Vince Pitelka on sat 27 apr 96
Captain Mark -
I'm a little perplexed by your post about the Alpine. You state that you are
using high-pressure burners, and then you say you ran a 1 1/2" gas line. Is
that really what you meant to say? We have a 60 cu.ft. hard-brick salt kiln
with four very large new Gas Appliance Company venturis running on 15 p.s.i.
propane, and aside from a 1 1/2"-pipe equalization chamber feeding each pair of
burners, the entire manifold sytem is 1/2" black iron pipe. Performs
beautifully.
When you say high-pressure, do you mean those liquified LPG burners, or simply
a 15 to 20 p.s.i. system with venturis? I hope you mounted your burner tips a
bit outside the burner port, inside of poking into the port like the original
Alpine system. Where did Alpine ever come up with that hare-brained design?
It's only good for clean oxidation, and a poor idea even for that. I have
converted Alpines over to Dedell/Ward-type power burners, and I cut away the
sheet metal from around the burner ports, and formed a refractory collar to
create a proper port. This conversion works very well. This could be done
with any Alpine system, simly by cutting back the burner tubes and re-threading
them, and installing cast-iron flame-retention tips instead of those half-assed
ceramic tips Alpine uses. This is moot, because you already said that you
threw away (I hope you didn't mean that literally!) the original Alpine burner
system. Let us know more about your "high pressure" burner system. And please
report back after you fire it.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - wkp0067@tntech.edu
Appalachian Center for Crafts - Tennessee Technological University
Smithville, TN
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