The Home Machinist!

I recently completed a Dave Gingery inspired propane and waste oil furnace.The following is a much reduced picture montage of my furnace build.

First the shell.

The Cart and Lift

The Refractory Installation

The Fuel And Burners

Propane set-up. Waste oil tank. Dual fuel burner. Atmospheric burner. Testing atmospheric burner.

The centerfold pictures.

Performance
In subsequent testing I have melted 5 lbs. of aluminum in as little as 13 minutes and 12 lbs of iron in a little over an hour. I have since replaced a needle valve in the oil line with a ball valve to increase oil delivery to the burner, this should reduce the iron melt times.
My main concern is to melt aluminum for machine parts, tool building and future model making. Melting Iron is more a thrill than a need.
Below are pictures of my melt set-up and some castings I made in the testing process.
In this last picture is the test open face iron block I cast to check workability. It cut easily on my band saw with no blade destroying hard spots.
The stubby screw drivers were molded using stubby screw driver handles for patterns. Here and in above picture cleaned up with file and shined up on a wire wheel. The saucer casting was just for fun. Cheers CB

Hermit:
Can you share what type of fire brick and cement that you used (vendor also if possible)? I've got my shell material on hand, the design in mind, but every time that i get ready to pull the trigger I spot another idea on refractory.
From fear of making a mess, I'm paralyzed.
What little pouring that I have done was with a friends foundry a long ways away, so I need to construct my own but I was not in on their original construction.
Thx in advance
Scotty

That's a really impressively designed and built furnace set up!
Thanks for sharing.
~RN

Hi Scotty , for the insulating firebrick I used A.P. Greens G-26. I got 2 boxes for free from a decommissioned power plant I operated so the price was right. A.P. Green is a US company so it should be easy to find a dealer. The hotface is Uni-Cast 70, good to 3200*F, made by United Refractories Co., also a US company. For the lid I crushed up the offcuts from the firebrick lining and mixed it with 33% fireclay and as little water as possible. I covered this with a 1 1/4" hotface to stand up to the high temps. It is all holding up well so far.

Plan all your work ahead of time, have all your tools and materials at the ready, the hotface sets up quick, when placing your firebrick dip them in a tub of water so it doesn't absorb moisture from your hotface and dry it out to quickly.

Cheers CB

Got it!! thx!
Did you "mortar" in between the fire brick with hotface, or just the close/tight fit between them?
Thx again
Scott

PS... what is that a pic of in your last post? I've held it at arms length, up close to my face, rotated it left and right and tilted it at each angle.

I am glad you like it RN. I have wanted to build this furnace for a long time but other priorities always got in the way, so this build was a labor of love.

CB

Scott the firebrick got a light buttering of Vesuvius Super 3000 firebrick morter. That last picture is looking down into my mix wheelbarrow to show the 33% fireclay and 66% crushed firebrick used in the lid lining mentioned earlier.

CB