Terry (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} l_stboy) wrote,@ 2009-05-20 10:50:00 |
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Weekend Part 1 - The Flaming Sword of Awesome
On Saturday,walkinthewilds helped me start my backyard propane fire pit project. I'm hoping to end up with a backyard copper bowl filled with lava rocks or aquarium glass through which flaming propane bubbles up to keep us warm on those chilly Northern California nights when you want to sit out back with a drink and some friends but still be warm. But, first steps first- creating the flaming sword of awesome:
We started out with a trip to Home Depot (of course), after a moderately successful survey of the outdoor (wood burning) copper fire pits, one of which will be purchased and transformed. We spent about an hour going back and forth between the barbeque section, the natural gas appliance parts section, and the copper plumbing fixtures section. We ended up with:
After cutting a length of tube, we carefully crimped one end (using high-precision repeated blows with a hammer), and then attached the Ander-Ligne connector to the other end. We screwed the Ander-Ligne connector into the ball valve, screwed the ball valve into the extension cord, screwed the extension cord into the regulator, and attached the regulator to the propane tank.
Then, we sprayed the connectors with soapy water, and turned the gas on to see if there were leaks.
Oh my, were there leaks.
So we returned to Home Depot after a little poking on the internet, and got a tube of
We also got an adapter of sorts, because it turns out the extension cord is unidirectional and we had hooked it up in the wrong direction.
After applying the Pipe Dope to the relevant leaky connections, we re-applied the soapy water, turned on the gas, and found (voila) no leaks. Except for my high-precision crimp at the end of the pipe, which leaked a little, but since that's the end that gets set on fire, we were unconcerned.
Finally (because it was getting close to time to go wine-and-chocolate tasting withwhale_girl) we drilled some holes in the copper tube, turned on the gas, and fired it up:
It worked!
We played with the ball valve a little, satisfying ourselves that we had a lot of control over the height of the flame, and then shut it down and headed to Creekview Winery and an air show at San Martin airport.
The next step will be to acquire a copper bowl, twist the flaming sword into a flaming coil, install it in the bottom of the fire bowl, surround it with aquarium glass marbles or lava rock, light it on fire, and revel away.
The photos (to date) are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tezzer/set
On Saturday,
walkinthewilds helped me start my backyard propane fire pit project. I'm hoping to end up with a backyard copper bowl filled with lava rocks or aquarium glass through which flaming propane bubbles up to keep us warm on those chilly Northern California nights when you want to sit out back with a drink and some friends but still be warm. But, first steps first- creating the flaming sword of awesome:We started out with a trip to Home Depot (of course), after a moderately successful survey of the outdoor (wood burning) copper fire pits, one of which will be purchased and transformed. We spent about an hour going back and forth between the barbeque section, the natural gas appliance parts section, and the copper plumbing fixtures section. We ended up with:
- Copper tubing - listed for water, propane, natural gas etc.
- Ander-Ligne Compression connector - to put a threaded connector on one end of the copper
- Gas Ball Valve - for volume control
- 10-foot propane extension tube - to get as far the &*%$ away as possible from the propane tank
- Liquid Propane Regulator - to make connection with the propane tank, and slow the gas down a bit
- Copper tubing cutter - to make tubes of different sizes
After cutting a length of tube, we carefully crimped one end (using high-precision repeated blows with a hammer), and then attached the Ander-Ligne connector to the other end. We screwed the Ander-Ligne connector into the ball valve, screwed the ball valve into the extension cord, screwed the extension cord into the regulator, and attached the regulator to the propane tank.
Then, we sprayed the connectors with soapy water, and turned the gas on to see if there were leaks.
Oh my, were there leaks.
So we returned to Home Depot after a little poking on the internet, and got a tube of
- Pipe Dope - a gooey substance that stops leaks in gas fittings
We also got an adapter of sorts, because it turns out the extension cord is unidirectional and we had hooked it up in the wrong direction.
After applying the Pipe Dope to the relevant leaky connections, we re-applied the soapy water, turned on the gas, and found (voila) no leaks. Except for my high-precision crimp at the end of the pipe, which leaked a little, but since that's the end that gets set on fire, we were unconcerned.
Finally (because it was getting close to time to go wine-and-chocolate tasting with
whale_girl) we drilled some holes in the copper tube, turned on the gas, and fired it up:It worked!
We played with the ball valve a little, satisfying ourselves that we had a lot of control over the height of the flame, and then shut it down and headed to Creekview Winery and an air show at San Martin airport.
The next step will be to acquire a copper bowl, twist the flaming sword into a flaming coil, install it in the bottom of the fire bowl, surround it with aquarium glass marbles or lava rock, light it on fire, and revel away.
The photos (to date) are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tezzer/set
