The Home Machinist!

Thanks, Jim. That's likely to be useful when I finally start setting the two furnaces in place. Mean time, I picked up a huge radiator which will help dissipate heat. Got it at an auction, new, for only $40. A little damage to some of the fins, but that doesn't worry me. It, along with a little fresh water, should handle the heat I'll generate.

Ajax had warned (in the manual they provided) about not using water that was too cold. I understand about not operating at a temp where it will condense. Seems they recommend feed water temp around 90°F.

I doubt I'd ever have to run more than one furnace, although that may not be true. The power supply has provisions for two, but only one at a time can be operated, so I don't have to worry about compounding heat output.

Right now I'm working towards finishing the muller I rebuilt. When that's done, as well as the gib crane that will handle the ladle, I'll then start assembling the furnaces and the casting area. I have to finish the other projects first, as I won't have access with my fork lift once the furnaces are in place.

Way too much work, and not enough time, but we're making progress.

Harold

,

but I didn't anticipate the 20 years of lost time in building our shop and house

You could have saved a lot of time by just buying the lumber instead of planting seeds and waiting for trees to grow..
In all seriousness though, I do understand how life loves to throw us curve balls and admire that your are still pushing on with your endeavor and looking forward to seeing the end results.
So that being said, stick the nose back to the grind stone and get on with it!!

I had a chance to make it up to Harold's place the other day and I took some pictures while I was there, that you might all enjoy.
I will let Harold answer all the questions about the specifics of the machines.

The Muller: The furnaces and their base: The jib crane: More on the next page!

The ladle: In this picture, Harold is demonstrating how the ladle will be tipped to pour. In the background you can also see the Riddle and Muller. These pictures were taken in April, it is now June, and a lot of progress has been made, since this time. Harold is now working on the last major part of the system, the cooling unit. He is at this every day, so I expect sometime this summer, a melt will be tried.
Enjoy!

cool. all i can type now.

Looking good!

Jim B

Today is the day, that we are going to excite, the secondaries of Harold's furnace. We will let you know the results later. It will either be very good, or very bad. I don't know that there is to much in between. Wish us luck, we can use all we can get here.

Patio wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2020 2:58 pm Today is the day...

Wow! Best wishes! I'm glad you're there with him Pat.

Is almost like expecting a baby!

Brings back memories of EVERY time I fired up the induction furnace at the Univ. of Washington Shops I managed.
Always wondering if it will go BANG and take out one of those big water-cooled solid state diodes.
Only happened twice, but it was memorable.

Wishing you All the Best on your power supply.
RussN

Hi, all!
Well, in spite of the some concern, the day was uneventful. Patio determined a safe method by which we would proceed with our latest tests, which included a test drive of the cooling system as well. He's very safety conscious, and prepared a record of what we're doing by recording the process. He stood by the main disconnect in case we needed to kill power.

I have never operated an induction furnace, and the model I have relies heavily on the operator for the constantly needed adjustments. With book in hand, we started the cooling system, which must be up to pressure before the motor/generator can be started (internal pressure switches assure it won't run without proper cooling). When all systems were go, the start button was depressed, with the motor/generator spooling up within about six seconds.

PUD, our power supplier here in Lewis County, had reviewed my circumstances (blowing their fuses, on the 12,470 volt primary) and determined that they could increase fuse size, which they did at no cost to me. My second option, with them, was to pay an additional $4,000, for larger transformers. I was willing to gamble on the larger fuses, which, thus far, have proven to be acceptable. I have no idea what the future will bring, as the starting current is extremely high, and prolonged, so damage is done that is cumulative. I expect that we'll still kill the occasional fuse as the furnace is used in the future. We shall see.

Once the power supply was in operation, for the first time, we connected one of the furnaces (pushed a button). That closed the contactor and allowed me to start exciting the generator. As the output is determined by the load in the furnace, and I didn't have a huge piece for testing, we had installed a length of 3" mild steel. Unfortunately, it was not massive enough for us to apply full load, but our objective was not to melt, but to prove the system was operational. Since I obtained the power supply, the generator had never been excited, so we had no idea if it would work, or not. We were pleasantly surprised to find it worked! Once done, I switched to the second furnace, so we could determine if it was operational, which it appears to be.

Thanks to Patio's expertise and equipment, we monitored the heat rise and power being applied to the furnace. While it heated, it was not anywhere near the level of performance we could have expected had the coil been better coupled with the charge. That would be accomplished by having larger pieces of material.

We spent about a half hour, playing with various voltage settings (there's a high frequency transformer that allows the applied voltage to be increased to a maximum of 800 volts), as well as settings for the capacitors. We concluded that the minor load was inadequate for the furnace to melt, but that wasn't our objective, as neither of the two furnaces have been lined. I didn't want to spend the money and waste the effort to line them until I knew that the power supply was operational, and it appears to be. I still expect a few glitches to rear their heads, but in the mean time I can now plan a trip to Portland, Oregon, where I'll obtain the necessary refractories to finish the furnaces and ladle lining, and, being the optimist I am, buy some foundry sand. I (we) fully expect to pour some castings eventually.

I hope to post more on this project in the future, but you can clearly see that we are moving slowly. I'll update as soon as there's something worth reporting.

I'd like to thank not only Patio, but his twin brother, Mike, also a reader of the board, both of whom contributed to the day's efforts. And not just for the induction furnace. I had a portion of a bowling alley that I had converted to a bench top, where I'll mount my reloading equipment. It was far and away beyond my ability, with my good wife's help, to get down in the basement. Those two gorillas did it for us. They had their hands full, and we're very grateful that they cared enough to help.

Thanks, guys. Very much appreciated.

In closing, I'd like to thank Jim and his lovely wife Liz, for the effort they expended a few years ago when they delivered one of the furnaces to my doorstep. I've publically thanked them before, but I want both of them to know how much it meant to me. Not a big deal until you understand that they drove from the East Coast to the West Coast to make the delivery. Hard to find friends like that today.

H

Can we call you "Patio-H?"

Great news.

Congratulations!