Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace

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mattinker:
Well done mate! Soon be time to break out the moulding sand and the flasks! I don't remember whether you were using green sand or petrobond?

Cheers, Matthew

Pete.:
Good show!

Just make sure you keep your ring finger out of there when it's switched on :D :D :D

awemawson:
Thanks for the comments chaps :thumbup:

It's a huge relief to find that the Furnace Driver is fundamentally working still after all these years lying dormant. After all the excitement yesterday I readily admit that today I feel exhausted, so trying to scale back on activity just wanted to do a bit of 'first fix' for the compressed air supply, ready for the bits that should arrive tomorrow.

First I had to weld two more vertical box sections to give something to fix the panel to, and I decided to mount a twin 13 amp socket as well as the air termination. (The location is well down towards the large roller shutter and a socket will be handy for work outside)

In the end I did do the wiring for the socket - this will eventually be part of a ring main, but currently is wired as a spur as the next socket round the ring main will be where that roof leak still hasn't been cured so cannot be completed.

. . . time to put my feet up :clap:

awemawson:
Rather late in the day my plumbing bits arrived, so compressed air has now reached the foundry :clap:

Or rather it hasn't yet as I'll leave the pipe thread sealant on the stainless and brass screwed fitting overnight to go off properly before opening the isolator valve.

. . . getting there . .

I'm now beginning to look at the cosmetics of the CFEI furnace driver where it has suffered significant surface rust over the years but I think it is recoverable if not left too long. Can't be a proper 'strip and blast' job as too much to dismantle - some panels and doors can be removed, and the rest will have to be a careful masking job.

awemawson:
Now that I have compressed air plumbed to the foundry I am able to work on the two 'furnace bodies' that I have (an "inverter" and a "tilter" )

Today it was the turn of the "Raydyne Tilter" - I had re-built this body years ago (2006) replacing the crucible with one from a batch that I had had made behind the old Iron Curtain (as they weren't available as stock items). I also modified the control system from purely pneumatic to 'air over oil' at the suggestion of the late John Stevenson as just using air it was difficult to control 'bounce' as it went up and down. I built in a differential 'up' and down' system using one way valves and a flow rate control for each direction.

The oil reservoir is a cut down carbon dioxide cylinder and most of the plumbing was domestic water fittings as that was all I had access to.

A quick inspection showed that a 15 mm stainless pipe had been whacked and kinked but probably still worked and a few brass pipe clips had sheered off. So I connected it up to the new compressed air system and tried the 'up /down' lever - it was bent but judicious bending got it moving however apart from a bit of hissing nothing happened :bang:

Checking the reservoir - yes there was oil. Slackening off fittings - yes oil from the 'up' outlet but nothing at the cylinder :scratch:

As I turned away there was a big 'POP', and turning back oil was spewing out towards the Oxy-Acetylene store at a great rate of knots - the flexible hose to the cylinder has burst off it's crimp. Over the years the hose has adversely reacted to the hydraulic oil and was blocked - after all it was only designed for water!

A quick assessment gave me a count of six flexible hoses - replace one replace ALL I think, and I was about to order them up when it struck me - I now have proper hydraulic pipe and fittings with the crimper to go with it - make your own. So I will !

I'll do a bit of re-design to eliminate as much as possible of the water plumbing and do it all in 1/4" BSP hose and fittings as it's rather more flexible than 1/2" (although I have stocks of both)

(Pictures below are of the crucible and a test firing I did shortly after replacing the crucible (to dry the lining) back in 2006, NOT today but the other pictures ARE today)

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