Don Foreman ) wrote:
: Oxy-acetylene will give you better control, but for large work these
: self-aspirated propane burners work very well at much lower initial
: cost and fuel cost. I built a Reil burner that is one hell of a
: blowtorch. Orifice was #56 drill, runs on 20 PSI propane. Flame is
: all blue and of quite short length-to-diameter ratio. Not
: recommended for repair of frames for eyeglasses but very good for
: brazing angleiron or cannonballs. These torches absolutely will melt
: aluminum and brass.

: Notes: the 1:12 taper is very important, and you do need a
: higher-pressure (20 PSI or so) propane regulator.

Hi Don. Thanks for the informative reply. This is very useful information.
At least I know that these burners can potentially work. I rebuilt the
burner with construction that looked more like the Reil design. This used
a bell type reducer with no side air holes and a 1:12 tapered nozzle.
This worked much better, and there was a loud blue flame. This flame,
however, was not hot enough to get a small piece of sheet steel red hot
or to melt a small piece of brass brazing rod. But it looked like the
pictures on the web pages. The flare did get red hot for much of its
length. I will try tuning it per the instructions on the www page,
knowing that it should work.

Thanks,
Eric