building a metal shaper

[norman]

I'm new here. I'm building the Dave Gingery shaper. I have one casting left to do, it is the table casting.
I'm assembling the shaper now and doing the scrapping etc. I stayed close to the plans as far as dimensions of all the parts , I've bought nut and bolts from Fastenal. I bought the cold rolled steel from Metal supper market in Dallas,Tx. I picked up the metal and saved on the shipping cost. I got enough metal for the shaper and the metal mill once I have the shaper done I'll start on the mill.
I've made all of my foundry tools. Running the furnace on waste oil gravity feed works fine makes one hot fire. Green sand is Walmart play sand with scoopable cat litter for the clay ratio of 10 lb sand to 1 lb of ground litter. This makes the sand feel and sort of look like brown sugar. As long as I remember to use the coat hanger vent wire I have pretty good castings.
The scrap metal is old racing alcohol blocks from my racing go kart along with pistons, rods anything aluminum. Got some industrial engine pistons in the mix parts of a airplane landing gear off of a home built beats me what all is in the pot but it machines good for me.
So if any of you guys or gals making a shaper I'd like to hear from you. I'll see if I can figure out how to post photos and put some on here.
You can see some of my casting on another forum under "metal castings"
at " motorbicycling.com" look in Norm's 2-stroke engine center.
One of my friends took a bunch of photos so take a look.

Norman

[Rex]

I'd be interested in details of your waste oil furnace.

[pockets]

Yes, please, details on that furnace.

Thanks,
Greg B.

[Harold_V]

I'll see if I can figure out how to post photos and put some on here.

It's very easy. Below the box in which you prepare your post, there is a button that says Browse. It resides just beneath the broad blue line, which says Upload attachment. When you click the Browse button, you can then go to your picture storage and select the one you'd like to post. Do allow time for the picture to upload.

There is a keen interest in seeing how you are using waste oil to fire your furnace. Can you please spend a little time detailing the operation?

Welcome to the forum.

Harold

[norman]

The furnace is a pop corn can lined with fire brick scraps/cut off ends from a fire place store. I then packed behind the fire brick with a mix of perolite, silica sand, and portland 2 cement. Same for the floor its about 2" thick. I used a 1 1/8" dia bicycle frame tube for the inlet pipe or tewere? the pipe is about 8" long. for the oil feed I used 1/8" pipe it is recessed out 2" in from the hot end and centered in the bike frame pipe. I made a swedge out of auto door skin to fit the bike frame tube that goes to 2" dia tube also rolled and welded together with my wire feed welder. I used a grizzley slip roll to make the swedge and larger rolled tubing. The 1/8 oil feed pipe is welded at the swedge area with a screwd elbow to aim it down inside of the bikes tube. I took a pawn shop bought hoover vacuum cleaner ($5.00) and made the blower to connect the blower to the 2" pipe I used fiberglass to go from the square discharge to the pipe.
Oil is controlled by a 1/8" ball valve. the oil feed line is vynil tubing probably not the best choise but it works fine. The oil tank is a plastic gallon jug that used to hold tea made a fitting in the jug bottom to connect the feed line to.
The frame is 3/8 re bar and it very portable on home made metal wheels. I can set it all up and be pouring aluminum in 20 minutes once I get the fire burning. That is the hardest part getting it up and burning but I've found that twisting up a scrap of paper feed sack soaked in jet-a fuel will do the trick or even use diesel fuel.
I put the steel crucible in the furnace with the feed sack light it off with a propane hand held torch which takes only a couple of seconds to do. let it burn for a while and shoot just a touch of oil from the ball valve once its burning I turn on the vac motor.
I have 2 ways of controlling the blower one by restricting the intake air and one by using a light dimmer switch. It don't take much air to get it to roaring I can get it so hot it will turn white inside but try to limit it to a nice orange color flame.
I use any type of used engine oil if it seems a little thick I cut it with 1 qt of diesel to 3 qts of used oil. I'm going to try used cooking oil and see how that will work. Used Hyd. oil is good to use too.
I'll see if I can post a short video of me pouring with it its on concrete and since I've moved my pouring off to the grass. I know that liquid aluminum and cement don't mix.
The only thing I don't like about the furnace is I put a drain hole in the bottom it will leak unburned oil so I plugged it but it still leaks a little bit,so I have a catch pun under it. I also added a metal fire shield to keep the flames off the control valve and vinyl feed line.
I have about $30.00 in the whole rig mostly for the fire bricks. I looks like heck but I don't care they are supposed to be nasty aren't they?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ol0UWKzzm8
the furnace is off and just the residue oil burning off if I needed to pour more all I would need to do is fill the crucible with aluminum scrap and turn on the blower and oil wait about 20 minutes and be ready for the next pour.
the video is one of my first pours. concrete diveways and melted aluminum do not mix! So all of that now takes place in the grass. I wear flame retardant clothing and steel toed boots. I've done at lest 20 pours with my set up so far and scraped one of the crucibles it was getting thin I melted the lifting ear off one side learning to operate the furnace is very exciting and can be a bit dangerous but so is flying homemade airplanes or working in the oil field for over 35 years. I'm retired so I got to have some fun! I used to pour metals with my dad when I was 10 years old I mulled his sand and did all the cores for his metal castings. I like the idea if I don't have something and can't afford it I'll make it. I wish I'd kept all of his casting stuff but didn't never thought I'd cast metal in my older age. Dad even made his crucibles out of some kind of clay for casting iron back then I don't remember just what he used I can't ask him cause he's been dead since I was 19 years old. My grandfather even did metal casting and taught my dad so I guess it gets in your blood line?

