Sometimes I watch his Youtube channel. He has a nice workshop and some interesting projects with melting metals, but I think his setups are incredibly inefficient. Melting 1 kg of brass with a furnace with central big gap. He said it got 2400 F (1320 C) in 8 minutes, but seeing the roar and gas consumption, it appears not to be very efficient. Im my small furnace I melt the same amount of copper / brass and the inner temperature of the furnace gets 1350 - 1400 C with a much smaller burner. This pit in his backyard should melt cast iron within 25 minutes. No crucible, just a loud roaring jet engine with lots of sparks ... A reverberatory furnace which can be tilted and he pours copper into a plastic (!) bucket with water which obviously starts to leak ... Normally such furnaces are induction ... What do you think about his unconventional burner and furnace designs ?
Dont think there's anything new here. The Jet Engine burners are just a form of Ursutz burners which have been discussed here before. Ursutz are external combustion chambers. Reverb furnaces have also been discussed here. I dont think efficiency is an objective......just speed of melt and perhaps ultimate temperature achieved. There's potentially value in the latter but just show for the former. I've always said a furnace can be as simple as a hole in the ground. The quaility of metal may be another matter. Best, Kelly
