johnsmachines

Today I connected the gas burner to a propane bottle, and it would not light.

The jet, tubing, control knob, and connectors were removed from an old gas camping stove.  The camping stove burner is in the picture above.

The only way that I could get the engine burner to light up was to block off about half of the outlets in the ceramic burner.

With half of the burner blocked, the other half produced a nice hot flame, but whenever I increased the open area the flamed spluttered, and died.

The more area exposed, the worse the flame.

..And eventually it died.  Adjusting the gas settings made no difference.  Blocking the other end of the ceramic burner resulted in being unable to light it at all.

It appears that that the gas air mixture is being blown to the distal end of the burner, where it will burn.  But if too many holes in the burner are exposed, it just will not function.

So, I came home to ask for advice from my readers, and lo and behold, before I even opened up the blog I checked my emails, and there was a message from reader Huib who predicted the problems after looking at yesterday’s post, and told me how to overcome it.

Huibs letter,

Hi John,

I have read your blog about the gasburner, I  suggest that you  make a brass pipe with small holes in it to spread the gas all under the ceramic stone, otherwise I think the stone will only fire up at the beginning of the stone.

Or as I did, fill the space unther the stone with stainless steel wool, this material will also ensure a spread of the gas under the stone, but not as much as a brass pipe with holes.

I have the stone sealed in the holder with stove kit, this kit is heat resistant.   I think that is available in your area.

Regards Huib

There are some aspects of this blogging business that I really like!!  I will let you know how the suggestion works in a couple of days.   Thanks Huib!!!