The Shop > Metal Stuff
Dual Fuel Gingery Type Furnace
inthesticks:
Well I just melted 12 lbs of iron using the gunk I drain out of the bottom of my vehicle.ha ha ha :) and none to soon.
The pictures:
1. For a first attempt with iron just an open mold of a 11 lb paper wieght. Actualy if it machines well it will make a nice little surface plate for small work.
2. The aluminum part of the pour, all beded in, ready for the cope.
3. The melting set up.
4 Safety equipment, draw your attention to the insulated leather pouring guantlet gloves for the iron.
5 Aliminum pour.
6 Procceeds of aluminum pour.
7 The iron pour.
8 & 9 Yes I poured it ha ha :) scratched my initials in the pattern :lol:
This burner performed as well as the atmospheric burner, a little slow on the oil but I think the needle valve for thick oil is a bottleneck. I will replace this valve with a gate valve since I still had half my fan capacity available with the needle valve wide open.Total oil use a little over a gallon. Here are the melt times.
1:23 furnace cold, burner on with initial aluminum charge in steel pot, gas press. 10 psi.
1:30 initial charge melted
1:37 crucible full 5 lbs. of aluminum, burner off and poured
Melt time from cold 14 minutes :clap:
1:46 Clay graphite crucible with 12lbs iron, 2oz. charcoal and 2oz lime in furnace,burner on.
1:50 Started to slowly feed oil.
1:58 gas off, oil wide open, fan damper 1/2 open
2:55 Melt bright white, furnace shut down and mold poured. Did not want to take a chance of loosing my K type thermocouple which only reads accurately to 2400* F so eyeballed it.
Melt time 1 Hr. 9 Min. As noted earlier should be able to speed this up by increasing the amount of oil delivered to the burner.
The furnace exceeds my expectations when I imagined the layout for this project. Cost between 500 and 600 dollers not including all the surplus and salvage I have collected over the years and the propane and piping system which would have been installed weather this furnace was built or not. This price may seem low given how much refractory and steel I purchased but that is because I have enough left for 2 more projects. A version of Steve Chastain's tilt furnace for pouring BIG aluminum castings keeps comming to mind (to many projects to little time :lol:).
I'll do one more post on the procceeds of this melt and this thread is done. Happy casting all :D :)
Cheers all :beer: what the heck make that a bottle of the old captains pivate stock :beer: :beer:
CB
tom osselton:
Your moving right along how was the sand for the iron? I see others using coal dust in their mix I'm guessing for the carbon.
inthesticks:
Moving right along? You must have missed a couple of posts Tom :lol: I'm done but 1 post. I didn't mix sand for iron since I am not casting iron much It buned the organic flour which is a good think but held up very well. The coal dust is used so when the molten metal hits it, it gases off preventing sand from sticking, which is what the flour did. The carbon is controlled in the crucible which is why I added a handful of hardwood charcoal dust. If you have ever hit a hard spot when working iron you will know why that important.
Cheers
CB
inthesticks:
Here's the contents of todays pour. I cut a slice off the lip of the open face iron block. cut very easily without any hard spots to destroy my bandsaw blade, Should make a great little 5 X 5 surface plate for small work.
Rob I have 8 shiny new screw drivers to take you back to your childhood, don't be a stranger say hi, I try not to leave to often. The adjustment on the green sand helped, noticeably better finish on these handles.
And thats all she wrote. :ddb:
Cheer Up :)
CB
inthesticks:
Well caught up on some of the work I neglected around here. Took a day off today to play on the computer, made up a 3 part PDF for thoughs interested in building a similar furnace or improving on this design. Considered measured drawings but my use of salvage and surplus materials would make it hard for the home builder to source, use what you have :thumbup:.I included most of the complimentary :)and constructive :thumbup: comments made here. Files are zipped to reduce size, heres Part 1.
Cheers
CB
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