I have more than enough fire brick..around 40 or 50.. and refractory to make a large cast iron furnace. I have been looking at some of the guys furnaces to draw up ideas before I start. I would like it to be open front accessible to use a trolley for lifting out the crucible but also want access from the top for slagging and adding charge metal. I would like to use a metal beam as a track for the trolley and have my molds set to pour straight from the beam. Most of this I already have worked out in my head but I would certainly love to hear any ideas from you guys as to what type of opening would be the easiest or best to build using fire brick as refractory. I do still have 100 pounds of castable and have access to all the wool I can carry but I am not a fan of the wool...the stuff floats around everywhere at work and I eventually came to hate it.LOL Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Oh...another thing I have considered is a dual burner...making two smaller ones vs one big one seems to be more efficient to me but I am not a fan of doing research that has already been done so chime in on that as well. Thanks in advance guys!
Here's a design that meets that description. Now this is coming from a guy with a lift-off furnace that has everything but a built in weany roaster and has been called Battle Star Galactica, (which I really like because I can snatch and pour in a single motion with an open ring shank), but it is a considerable complication to things, and the two fellas that routinely melt iron and use a trolley (Melterskelter and Ironsides) have lift out furnaces. My link to the details in my signature are dead because of AA. I need to reconstitute that thread here some day. Here are mine: Here's a thread I started that may have some ideas for you. The link takes you to one of my favorites but may be worth scrolling through the thread for ideas. http://forums.thehomefoundry.org/index.php?threads/the-furnace-thread.276/#post-4963 I think OMM has/had two burners and his furnace is also fire brick. What kind of fire brick do you have? OIF's furnace is just stacked brick. He can add an interior course to reduce the ID for smaller crucibles and melts. Best, Kelly
I honestly dont know exactly what they are...I nearly yanked his arm out of socket when he offered them to me and didn't spend much time examining them...only that they are what is used in an autopour system that generally runs 365 days a year at 2750F...so they should be good enough for anything I am going to build. I do know that some were white and very light and some were yellowish and heavy. I am assuming they are used for different purposes but not sure what the difference would be. I will take a closer look at them tonight and see what is on them. Both of those ideas are great! I absolutely love the lift off design and have most of the stuff to build it with on hand. My biggest issue was with holding the brick inside a door panel without exposing metal to the interior but with the lift off that is not an issue. I also love the idea of being able to reduce the interior size for smaller crucibles. Thanks Kelly! Just what I was looking for!
The dense bricks will be much more durable and likely much higher refractory. The light ones are insulating firebrick (IFB). IFBs come in many grades but in general, the lighter and more insulating the lower there service temp. The lowest IFB is typically 2300F. They are more fragile and can be attacked by corrosive gasses in fuel fired furnaces. They will also be heavily damaged by molten metal contact and slag, so better to use dense brick as hot face and IFB as backing. I see IFBs between 2300F and 3000F service rating but they become more like dense brick at the high end. It's not completely a non-issue. Here's a picture of the cast refractory for my larger furnace. The green rings are insulating castable and the hot face is 5/8 thick dense castable. There's a ledge and loose joint between the two for thermal expansion. The ring sits on a metal ledge in the outer OD. I used insulating castable to reduce the temperature at metal contact. The only issue with this design is if that lower ring ever failed. the hole hot face would fall right through. Not an issue for my service but the limits of materials get stretched in iron service. A slight variation on this would be an elevated furnace where the floor lowered with the crucible on it, but I must say, I like the tilt back furnace I linked above because it gives full access to the crucible soyou can snatch and pour with a single tool.....and trolley. That tilt back furnace is a members named Junkyard and he turned me onto to open ring shanks. If I had known of these I may never have built my lift off. Here's my trolley. As for your trolley, this might give you some ideas. Here's mine snatching my A60. It has jaws that open and close. 8 A60 on cart - YouTube Here's the A20 open ring shank on my trolley. Much more simple. 9 A20 on Cart - YouTube Best, Kelly
Yeah...the one in the video is the cats ass! That is exactly what I had in mind! Im not 100% yet but was thinking an A20 size so that set up is perfect!
