Please Play Safely

Safety Warnings

Although these burners are made of the finest materials available, and with the most exacting and careful fabrication processes, I can not be responsible for misuse or abuse of these tools once they leave my shop. Although I guarantee the quality of materials and workmanship, the buyer assumes all liability for any injuries received, or damages caused, through the use or abuse of these burners. These burners generate extreme temperatures, and have all the potential to cause injury or death that any such devices possess in untrained hands. In inexperienced hands these burners can create an explosion hazard, or can create lethal conditions due to carbon monoxide emissions, see the Nighthawk CO & explosive gas detector paragraph on Ron Reil's site.

There are additional hazards associated with these burners due to the extreme temperatures they achieve. Please read the special safety warning on Ron's Forge Design Page regarding UV radiation created by the T-Rex series burners. You are responsible to learn how to operate and maintain these burners safely. If you have any questions, please contact me, or a knowledgeable blacksmith who uses similar tools.

An additional safety issue needs to be addressed. If you mount any of the Rex series burners, or any other kind of burner, in a forge or furnace, start up the forge or furnace, and then ignore it while it warms up, you may create an explosion hazard. These burners have no safety feature built into them to shut off the gas flow if the flame goes out, that's the job of a "UV detector" in a commercial forge or furnace, or heat detectors in other devices. Once the temperature in the forge or furnace chamber is above the auto-ignition temperature of the fuel gas, the flame can't go out, and this is no longer an issue. Until the flash temperature has been exceeded in the chamber, you should pay close attention to the fire to insure it remains burning. I know of no burner design that incorporates "flame-out" protection in the burner itself. Flame-out protection can be provided by installing UV detection hardware in your forge or furnace, if you feel that this kind of protection is necessary in your particular application. I do not market UV detectors, but I do know where you may purchase one. Contact me if you want further information. Thank you.

You are using this burner entirely at your own risk. If you don't wear eye protection, and you loose your eyesight due to the UV radiation that these burners can produce, then you are responsible for not reading and following the warnings, and must bear all consequences. I will not accept any liability for the stupidity of the builder and user of this device if he should injure himself with it by ignoring this warning.

Warning - Possible Hazard!

It has come to my attention, by having it happen to me, that these burners, or any burner with which you have full intake air flow control, have a hidden danger that can spring up and surprise you. If you light the burner, especially the bigger ones, while the choke is fully closed, you will get a very big flare of low temperature flame that can be a big surprise. It can also burn all the hair off your arm in an instant. Be sure the choke is open a small amount when you light it. Also, do not close the choke prior to turning the gas off when you are shutting down. Turn the gas off, and then quickly close the choke to prevent the burner from becoming a chimney to vent the ultra hot gases in the chamber. This intense heat will damage the burner over time. The "flare hazard" is not a serious problem, but it could be a danger to handlebar mustaches and beards. Forewarned is forearmed.

A Note about Operating Pressure

Although I list the pressure range for these burners tops out at 30 psi, they can be run considerably higher than that, but running any burner above 10 psi is a bad idea at best. These burners are certainly capable of operating safely at extreme pressures, but the same can not be said for your propane supply plumbing. If you are going to exceed 10 psi, you should use only solid steel or copper gas supply lines. Do not include any soft hoses in the system, even to the propane tank. Having a hose fail in your shop at 10 psi would be a grim event at best, at 30 psi, it will almost certainly be catastrophic. Burners are very inexpensive compared to the costs of a catastrophic gas system failure. Your life may well depend on your choice between more burners or using higher gas pressures. Add another burner and play it safe.

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