New Small Propane Furnace

So, this is something I've been meaning to build for some time now. There is always a small part here and there that I want to cast, but didn't want to fire up the large used oil furnace. I used a 6 gallon steel container for the shell. I placed soft face bricks for the bottom, cemented in place with refractory cement. The walls and top I used ceramic blanket rated to 2300F. I coated this with Matrikote 90AC. The furnace just fits my Salamander A8 crucible, I do have smaller ones as well to use.
For the burner, I just fabricated one up from a small squirrel cage fan, sheet metal and SS tubing. I'll post more info in the burner section. Too the pictures!




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I have to agree, a small furnace is very handy for the small melts, and so easy to move in and out of the shop.
And the small crucibles are generally cheaper too.
I made a small one out of hard fire brick stood on end and banded together, and did not even bother to insulate it, and it works fine with aluminum melts.
The hard fire bricks will take a lot of punishment, and are relatively cheap.

Looks like a nice little furnace.

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Everyone thinks bigger is better (me included), but the smaller ones are much more practical for more frequent use. For the past few years I've been working on getting my largest yet furnace built for iron. It will hold a #45, not quite a 200 . With any luck I'll have it done by this spring. Will start a new post once I get more progress on it done.

Thanks PatJ and Kelly.

Here is a picture of the top I forgot to add. I was able to put two layer in it. I then put the coating just were it would be exposed to the flame. By leaving the outer edge uncoated I figured it would seal better since its still soft.

 

Got to try it out this weekend and very happy with the results, took about 25min to melt a crucible full of 6061 chucks.
Here is a vid of it just being fired for the first time without the crucible.

 

Looks like it runs like a top.
Very smooth.