update on the furnace 7-11-2010: I now start it up by using diesel fuel in the fuel tank about a cup of fuel. Once it's burning good on the diesel fuel I fill the oil tank with waste oil and away we go, lot easier than trying to start on waste oil. Once I'm done running the furnace. I empty the fuel tank into a storage jug. Burn off the remaining fuel in the line. Then let it cool down. To restart the furnace for the next burn put in a cup of diesel or jet A fuel and its up and running.
I tried waste veg oil from the old lady's deep fryer it works fine even mixed with waste engine oil or by itself.
I fire the furnace up with the crucible not in the furnace, once the refractory is glowing it takes about 5 minutes or less, I'll stop the furnace and put in the crucible. Melting time around 20 minutes.

[Gadget]

Hi Norman,
I built the Gingery lathe many years ago and stopped there. I have since retired and am now in the process of building the Gingery mill. Once that's complete I will start on the shaper. I also use WMO for my furnace but tackle it a bit different. I use a paint touch up gun nozzle to spray an oil mist in the furnace. I also have a blower to help the combustion some. I'll be following your shaper progress.
Dan

[norman]

Here is the patterns and some of castings for the shaper. I'm still in the early stages of the drilling, taping and scraping etc. As you can see my patterns are not painted pretty but coated with a clear finish so they are plain looking. I took the extra work to test each pattern in the sand to make sure they will all lift out of the mold with out pulling any sand if they did I worked on it for a little more draft. I had only one that needed touching up. most of the parts hanging on the shaper are either unfinished or only partly done. I'm not trying to make it a show tool but a working tool I plan on using these tools when they are finished. I wanted to buy a mill etc but decided I'd rather make it than buy it so if it breaks I'll be able to repair it. The only fancy metal tools I have is a small bench top drill press and a small 6" swing sears metal lathe, so most all of the other work is going to be done by hand.
The scrapping is going to be interesting to do as so far I've done only a couple of parts it didn't seem to take that long to do. I think by the end of the project I'll be plenty tired of scrapping.
My home built airplane was a sanding contest 20 months of fiberglass work and wood work all hand formed so I'm not new to lots of hand work.
I'll have to take some photos of the furnace as I didn't think anyone would be interested in one.

