Foundry Furnace - Part 1
This past Monday I finally got started on my foundry project! I've been collecting material for some time so I was ready to roll once Maker Faire '09 concluded. The goal is to built a foundry furnace capable of melting brass and perhape iron, if I'm lucky.
I'm using Dave Gingery's Building a Gas Fired Crucible Furnace as a general guide, but I intend to fuel my furnace with gasoline and waste oil (both veggie and motor) rather than propane (that would be far too easy!). The main reason for the use of this dangerous fuel is to gain experience with petrol burners for application in a future steam car project.
. . .
I began by using my favorite tool, the angle grinder with a cut-off disk, to slice an old water heater lengthwise.
.jpg)
I peeled back the steel skin to expose the underlying ureathane foam insulation. This insulation came away from the central steel carcass with a small amount of effort, leaving a core suitable for sectioning into the components of my furnace.
The tank is 18" in diameter and will be chopped into 8", 10" and 6" sections to form the furnace body.
This tank was taken out of service due to leakeage, but it is structurally quite sound, the leakage occured through only a couple of pinhole leaks.
The angle grinder made short work of the tank and I enjoyed the comfort of full face protection and a fresh air supply from the remote blower, 50 feet away..
This will give you a basic idea of the plan. There will likely be a second tank for waste oils of various sorts in addition to the gasoline. Next up is fabrication of the lifting rig for the furnace section and then the casting of the refractory material.
Stay tuned for more!
.png)
Comments
Is that a snowblower frame? I
Is that a snowblower frame? I suspect after the foundry is done it'll still do a decent job of clearing your driveway, just crank the burner up and let it melt the snow.
Are you going to be looking for donations of used motor oil? I ask because I have a few gallons in my garage that I haven't yet gotten over to reclamation.
Maybe! but I have 5 gallons
Maybe! but I have 5 gallons of slightly turkey flavored veggie oil to burn through first! :-)
I highly recommend the site
I highly recommend the site anvilfire.com for any and all things metal related- these gents know their stuff! I built an awesome little atmospheric forge out of a metal paint can and a few plumbing parts with their instruction... The key to a good forge/furnace is the refractory- in my opinion it makes or breaks the project in most cases. Check it out and look for information regarding "Kaowool/Durablanket", and the "ITC" series of products especially...
Building a furnace
Hi Jake - pleased to see that the 'molten metal madness' bug has finally caught you.
I am in the midst of building myself a forge for my blacksmithing activities. It will be a very steampunk forge with brass accents everywhere i can find a place to put them.
Right now I am trying to work out if I can build a wound pipe water jacket around the coke pot to heat water to create steam to power the piston to turn the wheel which operates the air blower to heat the coke in the coke pot, which heats the water to create steam to power the piston to...
Well - you can see where I am at.
Love the wheely furnace, just needs a seat and some pedals!.
Oil fired furnace
Jake,
If you haven't yet read Steve Chastain's oil-fired tilting furnace book, I highly recommend it. As the title implies, his furnace runs on liquid fuel (he's used both waste oil and gasoline, though he feels gasoline is a little too, ah, energetic). It has a permanently-mounted steel crucible, and the whole furnace (everything except the burner assembly) tilts with the aid of a winch. Steve is an engineer and gets into design criteria for blowers, etc. His design is aimed at high-volume melting (he claims over 100 lbs of aluminum per hour), so parts of the design don't scale down well, but it is still an excellent read. BTW, I have a couple of links to some online information sources for the hobby casting community. Email me if you're interested.
I have his sandcasting
I have his sandcasting books, but not the tilting furnace book. Thanks for the tip!
This'll be interesting! What
This'll be interesting!
What do you plan to do with melted brass?
Metal Casting Web site
Jake
Check out this web site: http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/
Lots of tips on building your vegetable fueled iron melter, most of it all hand made.
I should really drag out my foundry. Nothing better than a hundred pound concrete furnace with a 3 foot flame shouting out of the top to get the neighbors attention!!
My only waring would be to due ALL of your pouring over a deep dry sand base. Never over bare concrete. I used to have a 3 ftsq plywood box filled with 3" of sand just incase I spilled.
