Good day everyone! This is Drewe from The Detroit Skillet Company embarking on a new project. I’ve recently acquired a 100 year old brass furnace running on a 2” NG line with a squirrel cage induction system. I’ll be installing it at my home, and only have a 1” residential line. First off I need to determine what’s going to be the best solution to fire this with; getting an NG compressor and some tanks, converting the burner over to propane, or diesel. Even waste oil is an option, but I don’t have a steady supply on that yet, and diesel is pretty high. Looking for the best bang for the buck with the least volatile fuel. Hopefully the pic uploaded up there.
Welcome to the forum! No joy (yet) on the picture, if you could use a more direct link with the pictuce icon next to the smily face or use the 'upload a file' function on the bottom of the reply window then we can see what you see. If all else fails, height x diameter x wall thickness x crucible size might help those in the know to visualize. I am not 'in the know' so to speak but I know some people...
Welcome EB. If you want to stick with NG for fuel, not sure how it is in Detroit but the utility companies here sell gas so they upgraded my meter and regulatorcapacity for free but think I had a one time fee of $75 for them to do capacity survey in my neighborhood. But, that furnace looks like quite the beast for a hobby furnace and if you aren't going to use the full capacity of the furnace and only do single melts, you'll probably spend a lot more time and energy heating the furnace than melting metal, and if so, may be better to build a smaller furnce. What's the condition of the interior and what size crucible? Best, Kelly
Here’s the crucible, I have three “new” old stock units. I plan on running it full capacity every time (looks like it might hold 100” of iron. I make cast iron skillets from 100+ year old city of Detroit water mains. They were iron ore from our upper peninsula before they were mains. Iron has some great grain. I’ve been making them as Instagram.com/Detroit.skillet.company but lost access to my foundry services about two years ago when they turned their 200# induction furnace into slag. Been a bear of a time trying to find a new way to get these done.
Crucible looks like at least an A50 or A60, if so more like 150-180lbs of iron. Instead of NG, Diesel or oil might be a better bet for iron. The iron guys here will steer you right. Best, Kelly
Welcome Drewe. Sorry to hear about your foundry resource drying up. That is quite a large furnace. I don’t know anything about what other assets you’re bringing to the party materially or experientially, so I’ll stick to the question at hand. NG can conceivably work but it would be a struggle to get and maintain the temps you’d need, especially if cost is a factor. When they were melting brass in that furnace I’m sure they were throwing a helluva lot of gas into it. I’m running waste oil/diesel (about 80/20) in my 10” bore furnace and it gets the job done if I’m doing my job correctly, but I don’t know how effectively it would scale up to your size. At any rate it’ll take a lot of fuel and support operations to keep it fed. Pete
Drewe, if this furnace were mine to work through, I'd reverse engineer a drawing with some basic dimensions (outside height and diameter, inside height and diameter, plinth height, clearance around crucible top-bottom-sides). Then take a few more pictures esp. on the inside with it open and empty and with the crucible in place and start a thread in the furnace sub-forum. You'll probably get a few more views and suggestions and it will help the next person looking for information.
Thats a very good suggestion. I’ll do that in the next couple of days. Right now it’s grind time on the 9 to 5 to pay for this little adventure.
