Kwiky burner with a twist

Jason remember, the kwiky should burn everything. Frog legs, chicken legs, you name it…

I potentially think by reversing the kwiky, anything you can flow down a 1/8 ID pipe is fair game....

Seal blubber or frog legs or even bacon fat.

 

I gave up on cooking oil. It kept plugging up my needle valve and I'd have to pop it open and back closed to get full fire again. It was just too much trouble and the used motor oil flows much better. I've run through all my old tractor oil and gear grease and am burning fresh WMO from a station. It's as sweet as diesel with all the 0W20 oil.

 

You're on to something there Andy. If you can get an on-demand supply of reasonably consistent and reasonably untainted WMO, free to boot, you're golden. Ultimately it comes down to less mess and more enjoyment.

Pete

 

My choice for oil is BP2380 turbine oil. It's like water and flows beautifully! Best part, it's not black at all but honey gold. It doesn't contain all the nasty crap found in piston engine oil. I'll do you one better. I only change the engine oil in our airplane once a year! Even then, there isn't a time interval in the manuals for even doing it! I do it because oil is cheap compared to turbine parts.
If you can call 25bucks a quart cheap!

 

It is starting to sound like everybody is choosing a specific fuel. Isn’t napalm just bacon fat laced with a little bit of gasoline and nitrogen to push?

My last kwiky I have gotten rid of all needle valves at the nozzle.

I don’t mind gate valves. But they do have their problems to!

 

Cost, availability, process, mess. Pick your poison. And when things are hot, the molds are set,and the PPE is donned, a burner that suddenly starts sputtering is most unwelcome. So knowing what you have and having what you know is helpful.
You may change your mind about the needle valve. Even with a finer control things get touchy. That will be a part of fuel preparation: getting the level of filtration adequate for your equipment.

Pete

 

That’s the key. I like and know diesel. It’s uniform, junk-free, clean burning and oh so easy to acquire.
Yup, costs about 3 bucks a gallon or 9 bucks an hour. When asked about operating expense for my hobby I usually compare it to more common hobbies like fishing. What does an outboard motor cost, how long does it last, and how much fuel does it burn? That usually quiets the critics without even mentioning boats, trailers, pickups to pull trailers etc.

Denis

 

Petee I offered that bit of advice too about the needle valves. When I built my kwiky, I cheaped out and didn't use them. I really thought I could control it with the 1/4 turn ball valves. I was wrong.
If I even looked sideways at my ball valves, the mixture would change and I smoked my neighborhood. It wasn't until my neighbor gave me a pair of high dollar natural gas production needle valves did I realize what I was missing. Now I go from light off to finely turned with half a turn on the needle. Having a fixed air flow makes it dead nutz easy. I've had that sputtering unstable nonsense with a preheated shell on the ground, pot full of metal, sweating like a whore in church in my fire suit experience. It's not fun when it's a 100 outside!

Hey Denis, you know I start on jet fuel and switch to used oil right? I've had melts where I have completely forgotten to make the switch to oil! When I do a one pot melt, I almost prefer it that way. If I know I will recharge the crucible a 2nd time, I try to make it a point to get over to used oil. Diesel is cheap and 9bucks an hour is a no brainer. I've even considered getting rid of the used oil thing altogether. For me, it's more of a novelty than a requirement. If I only melted aluminum, I wouldn't touch oil at all. The biggest crucible I own is a #10, I would probably change my tune if I was using a #20. It all comes down to what I'm comfortable lifting by myself in my DRIVEWAY! lol... There is plenty of energy in a gallon of diesel and I'm sure the exhaust doesn't contain all the dissolved nastiness of used oil. It is still cool and seeing peoples reaction when ya tell them you burn that stuff is fun. Some are abhorred and that is worth the price of admission.

 

And I finally completed a miniature reverse kwiky.

I had to spin up some knurled orifice adjustment knobs. But I think this will give the other quickies a run for their money. It might not put out as much BTU, but for size, I thought I should give it a running chance.

This one out performs the other two, taking the best of the best from both with water.



This one completely atomizedzes water at any flow rate (up to 5 gallons per hour). This is literally the drip nozzle in the smallest burn tube. I am using combustion air to Adamize. The copper thumb wheel should work just like a propane air port. The brass thumb wheel is just a locking nut for the copper thumb wheel.

