My furnace....not a pretty one,.... but it gets hot!

Here is a quick boring vid of a series of pictures showing my Colin Peck design oil fired furnace build out of an old oil drum. it was a freebie so a bit rusty. I've built it so that it can be replaced (the oil drum cover) as and when needed. Only just starting to get to grips with it, but it is exciting stuff.

It's all on the cheap, I even make my own crucibles.



And here is a video, my brother made of the first real firing to reduce some scrap we had on hand into something a bit more useable and hopefully cleaner to use next time.

 

That is a clean looking furnace and burner.
Did you use some high-temp refractory?

Edit:
I have never seen anyone dip the ingot molds in oil.
Seems like the melt went well.

 

I used a proprietary 1700 degree C rated castable refractory. I want to eventually, after a good bit of practice, get up to casting some iron.

Yes, I made the molds with a bit of welded angle iron and thought that they'd be better blacked up with a bit of carbon in case the molten metal found a few fine cracks to flow into and it would make it harder to extract the ingot. I had a problem once when I tried to cast copper into a muffin tray in my earlier days and it seriously bonded to the tray. Anyway it went well, thanks.

 

Welcome. Nice going Jimmy. It looks like you kept pretty true to Colin's design. His was the first book I bought and although I didnt follow his design exactly, I incorporated many of the elements of it into my furnace(s).
Ive never seen the oil quench either. You may find that letting the ingot trays get rusty will give the same release, but one things for certain, you have to heat them up good before each use to ensure theyre dry. Moisture hides under the rust.

Pete

 

I made my ingot trays outta 1/4" flat and they have never stuck. I'm curious about this preheater.... You light straight off motor oil or start with propane or diesel?

 

Thanks Pete. Yes I did follow his design very closely. I made a couple of very minor alterations but as I was constructing it I quite marvelled at how much thought he'd put into this furnace. It's very basic and simple but very effective. Thanks for the tip on molds I will be sure to do that. Cheers.

 

Hi Jason, no, the furnace has to get hot before the oil can be introduced. At the moment I use oily rags and wood to start it but I'm working on a propane upgrade idea.

Basically the oil is drip fed through an oil line through the centre of the burner tube into the furnace and the oil is carried into the body of the furnace out of the end of the burner tube by a slipstream of air.

All the pre heater is, is a separate hole, to the burner hole, through the furnace wall which directs a jet of flame onto, into and through the burner tube. This heats the air and the oil line before the oil and air gets into the furnace and helps vaporise the oil as it enters the furnace. As I see it, you introduce a bit of oil, it burns and then because of the preheater, it accelerates the rate of burn of oil and gets hotter, so you turn up the oil a bit more, and it burns hotter again, so you turn it up again. It's like a cycle that feeds itself.

It is extremely simple and low tech but very "solid state" and effective. I like it because waste oil is free! :-D

 

Thanks Jeff, much appreciated.