Glumpy burner, easy to run!

One of the downsides to the Ursutz made from refractory is that the fire box must be made where it can be opened to clean out accumulated non-combustibles. Not a major issue, but they do build up. Especially with waste oil.

The idea of a high temperature heat gun is appealing. Point and shoot. It would be great for heat treating bulky objects where you have to build a furnace around the part to be heat treated.

 

I think your questions have been answered, but in the text of other answers. By limited fire time to reach temperature, does that mean short fire time to reach temperature? Probably not much difference in fire time, the small burn chamber will come up to temperature quickly then supply a lot of heat to the furnace.

 

Thanks Andy, and Pat.

I have seen a guy box7 on YouTube making a lot of different burn nozzles chambers. What I meant by “limited firing time to reach appropriate melting temperatures”... is how much time before they self-destruct.

Sometimes he just uses a spray mister flashing the oil off the hot face (in a pipe with a 90) . I figure at some point the hottest face will just melt.

 

This guy, along with seemingly numerous other people recently, are what I classify as professional burner entertainers (or fill in your own more appropriate word).
The recipe: A highly enthusiastic person, mix in a large potion of snake oil, a little magic, lots of Rube-Goldberg looking equipment, a little shock and awe, lots and lots and lots of BIG flames, some glowing red parts for highlights, and some absurd promises about the burner saving whales and indeed saving the entire world somehow since it performs so well, and cures all illness known to man too (as if saving the whales wasn't enough).

I sorted through all this garbage when I was learning how to make a foundry burner, and I now know what is salesman's snake oil, and what makes for a good foundry burner.
I would guess that 98% of the burner videos on y-tube are snake oil stuff as far as being anything useful for a foundry (I am being too generous; its more like 99.99%).
And there are literally millions and millions of views of this garbage.

Earth to human types: most burner videos don't have anything to do with foundry work; they are about generating views, and ultimately making money on y-tube.

The acid test, and a test that a burner has to pass before I will take it seriously: Will the burner melt iron in a furnace reliably for 100 melts with no degradation to the burner?
If the answer is no, then I ignore the burner type.

Anyone can build an unreliable burner that puts out big flames.
Few are capable of building a reliable and consistently performing iron-melting burner.
Why do I harp about melting iron?
Because if a burner will melt iron, chances are it can be turned down a bit and will melt anything else with ease.
And if it will melt iron, then chances are it is tuned correctly too.

The siphon nozzle, drip style and Ursutz burners work well with a furnace for foundry work (if built and operated correctly).
Reliability can be an issue with an Ursutz.
Beyond those types, it all seems to be a bunch of fluff.
People seem to LOVE fluff, and pseudo science stuff like perpetual motion; its like hogs at a trough; people just cannot seem to gorge enough on this stuff.
Human nature I guess.

Want to melt iron or some other metal?
Use a proven burner.

Want to make a better mousetrap?
Prove that your mousetrap is better by consistently and reliably melting metal; don't just blow out big flames and make spectacular but absurd claims.

Edit:
There seems to be some law of physics that says "The more burner videos that one has, the less one actually knows about how to use burners to melt metal in a foundry setting, and the fewer (if any) functional castings a person has ever made".
People are into dumb stuff now like pouring molten metal into swimming pools, into fruit, into bowls of marbles, and all sorts of pathetic stuff like that.
Get a life is all I can say.

Edit02:
A note about siphon-nozzle and pressure nozzles.
I consider these two burner types the same, but there are slight differences.
The siphon-nozzle used compressed air for atomization, while the pressure nozzle uses a gear pump and high pressure for atomization (without compressed air).
Both types work well.

Edit03:
The burner videos are akin to someone going to the hardware store and buying four wheels, nailing those onto a wide board, rolling down a hill that is steep enough to allow the cart to go 100 mph, and the declaring that you have created a high performance vehicle that is better than any other vehicle, and you have magically broken some of the laws of physics in the process.
It is patently absurd, but unfortunately the norm on y-tube.
.

 

I would add, Pat, to your excellent dissertation, learn how to replicate what is already proven before trying to improve on existing technology.

 

Its just that I spend a lot of time on wild goose chases trying to figure out burners, and so just my two cents.
I am pretty much an expert at building burners that do not work.
.