The brass thumb wheel Advance is the orifice allowing for more combustion air, (As well does the ball valve). This is probably the most complicated design so far. I had to pack a ton of adjustability into a small package that has a tremendous amount of air.

 

Looking pretty slick, might be wanting a pic of it torn down now.... Looks almost a drop in for my siphon nozzle...but with non plugging orifices.

Al

 

The final mini nozzle completing the water test today with great results, I want to test it’s vacuum pull under siphon. Then put it under a pump for constant fuel delivery. The final nozzle was so complex but so easy, it’s performance will be unknown until introduced into a foundry furnace....

I don’t mind doing a teardown and assembly video.... but not until I throw it to the wolves.

 

No sweat. If I understand, there's two tubes, the 1/8" outer and a brake line inner. The position (in/out) of the inner is set by the knurled collars?

Are you running the air through the inner tube as in a siphon feed sand blaster gun, or on the outside as in the Delavan nozzles?

Al

 

The fuel will be going through the brake line like a drip burner. The brake line has a 3/16(.188) OD and a 1/8(.125) ID. The 1/8 black pipe fittings I drilled them all out to have a clear 5/16 ID. The 1/8 black pipe I drilled it open to 0.323” ID.

This is all a little bit tight, as the black pipe OD is 0.402“. I did this as I am not able to increase pressure with my blower but if I increase the volume a little bit I can always cut the volume back using the ball valve.

The flare fitting on the end of the brake line has a .270” OD. Having the flare adjustable in made misting finer.5 gallons per hour. Having it adjusted out made misting finer at/and above 5 gallons an hour. The ball valve seem to do a good job at choking the air volume and allow for a broken stream. Hopefully today or tomorrow I’ll be able to test it with diesel and maybe even do a switch over to oil.

 

I have tested this evening the mini burner. Diesel fuel went through it beautifully at any rate. When I switched it to WVO The pump could only deliver about 1/4 of the fuel. The Airside had no problem.

 

Hey Matt, last night I started de oiling my setup. I'm dumping the oil side of my kwiky. No more jugs of black oil! I'm waiting for a run before I dump the 2nd refrigerant container on my tower of power. I might just leave it and have loads of jet-A on tap. Let's face it, I'm not going to screw with cast iron. Bronze is it for me.

Now what to do with a 55gal plastic drum and crank pump on it..... Anyone want it? Comes with 25gallons of free dirty motor oil.

 

I wish you were a neighbour of mine. Our out reachs could overlap. We could be labelled the two nutty professor’s that live next-door to each other. Tig welding at 4 AM is all natural to me. I just got the call yesterday to pick up brick for the future foundry on Monday. I hope my neighbours are OK with a little roar furnace. I guess time will tell.

What I hate more than anything is muscle car guys thinking it is so cool to rev the shit out of their cars in the driveway at any hour. I’ve had a super sports bikes for about 10 years of my life. I know revving them pisses people/neighbours off. They are not impressed. I have an 880 Stihl saw. Imagine me randomly starting it up at whatever hour just to rev the shit out of it for 20 minutes.

 

If I get permission, I’ll do a whole video on the bricks and how they are layered inside the furnace. From the description of the furnace owner it is, sounds quite unique. Three layers of brick all separated by different layers of fibre blanket and fibreboard.

I was told the teardown of the furnace starts at 8 AM Monday morning.

Remember, this furnace is heated 24 seven 365 to a minimum of 400 F. And topped out at 2500 F in demand situations. The brick has not been replaced in almost 750 days of the high temperature 2500 F days. With weekends and holidays and non-burn days this could be related to three plus years.

Some future post might be a little bit morbid for some, (if I get permission). Maybe I’ll give an online tour. If your stomach is a little squeamish or the moderators don’t approve, that’s OK too. The moderators can edit as they wish.

 

Oh F, that's right. I almost forgot about that. Doesn't make my stomach turn, just give me a bit of the hibbegibbees. Might be a bit of bad jujus with that free stuff.
I bought hard firebrick recently and set me back 85cents a brick. And that was the spook free variety. lmao.

Do the tour, stick it on YT. You'll be an instant hit.

 

Well, I didn’t get any video but I did get a few pictures. The installers said there won’t be too much old full-size brick when they’re done. But I could have whatever’s left over that is new. So now it’s time to cross my fingers and hopefully they have 40 some odd bricks left over.