Another keg furnace

Discussion in 'Furnaces and their construction' started by joe yard, Feb 16, 2018.

  1. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    My refractory arrived yesterday after moon so. Steaming into the 20th century. Here we go!
    I had already cast the part of the lid as seen in refractory I bought some time ago. I cast the one end of the barrel to the liner last night. I plan on casting the other end of the barrel tomorrow, if all goes well. I will let that set for a couple of days and then try to clean up the bore. That will set for a couple of days. Then the heat drying will start. With some luck within the next couple of weeks. I will have a new working furnace.
    Joe IMG_2410.JPG
     

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  2. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    Tonight progress.
    The insulation brick is hot faced and the lid is finished. I still have the burn chamber, the bottom
    and the bottom of the barrel end.



    Joe
     

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  3. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    I am thinking of using one of the nozzles off of epay.
    ebay.com/itm/Heavy-Oil-Waste-Oil-Alcohol-based-Fuel-Burner-Nozzle-1mm-1-3mm-1-5mm-2mm-2-5mm

    It is a siphon nozzle but I have no idea as to the size to order. At this time I plan on running a metering pump. This will allow pressure on the oil. Combined with using a blower to reduce compressor demand.

    Any suggestions on what size nozzle would be a good match for this furnace?

    How many gallons of oil an hour should I be burning running the furnace hard?

    Any advice is greatly appreciated! I will be heat drying the lining within the next couple of days with luck.

    Joe
     
  4. Petee716

    Petee716 Gold Banner Member

    I run a Delavan rated at 1.00 gal/hr.
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/Delavan-30...sacat=0&_nkw=delavan+30609-11&_from=R40&rt=nc
    These are generally the same price whether you buy them from eBay or Patriot supply. The adapter shown in my link above is needed, but if you buy other Delavan nozzles you can use the same adapter. That one has 1/4" npt air and 1/8" for the oil.
    It looks like the whole Chinese knockoff kit is only about $15 for the nozzle, adapter and all. That is a pretty appealing price! They don't seem to show the nozzle removed from the adapter in any of the eBay pictures in the listings. It would be nice if they did so a guy could be more confident in what he was buying. You can see the innards of a Delavan here about half way down the page.
    http://www.hdlexpress.com/AltEnergy/Furnace/BurnerModification.html
    Although mine doesn't get plugged, I do disassemble and clean it frequently. I have also replaced burnt or cracked o-rings in the past as well. If the o-ring goes, the nozzle will not siphon properly. But boy, the cheap one sure has an attractive price. I wonder if the listed thread sizes are pipe or not.
    Delavan doesn't seem to list the actual orifice size anywhere but I saw a reference to the 30609-11 being 2.7mm in a google search. Don't quote me on that though. I'll measure mine tomorrow and let you know.

    Just for reference though, that 1.00 gal/hr is the rating at a very low psi. Probably meant for those freaks who will actually use it for its intended purpose. Lol. There are charts that you can find, probably on Delavan's site that will tell you what the nozzle will put out at elevated pressures for a given fuel. I've read figures of 5gal/hr on our casting forums.

    Pete
     
  5. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    The last few evenings when I get a chance I have been working with the furnace. It has a long way to go but is showing signs.
    Here are some pictures. It can now stand alone and start a proper drying out.
    Joe
     

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  6. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    Thanks Pete.
     
  7. PatJ

    PatJ Silver

    The furnace looks like it is coming along well.

    A Delavan siphon nozzle is good for a range of 4:1 if I remember correctly, so you could push it up to 4 gal/hr.
    I have pushed mine up to 10 gal/hr just to see if it would work, and it did, but that is way too much fuel for a keg-sized furnace.

    Depending on what you are going to be melting, I have seen people operate them with keg furnaces generally in the 1-3 gal/hr range with oil or diesel, with 1 gal/hr more suitable for aluminum melts, and 3 gal/hr for cast iron melts.

    From what I have seen with the guys who do a lot of iron melts, the trick is to get all 3 gal/hr to combust completely in the furnace.
    Excess fuel generally will just exit the top of the furnace before it combusts, and as I understand it, a mixture too lean or too rich does not burn as hot as the ideal fuel/air mixture.
     
