WIP Vertical ribbon heat treatment furnace

[Kenon Rain.]

Hey guys, long time since I posted last. I've been working as a fabricator/food grade sheet metal worker for the past 7 years or so and have developed some skills that I want to incorporate into a return to this craft. I'll be building a large shop next year, and will be building a full set of very nice equiptment to outfit it with in the time leading up to that.

This is a work in progress thread that should come along pretty quickly.

To start with, I'm making an experimental forge for heat treatment, it will be 20" in diameter, top fed and powered by the burner shown below. The video I posted is of a test firing. The ribbon section/plenum is all stainless steel w 15 1/4" jets set at increasing distances of 1/8" so that the bottom two are roughly 1" on center, and the top two are nearly 3". This is to theoretically help compensate for heat rising and collecting at the top of the forge. The black component is mild steel with an integrated slide gate, fuel line, and seperate port for the extra air since my fan is oversized. I figure this will act as a safety feature for settled propane, and help keep the burner cool.

This burner will obviously be mounted vertically on the forge body, and with the closer spaced jet end towards the bottom, I will be posting pictures of thr construction of the chamber within the coming week or so. Aiming for ready for lining by the end of next week.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Kenon Rain.

[J.Browne]

Will be curious to see how this works out.

From time to time we scrap deicing ducts at work that look very similar to what you made and I have had similar thoughts about how they would work in a drum forge. But haven’t had the time to experiment.

[Kenon Rain.]

I'm curious too, I'm kinda winging the science, I thought about having an engineer friend run some airflow simulations but didnt want to ask too much of him. If this doesnt work as a vertical I always have the option of laying it down as a horizontal, which will work and keep an even temperature. I'm just trying to build a vertical to help prevent warpage

[Alan Longmire]

Good to see you around again, man!  Can't help with the question, but it looks nifty.  Are you going to embed the burner in refractory, or see how it holds up to the heat alone? 

[Kenon Rain.]

It should hold up very well at 1500', but I'm going to set it into the shell once I get the location right and satanite them in. Possibly protruding a little bit. The placement is going to be a guess, but I have a good feeling that it's going to work out. Shooting for an id of 20" with the insulation, should be big enough to heat evenly and small enough to play off the advantage of the burner style. I'll have 3 locations for taking temp measurements. Designing it so that I can eventually manage temp w a pid controller, but hoping I can just set it up so I can just turn it on and it'll hit and maintain temp without it. Another advantage of the setup is the tunability. The burner can be adjusted from quite a small flame to much more than will be needed. Reasonably efficient too

[J.Browne]

Do you plan on having the whole manifold inside the forge?

Or just the tips set back a little from the lining as in a traditional burner mount?

[Kenon Rain.]

Just the tips, that a why the jets are so long, the plenum could have been mild steel but I thought stainless would look cool/be fancy... i dont know if you are familiar with ribbon forge/glory hole burners but this is an adaptation of those. Here is a link to a good one -https://www.pineridgeburner.com

Worst case, I'm figuring I could install some sort of stainless baffle or plug some of the flame ports to move heat around. 

[J.Browne]

I have been researching ribbon burners and am currently putting together a natural aspirated one from a heap of info from another site where other guys have done some pretty cool research and testing on .

 

[Kenon Rain.]

I just found that naturally aspirated one too, that's new since I last researched these and seems like a worthy project. Might attempt one for the welding forge I'll be building soon after this is completed.

[J.Browne]

That is exactly what I’m doing at the moment.

watching your one to see how it works out in a drum style HT forge. I was toying with idea of using the deice duct like a radiant style diffuser as the jets on that are only about 1/2 long and taper from 3/16 down to .062” and couldn’t work out how to keep the manifold cool enough to stop back firing if I repurposed it as a ribbon burner manifold / long bbq burner.

[Bruno]

7 hours ago, J.Browne said:

I have been researching ribbon burners and am currently putting together a natural aspirated one from a heap of info from another site where other guys have done some pretty cool research and testing on .

 

A Naturally aspirated ribbon burner ?  That sounds too cool.   What is this info you speak of ?

Awesome project Kenon.  Also interested in the results.    I've got a big old piece of pipeline that been begging to be built into a forge.

[Jeremy Blohm]

Frosty on iforgeiron.com built a natural aspirated ribbon burner.

[Jonathanbradshaw]

I’m working with a naturally aspirated ribbon burner using those plans as a starting point (he used a 3/4” burner and I’m using a 1/2” one so had to scale down the number of holes).

I really like it. It’s very quiet. As in I can hear the hiss of the propane from the mig tip louder than the flames. And no hot spot. 

Im interested in how this burner works out too. 

[Kenon Rain.]

Little update, body rolled and tacked up. 21" diameter. 

 

More coming this week.

[Kenon Rain.]

More progress, getting closer.

Formed up the mounting plate and welded it to the burner, and made the lid for the forge body. 

Need to cut a bunch of holes tomorrow in the lid and body, weld out, and probably come up with some kind of baffle to make the heat extra even.. I was going to angle the jets so that I could maybe avoid the baffle, but with the flames being so short I'm not sure it would really spiral around the chamber like I want so I think going in straight with a formed baffle will be the right approach.. we'll see.

 

[J.Browne]

That looks like some pretty slick craftsmanship.

[Brian Dougherty]

Yes, very nice build quality.

[Kenon Rain.]

Thanks! All I got done today was weld out and cleanup so no pics until next week. Should have it wrapped up and lined by next Friday for a test fire!

[Kenon Rain.]

Got the burner mounted, looking good. Going to cut the hole on the lid tomorrow then we ready for lining once I get the insulation. I'll test fire it w just the stabalized kaowool to determine if I need a baffle, then go from there. Also need to make the 3 thermocouple ports

[Kenon Rain.]

Sorry for the break in updates, just waiting on insulation still, here are some pics of it assembled. I went for straight in thinking I want symmetry to my heating in case I cant turn a large ir curved blade around in the furnace. I can use a baffle to arc the heat around the blade but I'm not sure if I'll need it really. The flames may be so short that I have about a foot between them and the blade placement. Wont know if its neccessary until I try it out. Updates soon, thanks.

[Kenon Rain.]

Lid is done too, seal welded on the inside w bronze stitches on the outside. Made it oval for wide blades. Theoretical max capacity is 6"x 40" blade length

[J.Browne]

Any more progress?

[Kenon Rain.]

Should have some progress pictures this weekend, still no liner but will have it all painted and assembled until I can get some. Going to fire it soon.

 

Tempting to just fire it unlined.. probably pretty even heat if the whole thing is glowing red lol

[Kenon Rain.]

Refractory ordered! Completed build pics and test fire coming this weekend!

[Kenon Rain.]

That's the body and lid and burner painted w high temp black as a teaser ha.