 

I took the high road. I went to Lionel's web page and built my burners to his plans. A Hot Shot, a Brute, and a propane Upwind burner. They all work perfectly. Lionel is an uncommunicative recluse, and he catches a lot of flack for it, but I have found that he knows what he is talking about.

Richard

 

I have to wonder if the Glumpy style burner would allow for less clearance needed for larger crucibles. If all of the combustion is occurring outside the furnace bore then I guess as long as there is enough space for the hot gasses to pass and for lifting tools to work properly then it seems like you could pretty much put as large a crucible as you can fit in it. Direct impingement on the crucible would still be a concern though.

Pete

 

An adequate plinth should mitigate that impingement problem. Perhaps you meant that the crucible was too large to allow a plinth. Yes that would be a problem. Crucibles do not appreciate direct flame impingement whatever the source.

Denis

 

Clarke has had ongoing problems with plinths failing in mid-melt too.
The Ursutz burner ruins both clay graphite crucibles and plinths.

The Ursutz works too well.

.

 

Couldn’t one just dial it down as it is very controllable and user friendly?

 

Clarke does indeed dial it down.
But the whole premise of using an Ursutz is because it burns hotter and thus melts metal faster.
So if you have to dial it down to the output of a siphon or drip burner, then why not just use a siphon or drip burner and save the bulk, expense, and maintenance of a large burner?

.

 

One good reason to use an Ursutz is that it inherently provides a very hot iron-melting flame. We’ve discussed numerous times that a drip burner or siphon needs to be tuned very accurately to provide a furnace temperature adequate for promptly (hopefully not 3 hrs!) iron melting. The siphon or drip will do that but must setup just so. It looks like the external burner just blasts out high heat from the get-go.

What is starting to become more clear to me through this discussion, as a couple folks have mentioned it, is that some of the benefits of the external burner can be partially achieved by using a tall plinth and allowing the crucible to sit up in a part of the flame where more of the heat has been released.

I agree that the external burner has a few, though not necessarily deal-killing, disadvantages. Coating the external surface with Satanite might reduce external scaling but that is untried so far as I know. Satanite does stick to metal pretty well.

Denis

 

Yes. True. But not necessarily contradictory. The idea, I think of the Glumpy, is to accept the fact that the portion of the flame where combustion is just beginning is much cooler than that same flame further down the line. After all, the Glumpy has been shown to turn red hot, sure, but at the same time the flame ejected from it becomes white hot in the furnace. It's all a matter of timing as they say.

Denis

 

I ran a traditional shipyard on the Chesapeake Bay back in the day. We built and repaired wood boats. I honored traditional knowledge, and with good reason. It had been proven to work. Radical new ideas can seem attractive on shore, but when you are a thousand miles from land and the wind picks up, that's where the rubber meets the road.

Richard

 

I had a video of Clarke's stainless Ursutz at Soule a few years ago.
Not sure where it got off to.
I will upload it again.

Clarke makes operating an Ursutz burner look like a walk in the park on a warm sunny day, but I think this is deceiving, and my experiments with one were not so good (not good at all actually).
But Clarke is a rocket scientist in his day life, and so he seems to get away with rocket scientific stuff.
My thoughts are that there is more to operating an Ursutz in a stable fashion than meets the eye, and running one in open air is not the same as running it in a furnace.

Clarke loves his Ursutz.
I use mine as a boat anchor, because at least in that role I can get some use out of it.

I am not sure there is any middle ground on the Ursutz.
I tend to think backyard foundry people will either love it or hate it (its like a political burner).

It will take a few minutes to get the video up.
I will post it when its ready.

.

 

I look forward to see in the video.

I believe there can be a fine balance... But with a large red hot Face with a Vortx of air and oil, the throttle can be enormous.

The air would circulate evaporated oil so thinly (like a centrifuge) encompassing the whole inner diameter. Lots of air, lots of oil… Lots of heat.

If it had some cyclone characteristics it might even improve on the situation.

 

This is Clarke (porositymaster) running his Ursutz burner at the Soule Steam Festival a few years ago.
Note that even though this burner was made from thick stainless steel, it melted and failed (not during this video) in a dangerous way, blowing molten steel and flame all over the shop.
I do not recommend making an Ursutz burner from metal, since it will fail, and the failure is not predicable.

Also if you use an Ursutz, be prepared for a crucible and/or plinth failure with a crucible full of hot iron, since the Ursutz is prone to cause both to fail.