10 Gallon per hour iron melting furnace

Discussion in 'Furnaces and their construction' started by Ironsides, Nov 18, 2019.

  1. Ironsides

    Ironsides Silver

    _Jason likes this.
  2. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Maybe I overlooked it but didn't see how long his run/melt time was. At 18" bore and 21" tall, by my standards that's a good size furnace and at 2" wall just the cylindrical portion of Mizzou without floor, lid, and remaining mass is 230lbs. With plinth A40 and metal charge he may have 400-500lbs of mass.......even with good tune at 10gal/hr, that one may take a while and quite a bit of fuel to get to iron temps.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  3. OMM

    OMM Silver

    Very interesting and long blog.

    He’s got a powerful enough blower, that with a Delavan nozzle he will hit the sweet spot.

    I found atomizing Diesel fuel wasn’t too tricky. But, atomizing WVO (or WMO) A lot more difficult without cutting.

    Last week I did another test with my dual torches running on diesel and I can switch one torch to WVO about two minutes in with very little smoke. Under five minutes I can switch them both to WVO (very rich) but unstable.

    I really do like that he is taking the blower and 3 Phase motor and regulated airflow using a VFD. I did a little seminar last summer with a 1.5 hp, 3 phase motor (1725rpm), a 8 inch blower, varying that V/Hz. From nothing to 150Hz. Forget about a bouncy castle air pump. The CFM this thing could deliver was amazing through 2 1/2 inch pipe. He did hit it spot on though. Pump manufacturers give closed pressure psi And Open delivery CFM. Those numbers both can’t be applied at the same time.

    Higher end air pump/blower manufactures provide a static testing using... amperage, CFM, PSI(WC) chart. This needs to be documented at a regulated temperature. Hotwire probe, duct size, airspeed and amperage metre all play part of the game of measuring.

    Overlooking (or not encompassing) certain aspects leads to false outcomes. In the end, Most people think air is air. They are wrong.

    Blow through McDonald’s straw. Then try to blow through half inch PEX (pipe 100 foot long). Let me know which ones easier.

    He had a 1.1 to 1.2 kW motor (for North America this is about 1.5 hp). He was using less than 30 Hz., on a 260 CFM blower motor match. There is a ark with static pressure curve line. At 50% RPM he is probably getting about 30% air.

    My guess, he’s running way too rich.

    When I was running way too rich, as soon as I put the lid on, fire out (or a lot of smoke).
    Pictures might say 1000 words, but man video, 1 million words!

    My airspeed might not be enough yet without crucible void. I just finished baking my A12 to 550°F. Next time I’m going to give her the real heat.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2019
  4. Ironsides

    Ironsides Silver

    In the beginning of my metal casting adventures it took me a while to understand that those points are very true. Well said!
     
  5. Petee716

    Petee716 Gold Banner Member

    I bought Peck's book when I first started in casting. It's well done and not much money at all. I ended up building and using a couple of completely different types of furnaces - a Gingery type charcoal furnace and then a reverb - but when I built a larger crucible furnace I revisited his design and used it as a guide. I found the burner to be more complex of an endeavor than I was willing to get into at that time so I went the more familiar Delevan route.
    This is a well written blog and it's nice to see luckygen linked as a successful example of furnace design. I'd be interested to see if the scaling issue gets overcome.

    Pete
     

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