An Account of a New Blowpipe Burner Using Preheated Gas Mixture

JSGT_1918_V02_T003_T004

The idea of applying to the blowpipe flame the principle of preheating the fuel mixture is due to Mr George Keith, of the James Keith & Blackman Co., who made the first burner of this type in the pre-war days of 1914. The burner was resurrected and hastily reconstructed in 1916 as a twin burner with two opposed inclined jets and put into regular commission to meet large and urgent Army demands for “anti-gas”  capsules of crushable glass containing alcoholic ammonia. The burners were designed, made, and at work in a few days, with consequent doubling of output of the firm (John Tye and Son, 457, Caledonian Road, London, N.), with which the author is associated. The burners now described are the result of eighteen months' collaboration by Mr Keith and the author. The flame temperature of the small single-jet burner described below is, in the author's opinion, the highest obtainable by burning ordinary coal gas with air.

W. A. Whatmough