Building a New Era Base Burner

franco b wrote:Conduit sounds good and you could use the electricians tool to bend,

i thought conduit would work too. it's way heavier wall gauge than smoke pipe and that lasts 2-3 yrs.

the little rocking horse bender on a pipe will work real sweet, just need to keep feeding forward to get the long radius. if I don't get it tight enough I can just do it some more, too much just back it off.

i figured i'd make a 19" diameter circle on a piece of cardboard and check it as I go.

will need to see if I can come up with a "T" to use and just crimp off the far ends.

thanks,
steve

scalabro wrote:With black pipe you could cut V shaped notches along a length, then bend into a crude circle or octagon, and MIG the cuts closed.

can't be a closed ring or I can't get it into the stove. I don't want to pull the lid just for that, besides I only need to get the air started across the front half of the barrel, the exhaust path will take it the rest of the way.

thanks,
steve

KingCoal wrote:

scalabro wrote:With black pipe you could cut V shaped notches along a length, then bend into a crude circle or octagon, and MIG the cuts closed.

can't be a closed ring or I can't get it into the stove. I don't want to pull the lid just for that, besides I only need to get the air started across the front half of the barrel, the exhaust path will take it the rest of the way.

thanks,
steve

It can be a "closed" ring if you leave a gap in the ring with a slip collar to close that gap. Slip the gap over the edge of the door. With one end of the ring going into the stove and one still out, proceed to pass the rest of the ring in through the door until all the ring is inside. Then slide the collar along the ring to close off the gap in it.

Paul

yep, that would work, i'll see what I can come up with.

thanks,
steve

KingCoal wrote:yep, that would work, i'll see what I can come up with.

thanks,
steve

Forgot to add that you'll likely have to play with the width of the gap to get it to go into the stove without too much fight, so don't make the sliding collar until you know the width of the gap needed.

Paul

A conduit foot bender that will work the best for this type bend is called a "Hickey" bender...but no so common now days.

thanks McG,

i looked up both the Hickey bender and the formula for bending circles in tubing.

i can do it with a bender by putting a 22.5* bend in a 60" piece of conduit every 3.75 inches

OR, I have that 17" diameter heavy steel liner from one of the WM 120's I bought last yr. that I can use as a mandrel and just wrap the conduit around it, mark where the ends cross, let it spring back and see what dia. I end up with.

i plan to do a gaped circle and bring a pair of elbows out thru the barrel right over the center of the fire pot.

will have some early results tonight.

steve

FYI.

You might get kinks instead of curves bending pipe around a drum shape. Pipe bending mandrels are shaped to support the sides of the pipe so it can't collapse outward as it tries to kink.

And, 3/4 inch conduit is a pretty good slip fit for 1/2 inch conduit. If you want an airtight seal at the ends of the slip fit a little dab of stove sealer worked into the edges with a finger tip will seal it off completely.

Paul

yeah, I considered the kink issue. I've seen this done on about 48" dia. and it worked fine but that's a lot shallower radius.

at $3.50 per 10 ft. stick I can afford to experiment.

working off the relationships of volume of barrel, intake and exit ports as seen in GW 6/8's and in FRANK i'm pretty sure 1/2 conduit won't be enough for the circle, but i'll double check that.

thank,
steve

You can try packing the pipe full of sand and seal the ends before bending. The sand has to be rammed in tight or it will just shift away from where the pipe starts to kink. Sometimes that helps prevent kinking,..... sometimes not.

Paul

I suspect any decent fab shop can bend this up in under 5 minutes.

Yup.

And many electricians have "pipe hickey" conduit benders.

Paul

no way i'm going to be able to bend a piece of conduit rammed full of sand around a 17" dia. mandrel by hand.

i can rent a bender for $8.00 / 24 hrs. I figure even with marking out the segments on the conduit, way under an hr. around here you pay the first hr. of shop rate whether they use it all or not.

might just do it this afternoon here at work and get paid to do it instead.

steve

KingCoal wrote:no way i'm going to be able to bend a piece of conduit rammed full of sand around a 17" dia. mandrel by hand.

i can rent a bender for $8.00 / 24 hrs. I figure even with marking out the segments on the conduit, way under an hr. around here you pay the first hr. of shop rate whether they use it all or not.

might just do it this afternoon here at work and get paid to do it instead.

steve

If your gonna customize stoves, you need to make more friends in the trades that have the tools.

Paul

yeah well, if this election goes to the criminals there are going to be alot less tradesmen around and not many under 35 will have a clue what to do with out their computer run, power fed gizmos.

but, that's another thread