The Home Machinist!

I cast a pulley blank for my Gingery mill build today and made a brief recording of the furnace in action. It's a bit noisy but that's a foundry for you.

I knew you can do it.

Good deal. Congrats.

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Big Dave

Be Alert! The world needs more Lerts.

Want to talk a little about the setup? Looks like the waste oil is burning cleanly----an obvious sign you're doing something right with atomization. Love to hear about it.

Harold

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Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

Harold,
It's a Nudge burner design. I use around 50PSI for air and 20PSI for oil. The blower is restricted down quite a bit. I just throw an oily rag in the furnace and light it, then apply slight air pressure, and then start feeding it oil. I let it burn till the chamber gets hot before putting the lid on or the crucible in. Once the crucible is in and the lid closed I increase both air pressure and oil flow. The oil inlet has a needle valve on it. There's no need for oil pre heat, it was 40 degrees today and it fired right up.
This thing melts a full pot of aluminum (about 9 pounds) quicker than any burner I've ever used, about 15 minutes from adding the crucible to pouring.
Here's a link to the nudge burner http://www.alloyavenue.com/vb/showthrea ... ght=burner
Feel free to ask any questions, I'm happy to share what I've learned.

I really enjoyed the youtube production. Reviewed it a few times for everything to sink in well. Very nice!

Looks like you've modified an old propane tank for use as an oil container? Pressurize the tank instead of relying on gravity? Looks like a good plan.


That's a very nice feature. Oil burners in furnaces rely on a gear pump and a fine nozzle for atomizing heating oil, as you likely know. They don't lend themselves well at all to burning heavy oils, so you're very limited as to how much waste oil you can add and still get reasonable performance. That setup eliminates all the problems.


Thanks for the link. I copied and saved the thread, for easy access when I'm in need. I plan an oil fired melting furnace to complement my induction furnace, and had hoped to come up with something that would work well. This appears to be that something. I thank you!


Thanks for that. Not everyone is willing to share, and some don't appreciate friendly tips, as I recently learned on this forum. Some folks won't have a thought taken from them, regardless of how unreasonable the thought may be.

While melting iron isn't in my plan with the oil fired furnace, I would expect that the temperature that can be achieved would likely allow for doing so. That makes for fast melting of copper alloys, which, in my mind, is a good idea.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Harold

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Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

Harold,
I'm sure there is enough heat to melt iron and brass with the nudge burner. I can melt 9 pounds of aluminum in under 15 minutes once the furnace is warm enough to put the crucible in. Good luck with your build when you get ready.
Dan

The 'Nudge' burner assembly is a copy of an air atomized commercial burner that is used on much larger boilers. It is a nice workout, and looks like the thing I want to use for a rendering furnace. A rendering furnace is of a rocking design, or hearth type, where the process scrap is charged through the top into atmosphere, and collects on a hearth inside, where a plug is used (bott stick) to pool enough metal to fill several ingot molds. The other tips over enough to run a spout located higher on the side, to pour off the collected metal. Either way they are a contuous melter that does not hold the metal for long, and uses the lining of the furnace for the vessel, no crucible, just melt fast and run it out. Some salvage furnaces run the hearth type and just let aluminum run as it may into the pig mold, as it can produce a steady stream.

I think this burner design would be bangup for my purpose. I have some oils gathered but have no use for them. This might be it, in principal anyway. Thanks for the connections on the ideas and work through.

_________________
Big Dave

Be Alert! The world needs more Lerts.