John
Aye, that's the tricky part
Aye, that's the tricky part for me as I have no place to setup such a sand filled box and keep it dry - working on alternatives.
Melting Area
Dry dirt works okay, if you don't mind singed grass. My melting area started that way, and I dumped sand on it to gradually expand it and make it safer. (Even soaking wet sand is safer than dry concrete. I've accidentally shot aluminum twenty feet in the air by spilling it on concrete! Thankfully, I got the heck out of there in time and it didn't land on anything valuable.) Your neighbors may not be pleased if your melting area ends up looking like mine does, though.
A piece of dry sheetmetal can also make a safe surface, but if it gets any water on it, the hard nonporous surface will act as a mortar for the resulting steam explosion.
Molten metal in your backyard
I can't wait for the stories! A buddy of mine has a forge/furnace in his backyard on a steep hill and lost control of an 8 lb lump of red hot iron. Flaming furrow down the hill, through the gate and into the street where it became one with the asphalt in a cloud of smoke. But we know you're all about safety, right?
You betcha! Over the past
You betcha! Over the past few years I have acquired several friends who are longtime Burningman Department of Public Works employees and I have learned from them that Safety ALWAYS comes Third.
Haha you built it onto the
Haha you built it onto the snowblower frame? That's genius! Looks great so far. I just poured my refractory cement over the weekend and it's curing right now. Next comes an annoying series of about 5 incrementally-hotter curing fires to steam out all of the remaining water in the cement. I'll shoot you some pics later. I really like this Lionel Labs kit, especially the lid prop mechanism.
-~D~-
waste oil burner
Hi I'm Steve,
You make nice things I have seen your work on a few shows mostly on the interweb.
I have been casting metal art for about 20 years now and I hope I can help you with your learning curve a little
we are working out the bugs of a waist oil burner for our foundry. We used a larger then recomended oil delivery pipe. We are having trouble with a steady roar in the blast furnace. We were able to get a melt.
You should taper off the propane while tapering up the oil for fuel. If the temperature is not hot and constant it will smoke like crazy The temprature drops dramaticly the secound you shut off the propane. Make sure you have a shut off valve that is far enough away from furnace that you can get at it ti shut off oil if it gets out of hand. Also keep the hose from propane hard lined back from furnace a ways
As far as safety goes that furnace looks a little tall. best to have dangerous heavy liquid close to the ground as soon as possible.
I suggest damp(NOT WET) sand is better than concrete. Any tools or ingot trays to come in contact with molten metal will shoot steam powered molten bullets if not properly preheated.
This is a team sport and one thing that you will find is that one out of every few people will turn to jelly around molten metal.Unless you have good insurance you cannot be unprepared. look at it like a coriography and plan every little move. Then practice over and over. The guy on the steering end talks it through as you go
I have seen some fool take a unpreheated tool and stick it in the pot to skim it and if anyone had been across from him they would have been covered in molten metal.
You should try to work with an experienced foundryman first if possible.
Brass is nasty to pour and the surface of the metal in the pot looks like shit. You have to use a flux: Borax or melted recycled glass Everytime you break the surface of the melted metal the zink will flare and smoke and turn everything yellow around the furnace opening. If you use recycled valves be careful of hidden nylon or rubber parts they explode sort of time released and will catch you off guard.
If you get a lung full of that smoke you will feel hung over for at least a day. Whole milk should help overcome some of the symptoms of zinc poisoning. I think you have to get quite a lot for it to be dangerous. But don't hold me to that I avoid brass if I can afford everdure. I have cast more brass but years ago.
I truly love metal casting and hope you are not scared by my warnings. We were lucky on several occations no one got hurt. I train new people all the time though. It is relatively easy few steps if everyone knows what to do and stays calm.
have fun, Steve www.vikingfirefoundry.com
Thanks for the tips! As for
Thanks for the tips!
As for the depth of the furnace - it's based on the Gingery design, the furnace body lifts clear - have a look at part 2:
http://steampunkworkshop.com/foundry-furnace-part-2
and you'll see what I mean.
Jake.