This piece is an idea that will help some of you to achieve your heating needs. I first ran across this hybrid mixer at Penland School about 1975 as it was used to boost the Btu range of the main furnace, a large invested pot furnace. This furnace was primarily fired with a Ransome venturi with a Giberson head, but at the elevation of Penland, maybe 3000 feet above sea level, the venturi system needed a little boost to get more air. Some inventor-type removed the back air intake disk from the venturi and replaced it with a coffee can and Dayton Blower. The schematic is as follows:
| Some 25 years later I visited Richard Remsen at his foundry and glassworks in West Rockport, Maine. He designed and was using a well thought out cross-mixer on his large furnace. He has a great advantage to many of us as he is highly skilled in the art of casting metal and his venturi booster is a beauty: |
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| A schematic of this booster is as follows: |
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The information about these cross-mixers is placed here for informational purposes only. Joppa Glassworks, Inc., does not sell nor does it recommend anyone should use this mixer as it poses some unusual characteristics, specifically it works at cross purposes to the pure high pressure venturi system which does not rely on electricity to operate (which we do sell). And because it is unusual there is no common basis for one studio to compare notes with another which has been such a lifesaver for so many of us and is the common practice in the glass world. SO IT PLACES THE USER IN A WORLD OF HIS/HER OWN. May I simply say, GOOD LUCK as you are on your own!