F.I.R.E. 2019 on the River (Foundry Invitational & River Exhibition)

A whole lot of iron pouring going on.

 

Back in one piece with some plastic A.

 

Things are way too rushed to attempt that at the show.
Been rebuilding the furnace all week, and working.
I will try the gear and bearing cap next week at home in a quiet setting.

 

I was under a small cover that was pretty high up, and started the furnace.
About 10 minutes into the melt, the bottom dropped out, and there were crazy high winds, torrential rain, lightning, you name it.
The rain was blowing in and getting me wet, but the furnace kept on running.

I had to dry the tools, dry the fire brick that the crucible sat on, dry the pouring shank.
Everything was soaked, and I was standing in a 1/2" of water.

Towards the end, the rain let up a bit, and I poured in a light rain, and uncovered the mold at the last second.
I saw some water from the cover run into the mold, but I poured anyway, and no explosion (it was an open-faced pour).
I salvaged a mold have from an earlier bronze pour, and also poured a "FIRE" scratch block.

That was a crazy day/night for sure, but I pulled off an iron pour in a heavy rain.
Wow.
Not something I want to repeat.

The art-iron folks seemed impressed.
Great fun; great people.
They ran three cupolas all day long, and I think poured over 2,000 lbs of iron.
I am not sure how they avoided heat stroke.
I was sitting in the shade with a short sleeve shirt and was getting heat exhaustion.

Photos in the morning.
Someone got a video.
I will try and find it and get it uploaded.

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From my wife's phone.

 

The only reason the furnace stayed dry was because it was too hot for the rain that was getting on it to keep it wet, and too much air was coming out the exhaust, so the rain that was coming in sideways under the shelter could not get into the lid opening.
It was crazy wind and rain.
The trees were moving around so much I thought for sure a tornado was passing through (we have them often).

Trying to pour anything decent would have been a disaster with all the rain during the pour.

During the day, I think they poured 2,000 lbs of iron from three cupolettes all running at the same time.
These are some hardy folks.
It was hot and they had leathers on for much of the day, and working around the hot furnaces and castings.

 

It was crazy.
When I lifted the hot face shell to put it in the car, it shattered.
I had to rebuild it after I got it to the event.

I used some "Plastic A" that they use to patch the cupolettes with.
Seemed like it worked pretty well.
I put the Plastic A on very wet, and sort of patted it in place over the cracks (same method I saw them use on the cupolette patching; like throwing mud up against the wall).
I ran the burner with the lid open for about 15 minutes for a dryout (burner at 3 gal/hr with no combustion air).

The lid had some blow-by, but the idea was to get through the demonstration, since most there had never seen a crucible iron pour.

I put the IFB's up against the hot face shell, and then one layer of 1" ceramic blanket outside the IFB's.

The outside of the stainless shell remained cool to the touch throughout the melt, except for the top edge.

 

Putting it back together.
Luckily the pieces were very solid.

 

Starting the large cupolette on propane.

Edit:
It was funny, when I was about to start my burner, someone brought up a propane burner, and said "Here is your starter burner".
I said "I don't need a starter burner".
I was thinking to myself "We don't need no STINKING propane burners ! ", LOL, but I kept that to myself.

 

Congratulations on not giving up. The mark of a truly successful person.

The hot face busting is one thing, the wind and rain are over the top.

P.S. I didn't realize your lid was that much smaller than you furnace.

 

I have to go back down and get my stuff today, so I will take some measurements.
I have photos of the one that they use at Tannehill; we can compare styles.

This is the one at Tannehill:

 

There were artists from all over the country attending, and many were excited to see the crucible method, so I was determined to demonstrate it, since they may not get to see it again for a while, if ever.
The show must go on, as they say.

Its easy to keep going with support like is found on this forum.
The support helps a lot.

This furnace was very much a prototype, and I tried several things, some of which worked pretty well, and some that did not.
I had an initial drawing, but it morphed quite a bit as things went on.
The lid ended up that diameter rather by chance, and I decided to not bother with insulation around the side of the lid.
I do have a 1" layer of ceramic blanket above the lid refractory, and then IFB's on top of that.

The melt was predictable, in spite of the weather, and so that is good.
There is nothing quite like a melting doing exactly what you expect it to do, when you expect it to do it, and after 6 years of that not happening, I could not be more pleased, even in a big storm.

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They had a mini-cupolette.
The guy running it said it is extremely finicky, but can melt perhaps 50 lbs of iron.
At that melt size, I think the crucible furnace has a clear advantage in terms of simplicity, but that point would be argued by many.

And there is the argument "A cupola makes better iron than an oil-fired crucible furnace", and I can't address that other than to say that the metal is not exposed to hydrocarbons in a cupola, unless coke is considered a hydrocarbon.


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Another thing that is impressive about the FIRE show is that perhaps half the people there are women.
The women do as much or more of the heavy lifting for days at a time as the men, and they handle the heavy molds, charge the metal and coke in the furnace, and do all sorts of physical activities that would be challenging for me to do from a strength and endurance standpoint.
And they worked in 90 F heat, with full leather on, standing in the sun, all day long, by a hot furnace (the cupolettes are not insulated).

This is a most impressive group of artisan folks with some extreme endurance and heat resistance.
I would not have been able to stay in leathers in the sun like that all day; I would have absolutely heat-stroked out.

You won't find nicer folks.


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Very cool group photo.

I would not consider coal coke a hydrocarbon, once coked it should be primarily hydrocarbon.

Petroleum coke, by the way it's made, would be expected to have a fair amount of unburned hydrocarbons in it.

Good question, Kelly. I wanted to ask that but I'm shy. As hot as he got it I would assume the needles were melted.

 

Here is a closeup photo of the fracture.
I did not have time to look closely at it the other day.

Best I can tell with the needles, since the entire refractory shell gets bright red hot inside and out, then the stainless refractory needles have no strength at that temperature.
The horizontal fracture occurred when the furnace was hot, when the lid stuck and I pulled up on the lid and broke the refractory shell horizontally, so the needles were hot and not providing any reinforcement strength.

From the photo below, you can see one entire needle still intact, and so when the needles are cool, they to retain their strength, and so would reinforce the refractory when it is cool.
When the refractory is hot, the needles don't do anything.

The cracks don't follow any particular needle pattern, and I think the needles are too small to cause cracking in the refractory due to differential expansion.
And needles are used extensively in industrial ovens to reinforce refractory, and I saw lots of needles at the place that sold me the bricks, which is the place that does huge industrial ovens.

 

Yeah, in industrial applications I think needles are limited to services of 2,200F and below. Like you said they just don't do much at higher temperatures. I've seen furnaces which had been overheated which tended to spall along the needles.

How did you field repair hold up. That's an intriguing solution, to be able to fire so soon after packing it.