[norman]

Something I haven't asked, do these machines work good? I mean you can really use them right?
I see lot of people making them with milling machines and a lot of complex tools which I don't have and probably not know how to use so I'm doing the construction close to the plans.
I looked at quite a few different machines, the price kept me from buying them plus some were so big and heavy I'd pay a small fortune in shipping. I have to keep the size of the machines on the small scale as there isn't a lot of space in my shop (1/2) of a 2 car garage and any part of the other 1/2 that I can sneak some of my stuff over to.
Anyway I'm going to finish the shaper and the mill I plan on making small parts no 747 jumbo jet airplane are on the burners right now. I did build from plans a KR2 home built airplane and I've flown it over most of the US and still fly it for fun. almost 2000 hrs of flying time behind a 2180cc vw engine I built myself its never let me down so I think the bug engine powered airplanes are good for the price and the labor that go into them.
Due to the price of gas I don't fly it very often anymore but still get the need for speed once in a while I'll go out to turn and burn and roll around. Going 160 mph beats 70 mph on a trip.
Norman
short video of me and the plane doing a 200 mph pass.
http://norms-iron-works.tripod.com//id4.html

[steamin10]

Norm: I had an interest in building a BD-5, and had a friend that nearly finished one, before BD got into money fits. We then looked at the EOS variant, that is much like the BD design except it was not a pusher, but conventional prop configuration, and 20mph slower. Times changed and I moved on, did not build, but put many hours into a Piper Comanchee for belly skins and retracts torn form the wings, on a hard landing. Great experience to have the patience in my youth to punch and drill 100's of rivets to get the wing parts from salvage yard cutoffs. It turned out to be a beautiful aircraft after the new paint went on. I got to fly her twice before life turned again, and I got separated from my friend Rich.

The BD depended on a Hirth snowmobile engine and belt drive, Which meant that there were incidents of BDs coming down in the streets with failed engines after only a few hours of time. The Volks motors seemed to be much more reliable with only a few alterations. Congrats on your flights and memories.

[Harold_V]

Something I haven't asked, do these machines work good? I mean you can really use them right?

While I have no experience with any of these home made machines, I'm of the opinion that you can expect reasonable performance, but don't get your expectations too high---no higher than you might expect from any small machine.

With machine tools, rigidity is everything, as is size. Light weight machines with a small footprint are not going to be able to handle large work well, if at all. Used within their design parameters, they will serve reasonably well, with questionable precision and reliability. I would suggest to you that they are a reasonable way to learn something about machining, and will serve you well, although you may outgrow them as you progress. The only real way you'll be able to understand how well will be by experiencing larger, heavier duty equipment, so you can understand the differences.

Harold

edit: corrected spelling

[norman]

I used to operate a 48" multi spindle turret lathe and other large lathes at a factory in Quincy,Ill. years ago. I know these little ones won't cut like the machines I used to operate.
I'm hoping they will be fun to make small parts on though, through casting aluminum parts and whittling them to shape on these home made tools. I'll at least have something to cut chips with so it should be fun.
I'm planing on casting some parts for the motorized bicycles I mess around with and machining them on the shaper and mill.
I think I'll have to make a larger furnace to melt metal so I can use engine heads, old industrial pistons, and old aluminum auto wheels. Right now I've about ran out of aluminum engine blocks from the alcohol go karts that bit the dust.
I seen a design of a furnace that has an upper and lower chamber that you can put a whole wheel into and melt it for quick reduction to ingots which I like to use, plus doing it that way helps to get any foreign stuff out of the aluminum. If it weren't for waste oil I'd have a tough time finding a cheap fuel. I'm sold on the waste oil fired furnace.
I would like to know a little more about using salt or swimming pool tablets for fluxing the aluminum and a inexpensive way to coat steel crucibles help keep the aluminum clean.
Melting the briggs engine parts seems to me to have a lot of dross on top it looks to be full of aluminum and seems to be kind of a waste to toss it but so far that is what I've been doing.
On a lighter note it seems when I walk past anything made of aluminum it trembles as I go by?!!
Norman

[norman]

getting close to being finished on the shaper a couple of photos.