I'm working on building a Stanley burner, got all the holes drilled out and am ready to crimp on the inner pan. But it has a couple of cracks that are nagging at me. You can see them on the attached photo. They both start in the edge of the left-hand "nostril" as viewed from the mixing-tube side.

One is between 10 & 11 o'clock. It runs back into the adjacent valley, a little up from the bottom, curves a little to the left, and is about 7/8" long.

The other is at 3 o'clock, right in the crotch of the valley that receives the pilot. It goes straight back, about 9/16".

Do you think these cracks would promote fire at wrong places? Do you think they'll continue to lengthen, being in this part of the casting? Should they be dealt with now? And if so, how? If a fix is in order, I can think of a bunch of maybe good and not-so-good ones, but I have no experience with what kind of repairs have actually succeeded on a burner grate like this.

Every opinion is welcome. Thanks...

Kelly
Mount Joy, PA

At the end of the crack, drill a hole and tap it to take a small scew of about 10-32. This will stop the crack from growing as long as you found the end of the crack. Grind off the screw head almost flush leaving enough head for the stud to stay put. Proceed to assemble the burner as normal being careful to seal the cracked areas with furnace cement when assembling. . The location of the cracks are in a cooler area and the amount of fuel mixture leaked should be nothing. When the burner plenum is crimped on and everything is mudded into the burner pan with the stainless steel wall liner, it will be well sealed. Cracks across the top of the burner grate are a whole another story and they should be welded up tight by a professional. The worst case is if the cracks were to grow and travel across the top of the burner grate. That would be bad and require welding. Where the cracks are now, it releaves some heat stresses and that should help prevent more cracking from happening above. On the 26 " Baker burner, they are being cast in two pieces and then they are bolted together across the middle. With that joint across the middle, heat cracks are almost unheard of because you have a joint in the middle relieving stress cause by the heat expansion, Your cracks will somewhat do the same thing.