Building a burn blower

One of my winter projects is going to be building a overgrown trench burner. and I need a blower, I have a spare 4-71 Detroit powerplant with a 4:1 speed reducer P.T.O. box on it, my origional plan was to take a large ventilation blower out of a factory that I found and marry it to the powerplant, however the blower I had hoped for was un-obtainable, it had a 80hp electric motor on it :notworthy I will take the two units and put them on a steerable axle from underneath an old trencher and run it off a hyd pump on the motor, also build some deflectors to help direct airflow to brush pile etc.......but with no blower it makes it a little difficult :help: We do alot of heavy land clearing and I believe with something large enough could cut our burn time down drastically in turn saving money also, it may sound a little crazy but I have also thought about a old outdated jet engine but is proving to be a little hard to find....imagine that lol I would like some pictures of your burn setup and if anyone out there could come up with a blower I would greatly appreciate it Attached is a pic of the ductwork that came off the blower and I was really hoping for something about the same size Pj

Just sitting here thinking about your project. Have you thought about the prop configuration from an air boat? You could put hydraulic cylinders on it for directional stearing of the unit. Get that thing functional you should let your local fire department know about it as they have use for a rig like that in emergencys. ie... gas cloud, smoke removal.

These Air Curtain burners are the way to go , they get up to very high temps and create low emissions and are portable . A used shipping container with fire proof walling added would be a good start . YouTube - Air Curtain Burner Destructor for Wood Waste Disposal

IronHorse: Hmmmm, definatly something to think about, wonder where a guy would get those large firebricks? Granpa: i thought about that too but the darn speedreducer on the powerplant I have may not get the RPM to the prop.......a guy may have a hard time finding a bearing block that would hold up to the prop thrust too.

Particle Size IMO the only reason to use a trench burner is to reduce the particle size of the smoke. If your not under some kind of regulation on particle size a blower is easier to build, setup and use. Around here anyone with a curtain burner takes the air curtain off and just uses it as a blower. Here's a pic of what my friend built. It uses a fan out of a Big Air Condition Unit. BTW for something cobbled together it works good. The pile in the pics was GREEN softwood that had been down 2 days. It just needed a few more days to burn. https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=15226 I'm making one out of a PTO Grain Bin Fan.

An old forage blower might work good.Probably get a used one under 500.00 bucks.power it with a farm tractor.

Roddyo: thats exaclty the reply I what I was looking for, I searched Blower or burner before I started this thread and had a ton of threads and I just passed yours by because of the title and section. But I too would support a fabrication forum. how's the blower do? I have a squirrel cage blower a little bigger than that but I didnt figure it would be big enough to warrant running the 4-71 but maybe I was wrong. I would think a little 2-53 would be perfect for that size of blower......maybe I'll rethink things a bit Pj

Did you check out Rodney's thread PJ? That's a cool blower they put together.

Thanks for the Props guys.:notworthy Your thinking right on the engine PJ. The 4 cyl duetz is way over powered. We just have a lot of them down here that are pretty cheap and they don't burn much fuel. Plus you don't have to fool with a radiator. We figure around a quart per cylinder per hour on a Duetz pumping water so running this fan won't waste enough fuel to justify buying a smaller engine that would cost more. If you look close the culvert is the only piece that was bought new The rest come out of the scrap pile almost. The blower works really good. If you keep stumps turned into the wind you can about burn the roots out of the root ball.

Hey, that is a pretty neet blower roddyo.I would also like a fabrication forum to see other members building or modifying there equipment to to get the job done.

25c said: Hey, that is a pretty neet blower roddyo.I would also like a fabrication forum to see other members building or modifying there equipment to to get the job done. Click to expand... We need to get some projects going then 25c. I think I got some pictures of a D6C in Paraguay setup to pull a chopper I'll post on there.

roddyo said: https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=15226 Click to expand... What will it do on the quarter mile ?

Iron Horse said: What will it do on the quarter mile ? Click to expand... Depends on if that Quarter Mile is up or down hill.

I've tried a furnace squirrel cage blower but found it didn't move enough air to make a big difference. Someone sold me a much large squirrel cage blower (about four feet high), but I haven't tried it yet mainly because I robbed the motor off of it for another project. There's nothing like a good wind to get the job done. For the first time this fall, I used an excavator (33 ft reach) with a hydraulic thumb to restack several large piles as they burnt. It's possible to pick up large parts of the pile, shake the dirt out, and set the material down on the hottest part of the fire. More than anything else I've tried, the excavator made the job relatively pleasant and quick. It's so much better than using a loader or dozer. For starting the piles, a 200,000 to 500,000 btu propane torch - the type with a long hose that attaches to a 20 or 30 lb propane tank - works well. Light the pile in a number of places and hope that one or more of them take off well.

I've done quite a bit of brush pile burning over the years, depending on the amount of time the pile sits and how clean it is from dirt makes a big difference. We've done some forced air burning by using a 40 inch heavy walled pipe 24 feet long with a positive pressure fan, the kind fire departments use for positive pressure ventilation of structures. They are gas powered by a Honda engine, high cfm output, and easy to move and lock up so it doesn't walk away. When we have used the fan the pile burns hotter and faster, less smoke around residential areas helps keep most people happy. If you try this make sure the pipe is directed into a pre dug ditch it keeps the air directed into the seat of the fire, you'll have to repile your pile but sometimes you have no choice. Make sure the fire is going fairly good before you start the fan. I use a Weldco Beales power grapple on the excavator and I'd have to say it makes piling a lot easier and faster.

brush burner Hey guys I just made a brush burner fan last week took about a day and it works great. Started with a 36" cintrrifical grain bin fan that had a bad 20hp electric motor. I took the motor that was rated at 1725rpm off and mounted a 13hp honda rated at 3600 rpm used a 4.5" pully for a driver and a 10" pully for a driven that got me down to about 1600 rpm while mantaining about the same hp although it is hard on the starter getting it going and i needed it the day i built it so i didnt make a belt loosener for easy starting. The most time consumeing part of the prodject was mounting the fan on a shaft that I made, when it had the electric motor on it the fan was direct drive and cantalevered off the end of the motor. I made a shaft to go therough the fan and mounted a flange bearing on both ends of the shaft took some time to get the right location on the bearing flange holes so the fan didnt rub, but we finaly got it. I have been useing it all week on a 14 acre clearing job the trees are mostly cotton wood and silver maple hard to get going but with a couple tires and this fan there isint much left to bury when your done.

Seem's like everyone start's burning a pile in the middle. I have found if you put the blower blowing into the long axis of the pile you will get a hotter fire and the pile burns quicker. I start my fire with dry brush and paper, then use a handheld spayer with diesel fuel. The blower is idling until the fire get started real good, then increase the RPM's.

Find an old sweeper and harvest the impeller, etc. I've seen a real nice mist blower built this way. If you need bigger, find an old dust collector blower. They've been in many many recent IRS auctions.

I burn firewood processor debris in an ex 4x6ft dumpster. Been thinking of running a piece of pipe across the top with a slit in it and running off a $100 bounce house blower. Think it'll work? It burns as is, but ends up being smokey plus burning for several days.

Sure it will work. When I burn piles a leaf blower makes all the difference in the world.