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

The furnace is still down at the Metal Museum, and I have not looked into it since I ran it.
I assume the patching will hold up ok, since they use it in the cupolete, and it seems to hold up pretty well in there.
They patched the cupolete the day before, and those patches were 1.5" thick in places, and they did not do any drying out.

And the IFB's are banded behind the hot face, to give it more support.

It was no problem drying out the patching.
About 5 minutes at 3 gal/hr with no combustion air, which is pretty slow since most of the flames come out the top of the furnace when the combustion air is not running.

I think drying out refractory slowly is overrated, but that is just my opinion.
I never overheat wet patches to the point where they explode or anything.

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I tend to agree that drying castable is probably over-rated. I put in some castable on the floor of my furnace and let it sit at 50deg temp for a day. Then I just ran my furnace. Amazingly that stuff was unfazed and is still as solid and hard as porcelain.

 

Hah hah, yes that thought did occur to me.
I think I dried that hot face out initially for about 4 hours total, with basically a propane burner on low, and that was it for dryout.

I generally get my refractory hot enough to start steaming lightly, but not more than that, and hold the temperature at that point for several hours until the steaming stops.
That is all I have the time/patience for, and so it is what it is.

But I definitely think the vertical cracking is due to differential heating between the top and bottom of the furnace, and that could well be caused by turning the burner on at 100% when the melt is started, instead of ramping it up slowly.

Time is money as they say, and my time is so limited that it is cheaper to patch refractory than spend time slowly drying refractory.
I believe that refractory at iron temperatures will crack regardless of the dryout method though.
Show me anyone who does iron work, and I will show you a furnace with cracked refractory.

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I am contemplating a segmented hot face, but I also am aware of how the pressurized interior of a furnace uses the hot gasses to drill through cracks, and the smallest of cracks will allow for leaks.
The segments would have to be sealed, and for a 1" thick segment, any interlocking would be very thin, and almost certainly would break off.

At least with the segments you could pre-determine where the cracks would most likely occur.

There would be a lot more work involved in making individual hot face segments, and I am wondering if it would be worth the trouble, instead of just patching the cracks as they occur in a monolithic hot face.

Either way (monolithic or segments), you have to patch cracks, but one method is much more labor intensive.
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I tend to agree, especially if I can come up with a good durable and reusable mold for segments.

Well truth be told I am just too lazy to build a vibrator, so it will never happen.
I do rap on the mold sometimes when ramming refractory (such as my furnace lid), which is sort of the same thing as vibrating.

I like the shape of your joints between the segments; that may work well with minimal cracking.

The stepped joint at the bottom of the furnace I just see as a crack at the step, and so I would not do it that way.
The way I would do the bottom is cast the bottom in one piece, slightly larger than the diameter of the bottom of the hot face shell, and let there be a lip on the bottom, so that the bottom lip extends up around the hot face shell about 1/2".
I would give plenty of space between the lip and the hot face for expansion, as I have learned that lesson the hard way.

Edit:
I also like the idea of three segments, as opposed to perhaps four or more, or two.

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I agree.

I am not sure that would be a good idea.
I would have to test-prove that concept at iron temperatures.
I think it may work at the bottom joint.
Not sure about the vertical joints.

I don't see any advantage to this.
The segment joints are going to have to be sealed with a very thin line of ITC100 or something similarly iron-temperature-resistant, and I would apply the ITC on the face of the vertical segments, not in the joint.

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You have been chatting with my wife on facebook; I can tell.
Don't believe a word she says.

I think plain flat bottom would do it, and let the segments rest on top of the bottom refractory.
Easier to build too.
The bottom is the coolest part of the furnace, and I never have significant cracking problems at the bottom.

The last 5 iron pours have been basically flawless, with very hot melts, and excellent consistency and repeatability.
The lid sticking thing is an annoyance, but not the end of the world, and a quick fix was to raise the IFB's and patch the hot face, which seems to have worked well.
So in general, the "lower mass" design has exceeded my expectations, and fulfilled my design intent of being able to melt iron relatively quickly and consistently every time I do a melt.

The only real problem I have now is lack of time to make molds.

Perhaps next week I can get some molds made for the windmill gears and bearing cap.
This is a holiday weekend, so no pouring allowed by the war department (wife) this weekend.

The furnace and burner are ready for an iron pour, and are working well.
In spite of the issues, I feel like I have achieved proof-of-concept.

Edit:
Raising the IFB's and thus raising the lid a few inches has the added benefit of allowing me to easily fit a #30 inside the furnace, and so I don't have to try and build a hot face extension that I was contemplating.
I lucked into that modification (extending the fire bricks and lid upward a few inches), and so that has become sort of a silver lining to the cracked hotface cloud.

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More FIRE photos.
Not sure if some of these are duplicates of previously posted ones or not.

 

More FIRE photos.

 

More FIRE photos.

 

A video someone took at FIRE last year.

 

I can always get a good laugh out of her when I say "I am one of the easiest persons to get along with you will ever know".
I have to be careful though since people have been known to have a stroke or heart attack when they laugh that hysterically.

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I got the furnace transported back home yesterday.
That was a bit of a nail biter.
I rolled it up on the trailer, and strapped/clamped everything in place.

My hot face shell and associated bricks and stainless shell do not actually fasten to anything.
It is all resting on the base layer of IFB's, so that there is no heat sink effect.

I drove very slowly on the back streets (25 mph), and did not get too much jarring.
Those utility trailers will carry quite a bit (mine carried 1,800 lbs the other day with no problem, and the springs were not bottomed out), but the springs do not ride well with a light load, and basically act like a jackhammer with a light load.

I have not opened the furnace yet, but I think all is well.
If not, there is more Plastic A.
I got a source on it; I need to see what sort of price it brings for a box.

No casting this weekend due to the holiday, but the furnace is ready.

Edit:
One of the wheels broke through the mesh, and a second one almost broke through the mesh.
I need to but treated lumber down on the trailer floor.

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Someone sent me a sort of abbreviated video of the iron pour at F.I.R.E.
I will have to try and track them down and get the full resolution video with sound, but here is what I got.

I was very excited to pull that iron melt off.
I worked for several days getting that pulled together, and had to reassemble my shattered furnace on the day of the pour.

And quite a few folks watching, and during a severe thunder storm; it was ripe for an accident, but I pulled it off.
I do a lot of night pours, and I actually prefer them now, since it is much cooler, and also I can see what is going on in the furnace and with the burner better in the dark.

Man that was a fun event.


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Cast Iron Gypsy posted a 2019 FIRE video today.
Some great cupolet and iron pouring video work.

And how much more die-hard can you get than to have a great big cupola tat on the leg ! (21:30) (be nice now, these are my friends).

Edit:
And this is the reason you wear good leathers, boots, spats, etc.
See 12:28 and 16:22.