Joining your group

Hello All,
I have been working on making my own larger furnace and came across this forum. There seems to be a ton of good information here that I will definitely use in reference for my furnace build.

A little about me, I'm currently an engineer at a steel foundry and have my own little foundry on the side. I currently have a smaller propane furnace that can melt around 15 lbs of aluminum, but I'm looking to build a larger one that can melt around 100 lbs or so.
I am basing this new one off from Steve Chastain's book of a tilting oil fired furnace, but I have a few tweaks that (I hope) will allow me to make it a dip out furnace. I will be looking for insight on refractories and if the "brute" burner from backyard metal casting will suffice for a 18" ID furnace chamber. I can share 3D models of my furnace design when I have it complete and would be open to any suggestions you may have.
Looking forward to discussing foundry topics with people who actually are interested in it.

 

Sounds like you're as crazy as we are, welcome! Tons of good stuff here.

Of course the one rule we have on the forum is PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

What kind of parts are you making? What do you want to make with 100 lb pour capacity? Entire engine blocks?

This is the best place for real information. Facebook, youtube, etc are full of nonsense.

 

Welcome aboard! Photos or it DIDN'T happen! We have about every method and specialty covered here. If these guys here can't figure out how to do something, it probably cant be done!
Most of us are limited due to funds, wives or free time and this causes us to really think outside the box and lean on each other pretty hard.
Iron? I'm not your guy. Bronze ceramic shell? That would be Zap or me and a few others. If you want a lost pla BP, David would be your man!
Just don't ask, you'll hear about it soon enough!

 

Welcome, if you want good advice don't ask me, I just come here to talk crap most of the time. If you want a precisely machined BP don't ask Jason he hasn't even worked out how to plug the lathe in yet

Seriously their are some pretty experienced and educated guys on here, some of them even have real jobs as well!

 

..... and we like to have a good time too.

 

Welcome Jklein,
Don't let Peedee fool you. There's as much cred behind his participation here as anyone as far as the rest of us are concerned (if I may speak for the group, lol.)
Speaking of cred we've got guys here in a lot of areas of business and industry including foundry. I don't think we have anyone else making steel. Maybe we do but your experience will certainly be a welcome addition. I'm a printer with a casting habit subject to the funds wife free-time limitations Jason mentioned above. I don't bring much to the party but they let keep coming back anyway.lol.
I've made several furnaces including a couple of typical crucible furnaces as well as a tilting reverb. None of them are pretty but they work. I use the same Delevan siphon burner for all of them burning deisel and waste oil, but there are several guys here using brute-styles. I'm sure they'll chime in.
How about some pictures of your set-up?

Pete

 

100lbs? That's one big BP.

See you give me too much credit Pete!

Are you sand casting? I've never quite seen the point in a dip furnace for our needs unless you have a lot of molds prepped and running the furnace over multiple melt cycles. That's not to say it's not right for you depending on what you have in mind.

 

I love your ambition. 100 pounds of aluminum is a lot. Is your plan a scrapping furnace or A crucible to do a direct pour of the 100 pounds of aluminum?

Aluminum Weight is =>0.1 per 1”³. So that’s 1000 in.³ Wow.

You mentioned that you want it to drip out of the furnace. This part has got me a little confused. If you are planning on using a crucible... you would need a A120 - A150.

A150 has a top diameter of 14.25” and is almost 18” tall.

If you’re staying with propane a 18” diameter furnace 24” tall would work.

I look forward to seeing your pictures or drawings.

 

I think he mentioned a brute oil burner Matt. 100lb melt is a lot of propane that I wouldn't want to pay for. (Nor would I want to be handling an A150 crucible!)

 

Maybe a 19-20”diameter furnace then.

I’m guessing he is currently using a A16 for 15lbs. of aluminum.

 

Reverb and a tilt with a good refractory, not sure a drip oil burner would make for a good al melt though. Too much hydrogen porosity issues to deal with amongst many other things.

Anyway, I think Jason has scared him away. Come back, we are friendly really (just a bit nuts)

 

Thanks for the warm welcome. I feel for the limit on free time/budget/wife kicking you out dangers of the home foundry. I keep telling her that it will pay for itself one day, haha.
My intentions for having the large capacity furnace is to make it work for all my needs. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my end. I would plan to make different lids what whatever size crucible I would be using. That is why I joined this group to see if someone here has done something similar.

I have been making little bottle openers (see pic of one from my weddinga) and other wedding gift type castings. Rather than make the sand molds, I was thinking about a small permanent mold tool to quickly make many castings. This is the reason for the dip out and 75-100 lb capacity. That is the main reason I am interested in Steve Chastain's design as his vent went out the side of the furnace (rather than the top) which could make the dip out option viable. The book said he could do 50 lbs of aluminum in 35 min with his setup. One of my previous jobs, I worked at a foundry where we essentially just had two platens on rods that open and closed with a cylinder. I have built one of these little machines and have machined up a tool from steel to pour into. I was lucky enough to be able to find a very nice (and cheap) Fadal VMC15 at an auction near my house. With this I can build my own tooling on an actual CNC machine as my pattern making skills by hand are sub par at best.

The last piece of the puzzle (until I think of something else) is the furnace. Been reading as much as I can about commercial refractories and homemade types and how to best setup this thing. When I came along this forum it seemed like the information being given was legit based on experience and/or testing.

Sorry to ramble, but wanted to explain a little bit. One more question, on the uploaded pictures, do you all prefer the thumbnail or full image option?

 

full images is what I like.. Did you get you vmc15 up and running yet? There is big money in making molds on that thing! First place I'd start are the plastic blow molding guys.

 

Yes I have it running. Works very well. Still learning on machining side of things, but have cut a few tools and some side projects. Be nice to find some short run machining work.

 

I have a little bit of experience with polycarb blow moulding, most of the tools I did were produced using EDM. With PC the finger was injected then kept hot on the core then blown.

100lbs is a lot of material, can you cool the moulds between pours or do you plan to have a lot of them. Not being negative but if each pour is a few ounces your dies may not be able to keep up.

Edit: Don't bother with home made refractory, good fun to experiment but the failures get boring quickly. The guys here will know local suppliers and you don't need the headache!

 

Thanks for the input on the refractory. I won’t waste my time with it.
The steel mold should hold up fine as long as the coating in kept in good shape.