Major Burn…

I’ve wanted to get a new burner for our little propane kiln, because one of ours doesn’t work properly.  It puts out a reduced flame, meaning a very sluggish flame that puts out more smoke than heat.  So the other day I was going to order some fire blanket and a pair of raku tongs for a project Keturah thought of.  So I thought I would go ahead and buy a burner at the same time, figuring it would help the kiln fire faster and more evenly.  So I picked up a small venturi burner designed for burning liquid propane.  When I finally got the package, here’s a picture of what we received:

 

I wanted to test out the new burner so I put what I had in the kiln and started a bisque firing.  I started by placing a small propane torch on a five foot cord in the kiln and turned it on low for about an hour to preheat the work.  Then I add one of the venturi burners on low and remove the small torch, I leave it this way for a half hour and then I usually add the second burner.  When I went to add the second (new) burner it was doing the same thing the old burner was, a slow, reduced flame, after much nashing of teeth I started to think of what the problem could be.  I figured that there might be a clog in the line reducing the flow of gas, so I went to buy a new hose.  If it wasn’t the hose my next guess would have been the pressure regulator, but when I hooked up the new hose and lit the burner it burst to life with a satisfying growl.  So now I believe I have three working venturi burners, I still need to test the old burner, but I think that it will work just fine now that the hose has been replaced.  Once I added the second burner to the kiln it finished in record time.  It usually takes about 6 hours to fire this little kiln to bisque temperature (1850f/1010c) which is a respectable time and one I’m used to with electric kilns.  But this time with both burners working properly it only took about four hours!  So that’s pretty cool, I’m really excited to have a properly working kiln, now to make some new work to  put into it…