KEG Foundry Furnace

[racket]

Hi Mark

LOL, how much metal do you want to melt , thats a lotta fuel :-)

Cheers
John

[pitciblackscotland]

Hi John,
Hehehe! I have a couple of aluminum heads that i want to melt to make up some aluminum ingots and i need some practice on melting metal And don't forget i have 400 litters of veg oil to burn and when that's all gone i can start on the heating oil

Cheers,
Mark.

[racket]

Hi Mark

LOL............you've been stockpiling for a while , time to burn some you recon ;-)

Cheers
John

[Deleted]

May 18, 2017 4:56:00 GMT -5 pitciblackscotland said:

Hi John,
Hehehe! I have a couple of aluminum heads that i want to melt to make up some aluminum ingots and i need some practice on melting metal And don't forget i have 400 litters of veg oil to burn and when that's all gone i can start on the heating oil

Cheers,
Mark.

 Hi Mark

Have been trying to do the same together with Cameron
Have both built a furnace with 'fire bricks' and special mortar but couldn't just get the veg oil thing happening
So in the end just used LPG flame and added some veg oil 'to get it a bit hotter'
Worked reasonably well until I scored an electric kiln 'free'
Still needs some work to make it go again but I think will save a lot of stuffing around
main problem with the veg oil is the flame cannot touch your crucible as it will destroy it (even 6mm 316SS) in about one hour
Hope you have more luck than I had

cheers Chris

[pitciblackscotland]

G'day Chris,
Did you warm up the veg oil before use? I like to try out this experement like this chap. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjDeGDn_fkI&t=228s Have been doing a lot of research on the net and i think this will work out if not i will make it work

Cheers,
Mark.

[pitciblackscotland]

May 18, 2017 5:03:59 GMT -5 racket said:

Hi Mark

LOL............you've been stockpiling for a while , time to burn some you recon ;-)

Cheers
John

Hi John, yep also have some use sump oil to test out as well.

Cheers,
Mark.

[pitciblackscotland]

I finally got the oil burner built and did a test today on heating oil all good no problems lighting the heating oil,will do a test tomorrow on the veg oil witch i will need to heat up to ~30c before adding a flame to it.

Cheers,
Mark.

[racket]

Hi Mark

Nice little flame thrower ;-)

Cheers
John

[pitciblackscotland]

Hi John,

Heheheh yep done some test today the waste veg oil was a bit tricky to get it burner right but i think i got the knack of it now

Cheers,
Mark.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6Rf-LuhsQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqDcboE___Q

[pitciblackscotland]

It's been a while since i last made a update on this furnace project so here is some updates. I cut the hole for the tuyere and use a propane torch to slowly heat the furnace up to ~400c, next week will use the oil burner. The refractory has been drying for about 7 months so just want to make sure there is no moisture left before i cement the fire bricks in.

[pitciblackscotland]

I cut up the fire bricks to the required size for the keg and used high temp cement to hold the bricks in, i ran out out of high temp cement will get some more to finish off and trim the top off with a hand saw

[pitciblackscotland]

Got the high temp mortar and finish off the brick work and had plenty left over, so applied the rest on the inside and top. I have a 8 inch stainless tube which i would like to use for a test melt. There is 1 inch gap between the tube and the wall of the furnace, would the gap be OK?

[monty]

How did this project ever turn out? I am thinking about building a furnace. My current one is fired by natural gas. It's a bit of a pain to get it started. It works well enough once it's warmed up. But for precision work, it's a little hard to control the melt temp. My pyrometer is so slow to respond, that once I hit the temp it's already too hot. Then I have to wait for the melt to cool off before I pour. If I get the molds ready too soon they cool off too much....It's a real juggling act to get the mold and pour temp all right and consistent. Plus I have to work outside so weather is an issue, can't necessarily work to a schedule...

I've been considering building an electric furnace, so I can use a temp controller. I'll put a port on the furnace for an argon blanket. That way I can take my time getting the molds ready and the metal will be the right temp, plus I don't have to worry about it sucking up hydrogen from the flue gas. And I can work in my shop even if the weather is uncooperative.

Monty

[pitciblackscotland]

Hi Monty,
I put this project on hold until winter time then will do some test melts. Yeah i think a electric furnace would be the go as for my furnace there is a bit of set up involved, will need compress air, and heating of the veg oil so it will light up. Have been watching this chap on the internet. is were i got most of my ideas from.
www.youtube.com/channel/UCNC9gjgYrzLfyMQmp31DnjA

Cheers,
Mark.

[dominik]

Seems that people that share interest on turbines have also other similar stuff in mind,
I was inspired by the YouTube channel called „backyard casting“ or so.

This is my KEG-foundry:





I made it five years ago of a 50l keg. The isolation is a mixture of heat resistant concrete, cat powder and lots of perlite.
It‘s propane powered from the bottom with a swirling burner and takes about 30 min to melt up to 3lbs of aluminium. I use stainless stell pots and killed several of them when I startet. It happened at the end when the flux ist added, so there’s a sand tray below that catches the molten aluminium if necessary.

Good luck with your project, I had several problems with waste aluminium materials that were not really castable ;-)

Best regards