  8. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    My thoughts at this time is to use a car window motor drive and a gear pump. I was just reading on the net that the average window motor runs at no load of around 80 rpm 12V.
    I have a long scavenged bronze and stainless, very small gear pump that would work well as a metering injection to the siphon. It would be very easy to dial in a constant known flow rare by controlling the motor voltage.
    That is not to say my mind is made up. If the siphon works without problems or complaints. Then why complicate things?
    The filthy oil drainage will be clean by standards before it gets to the nozzle. I have a oil pump strainer filter. I built it some time back. It is a 110 V motor and hydraulic pump.
    On the vacuum side. The pump pulls oil through a course strainer then through another screen filter at 100 micron. It then goes to the pump. On the pressure side it goes through a standard 10 micron auto oil filter, out of the filter to storage as clean as I am going to get it.

    Joe
     
  9. PatJ

    PatJ Silver

    The piping for a pumped Delavan nozzle is slightly different than for a siphon nozzle, and I think the nozzle itself is different, but the adapter is the same (check me on this, its all getting hazy now).

    Below is the siphon nozzle configuration.
    Delavan-Page-01.jpg


    Delavan-Page-02.jpg
     
  10. PatJ

    PatJ Silver

    And here is a pumped oil setup with oil bypass line (no compressed air).


    VARIFLOW-03.jpg

    VARIFLOW-01.jpg

    VARIFLOW-02.jpg
     
  11. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    It aint good!
    I dried things out for over a week and after my electric heating element failed. I decided I had better put together a quick burner and bring things up to temperature.
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    The first picture is of the burner and improvised blower. I had a very nice squirrel cage blower fitted and hooked up just to find the motor was wired for 220VAC. With my internal temperature dropping quickly I grabbed the duct tape and hair dryer. This worked well however it did not supply adequate air volume so the burner was throttle to ½ gallon an hour.

    The second picture is of the end of the burner tube showing the oil delivery tube. The tube is made of 1/8 break line and cut at 45 degrees to take advantage of the venture effect. Even at low air volume. I could feel a light suction on the oil line. The burner worked very well under the circumstances.

    I was lucky and found a stainless steel 3 gallon oil resolver that was made for another project.

    Attached to that is a very nice flow control valve that worked perfectly.
    That is the end of the good news as the pictures will explain. The top center was from the original lining I found in the garage. It was obviously not up to the job.
    Next are some pictures of the barrel complete with cracks. After that is a picture of the lid from the top. It is heavily pitted. I caused this myself and will explain in a bit.

    And finally a picture of the bottom burn chamber. It held up rather well.
    I have to go for now and will return in a few hours.
    Joe


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  12. Petee716

    Petee716 Gold Banner Member

    Unless chunks start falling out of the bore, you ain't got nothin to be ashamed of. The lid may be your biggest issue and you'll have to trust your gut on what to do about it, but as long as your barrel isn't loose those cracks aren't scarey.
    Oh, and kudos on the fast footwork with the burner!

    Pete
     
  13. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    Thanks Pete

    The lid is already starting to crumble. This should be the easiest part to fix. I plan on just casting another ½ to 1 inch on, encasing the old lid liner in light casting cement.
    On the other side of the lid, the top outside. Where it is crumbling. This is my fault. I was running low on refractory. So being this was not a high stress point, out by the edges of the cement on top. I used the scrap bench sweepings and scrapings as filler in the cement. As you can see this did not go well. In the center around and out at least the first inch from the vent hole is all fresh cement.
    I think again the fix for this will be to encase it with new light refractory.
    The bore is of great concern as 90% of it is made up of the original liner under a very thin coating of Mizzou 55 plus. The bricks are shrinking badly underneath and will fail if something is not done to insulate them. If I put a liner in and cast ½ inch to the side walls. I can still squeeze in an A8 crucible.
    That brings up the question of which would be better? A high density refractory that would not have the insulation value to protect the bricks but would be tougher or a low density to help insulate protecting the brick underneath from a higher percentage of the heat at a cost of durability.
    With this being a lift off design. It would be unlikely anything would touch the side walls.
    This was a bit of a set back and a disappointment but minimal. It can be fixed at a nominal price and I learned a lot. I had originally designed the furnace around a No. 10 crucible that I cant find and the liner that turned out to not be able to handle the heat. I thought that I had on hand. This would not have been my first choice of size if it had not have been for those 2 items.
    After lurking on the sight and learning a bit. I have come to the realization that under my particular circumstances.* “ Translation, I screwed up in that I really need a furnace a bit bigger than the one I am building and now that I screwed that up it will be even smaller than intended”. It would be better off to have 2 furnaces. One for smaller quicker melts and one for larger melts. So I have chosen to build the smaller one first *.
    I found a distributer for the refractory about 80 miles away. With this furnace needing repairs and a bigger one on the back burner. Me and the wife might make a day of it and drive up for about 3 bags in the near future. If I call ahead and can ketch the right people at one of the foundry. I can probably talk them out of a truck load of green sand from the pile.
    I still have probably enough wool to build a furnace from a 55 gallon drum with 2 inches of wool insulation wrapped around a poured refractory liner. I think for a furnace this size this would be a bit thin. If 2 inches of wool and a 1 inch liner were used. It would have a bore of 16 inches. This would be big enough for an A300 crucible. This would be excessive for my purposes. It would be best to break down and buy another role of wool. I could then use 3 inches of wool and still have a 14 inch bore. This would be enough room for a A150 or 4 inches of wool and have room for a A100.
    One of the post had a web sight with a furnace that had a side door. I do like that design!
    For now it looks like I will have to. Clean up the mess I made and go from there. A furnace that can handle a A8 will be more than enough to do what I want for a some time. I have had an A10 full of aluminum fail. That was exciting. I can only hope to never imagine an A100 or larger full of bronze failing.

