Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace

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awemawson:
In a flash of inspiration in the early hours of last night I remembered that I had a Numatic car valeting wet & dry vac tucked away on a shelf in my container that I had bought off eBay 'as it looked useful'. I think that it's only been used once by a friend who had had a smashed windscreen and cubes of safety glass everywhere.

Emptying the glass (!!) and washing out the innards and hose it was eminently suitable for sucking up the coolant as it escaped as I undid various plumbing fittings. In the end I managed to 're-cycle' three gallons of coolant, which I passed through a fine mesh filter. So not only is that three gallons of not inexpensive coolant saved, it's three gallons NOT on the floor to mop up :thumbup:

Applying the vacuum hose to the two large flow and return ports on the furnace driver effectively sucked out not only the inner workings of the driver unit, but also the hose / cable assemblies leading to the furnace body. This made undoing them easy as coolant wasn't splashing everywhere (as it has in the past!)

So that's Phase One completed :thumbup:

Next - Phase Two, remove the castors . . .

nrml:
It's a bit late to be of any use now, but wouldn't one of those air driven venturi vaccum coolant filling devices been ideal to just suck it all out from a low point in the circuit without any mess at all? With all the coolant and various other fluids you use across your workshop, you could do with one of those. They are pretty cheap these days.

Pete.:
I have one of those Numatic vacs as a shop vac for swarf and general dirt. They are fantastic for both wet and dry. They do single and twin-motor variants.

awemawson:
A good solution, thank you, but the Numatic actually worked quite well. I had one of those venturi coolant mixers but I sent it back and got my money refunded, as the mixing ratio quoted was miles off what I could measure with my Brix gauges

So Phase Two starts :-

Firstly the six castors. It seems that I'd drilled and tapped to fit them, so getting them off was easy with no struggling to reach nuts - probably why I did it that way!

Then I removed all external labels, door furniture, operating handles, locks, catches, captive bolts etc. Then for the operating panel. This is not an 'unplug' job - some is but most is hard wired. I worked out that there was just enough cable length to remove it from the front door, and fold it back into the cabinet. I wrapped it in bubble wrap, and as luck would have it the 3 phase sub-panel cardboard box was just the right size to secure it in, and tie it with the ubiquitous baler twine.

The main input 125 amp socket I knew was going to be an issue to remove. Held on by four M6 bolts into thread inserts, but one had cross threaded and pulled the insert out of the panel, and getting to he rear was pretty impossible being more than I could reach through the internal electronics from the other side. There was JUST room to grip it in a Mole Grip, closing it with the tips of my fingers. Mole grips tethered with another bit of baler twine, as when (if) the screw comes out the Mole Grips will plunge into more inaccessible space below. However a quick application of the rattle gun to the bolt head working against the inertia of the mole grips got it off, and as expected they went crashing into the depths but was able to be pulled out by string.

So I think that's Phase Two completed :ddb:

Major paint stripping and rubbing down next. I think that I will swathe the internals in dust sheets - do all the stripping and rubbing down, then remove the dust sheets and mask up properly before spraying.

I'm in two minds how to handle the doors. As they are at the moment they would just lift off their hinge pins, and that would make preparation of the frame somewhat easier, and preparation of the bottom edge of the doors would be a lot easier. I may lift them off, prepare them and the frame, spray the frame then re-hang the doors for spraying. Not decided . . :scratch:

awemawson:
So - Phase Three: Prepare for Spraying.

This morning I went over all surfaces with a rotary wire brush removing loose paint and rust. This helps to reveal and take off bits of loose paint that superficially appear sound but actually are separated from the base metal. It also saves the stripping disk (which is the next process) - also rotary wire brushes last longer and are cheaper !

The wire brush leaves a harsh step between the remaining sound paintwork and the base metal, whereas the stripping disk (if used gently) allows you to blend the junction.

So four sides and the top took about an hour so I was finished by 9 am and came in for my fingers to stop tingling from the angle grinder and have a coffee. Hopefully using the stripping disk wont take much longer, though it does need gentler application.

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