pretty frustrating, though. I never had these problems running a venturi burner.
The inside of your forge may be too big, the inside dimensions should be fairly small, it needs to get really hot to burn the fuel completely. Like he shows in this video it doesn't burn well at first because it isn't hot, a large area would take a tremendous amount of fuel and heat to burn hot. If you need a big fire you should consider coal or coke.
Kire Du'Hai your Forge is too big. His forge is compact on purpose, it’s easy to heat and keep hot. You’re only putting at the most projects a few inches wide.
A much smaller burner too. Use what these other guys are using. Pipe 1-1/2 - 2” and keep your exit no more than a couple square inches. The burner should build a slight back pressure or close to it.
I also have a 55 gallon drum and initially I was having problems as well. The key is to really reduce the amount of air going into the system. I had to add a gate valve and its barely open. You tune the flame by its color.
Thank you Sir
Good stuff Ethan, can't hear you with forge on, would like to see the ribbon burner they sound good, but look too hard to make.what insulation do you use in your forge?
Lenblacksmith as I explain in the video, I use a small steel plat with holes in it. If you have a round hole like mine, it is an acceptable way to make a simple ribbon burner
A picture would be good.
Lenblacksmith the closest thing to a picture I can get is what you see in the first couple of seconds of this video.
Ok hard to see but hard to understand how it is made, never mind.
Lenblacksmith fallow me on instagram. I’ll post about it Tomorrow.
Ethan, where are you located that you have Natural Gas at 20 PSI inside your facility? From my research, (typically in the USA), the standard delivery pressure, (past a residential gas meter) is 1/4 to 1/3 pound-per-square inch. The street gas pressure to the house may be much higher, but the typical home meter can only handle putting a maximum pressure of 5 PSI into the system. If I understand correctly, and what you say is true, your Natural Gas system has high enough pressure that it could almost handle many venturi systems. I'm confused. What am I missing?
Chuck Bailey we have high pressure service at the ranch, because we use so much gas to heat the buildings. So that particular gas line has no low pressure regulator on it, it’s illegal, but works well. I run my oxygen torch on natural gas too, so the higher pressure is needed for that too.
@@EthanHarty So what you are saying is that your "opinion" in terms of choosing between verturi and ribbon burners only applies for the .01% of those people who have illegal high pressure systems? Or will the argument still work for those of us with the lower pressure NG systems too?
Chuck Bailey you can absolutely run a forced air system with low pressure NG, because you can get more fuel in the system just by having a bigger gas inlet pipe, for example, Paul from Toronto Blacksmith, uses NG ribbon burners for his big forges, and he only has residential pressure, so the inlet pipe is 1/2” I think, and it works perfect. The beauty of the forced air system versus the Venturi, is that it doesn’t matter what pressure of gas you have. It’s all about the volume of fuel coming into the system, not the velocity out of an orifice.
🙂
@@EthanHarty Wonderful! That's good to know. No, it great news! I've read so much contradictory information on forums, with the majority saying it can't be done with regular residential pressure. I so much didn't want to go with propane, and I actually have 3/4" NG line I can use - so here's to ribbon burners. I plan to build one real soon! Again, thanks for the clarification!
Chuck Bailey yep I couldn’t believe it when he said 20 pounds! That’s amazing and a little scary as well!
Seriously 1 PSI? Or do you mean 1 bar?
Alberta Strong!
I'm doing forced air through a pipe burner not ribbon 🤷
200.dollars is way too.expensive for that burner. Especially when theyre so easy to make yourself
Jesse Hannah thats what I thought, you could make that for $20
The prices people charge for those burners are laughable, but they charge that because they can -- people buy 'em! Those people always say they're "too busy" or "don't have the time" to learn -- translation: They're too LAZY to put in the mental effort to figure out how to do things themselves. I'm one of the busiest people I know and I've watched literally dozens of hours of vids on burner design -- probably hundreds of hours on blacksmithing in general, over the years. The way I see it, you're going to 'pay' either way -- I'd much rather pay with research and my own effort, spending the lowest amount of actual cash. That takes more time, but you come out of it way richer in knowledge and skills -- and you still have most of your money in your pocket. ;-)
barbecue? I'm certain that you meant "grill". fool! trolling ppl ugh. got me. hard strike.