    Joe
     
  14. I'm also building a beer keg furnace, by coincidence the beer keg I picked up is roughly the same size as the furnace I wanted to copy. The hardware will be mostly stainless steel to avoid the sea environment rust and the liner will be roughly 160 lbs of calcium aluminate based commercial refractory cement. The plan is to have enough bore diameter to fit my oddball Chinese crucible which is about an inch wider than an A20 crucible. Today I made the last of the parts: threading 316 rod with 10mm holes for the bolts which was a major pain in the butt. I was able to tack weld it enough to test the trapezoidal lid mechanism which should be strong enough to take the weight of some bronze ingots on the lid during use.

    Keg unit 1.jpg



    Keg unit 2.jpg
     
  15. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    It looks like a nice build so far. I like the lift to a side hinge set up. If I knew what I know now when I started this project. I would have used a light refractory cement and cast the parts without the wool or lining I had on hand.
    Best of luck with your build! Please post lots of pictures.
    Joe
     
  16. Hi Joe, it's based off a friends unit, I like the rigidity that can support ingots on top to preheat for the next charge. At least some of the waste exhaust heat is used again. I'll start another beer keg thread to avoid hijacking your thread.


    Pete-Laurie-furnace.jpg
     
  17. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    Well guys I hope one day the furnace will be used but it don’t look good!
    Yesterday after doing the math and a week of opening my eyes. I have come to the conclusion that it was time for a change.

    I decided on a cleansing. I am in the process of giving every thing I once owned away.
    Now the grand children own the house I am living in. The oldest grand child is 15. At age 18 or after, This house will be vacated. My sone now is the owner of the shop, house, and 4 out buildings, my wife owns my old truck any thing she wants. She will be it total control of my disability check. Whatever is left will be sorted for disposal at the scrap yard, charity or burn pit.

    Funny part is that when the feeling hit me. All I had on was my underwear and geans. I now owe her 8 dollars for my shoes, sox, and a shirt. This is the price I would have to pay at good will. I will pay my way with work from this point forward.

    Tomorrow I will try to get a spot job for the 8 dollars. I cant do much for long but I should be able to work that long.
    No worries, for now I have a roof over my head, water available and food when I decide to eat again.

    My sone took the furnace but he has little interest in it. I don’t see any opportunity to make another so I hope he does use it. Today has been quite a day, giving away property and possessions.

    I found it quite strange that even when you give way north of 100K that no one was happy.
    O well. That is way of the world.



    Joe
     
  18. Ahhh.... I can see you're a man who likes a challenge :D.
     
  19. PatJ

    PatJ Silver

    Hang in there Joe.
    Life comes at you fast some times.
     
  20. joe yard

    joe yard Silver

    It was time for a change. I am old in bad health with a crippled body and a failing mind. Everything of value is going where I want it to.
    The good part is that I still have my analytical functions. I have always worked in tech so I hope to find something for 5 or 10 hours a week rather quickly. I have contacts all over northern Indiana so I think I will find something for today, tomorrow is always a question. If I decide to stay in the race. I have at least 3 years to find shelter.

    Joe
     

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