[Clayart] Pilot system for forced air burners

[Donn Buchfinck via Clayart]

Hi,
I need some ideas for a pilot burner system for a kiln I am just about to
install.
The burners are forced air with 2" flame retention tips. It's basically a
simple clone of a Bailey burner configuration.

Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Donn Buchfinck
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[Dick Lumaghi via Clayart]

If you’re firing with propane, I have an inexpensive suggestion: I made my pilot burners from the business end of those little burners that attach to hand held propane cylinders (the old kind with a valve to turn it on/off but without the piezo lighters). I plumbed the burner tips to both heat the thermocouples from the Baso valves and to subsequently light the large burners.

I suppose if you are firing with natural gas, you can drill out the orifices in the little burners to get the pilot flame you want.

Dick Lumaghi
Potter Valley, CA

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 28, 2025, at 3:35 PM, Donn Buchfinck via Clayart <cla...@lists.clayartforum.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,

[Vince Pitelka via Clayart]

Hi Don -
Burnerdepot.com, a subsidiary of Industrialstores.com, carries the full line of Ransome products and has the best prices I have found anywhere. I have only one Ransome B-1 pilot burner and thermocouple on my 30-cubic-foot cross-draft soda kiln. There's three burners, and the pilot and thermocouple are mounted on the center burner. For my needs, it works great and is perfectly safe, but with your installation, with the power burners at the back corners of the kiln on either side of the stack, you'll definitely need two pilots.

One option would be the Ransome B-1, but that's a little expensive at $150 apiece. Go to Burnerdepot.com and click "Torch Burners" in the menu bar at the top. Scroll down until you get to the Ransome products and you will a range sizes of small burners that fit the Ransome hand-held soldering torches. The smallest one is $38.56. I could not find any information about the thread size in the burner, but I expect that it is either 1/8" pipe or 1/4" pipe. You can find the complete Ransome catalog on the Documents and Handouts page of my website. Ransome says that these little burners are for LPG only, but I expect the orifice could be drilled out for use with natural gas, as Dick Lumaghi suggested with the little Bernzomatic torch heads. I think that getting the little Ransome burner heads will be cheaper than buying a quality LPG torch and salvaging just the burner head. Most of the less-expensive propane torches have brass torch heads, and I believe that a pilot burner on a kiln should be either steel or cast iron. The burner on the Bernzomatic TS8000 is stainless steel, but the torch costs almost $60.
- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Potter, Writer, Teacher
Chapel Hill, NC
vincep...@gmail.com
www.vincepitelka.com
https://chathamartistsguild.org/