The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace
awemawson:
Yes Steve, little chance of sealing it up and keeping it warm - the building was built to be drafty - I'd intended to put a gas powered furnace in as well as the induction furnace so needed to loose heat !
I'm controlling the problem at the moment using a powerful squirrel cage fan blowing across the floor at low level, and as the weather gets better hopefully the slab will dry out a bit and lessen the issue now the external drainage has been installed. This fan is intended for drying out premises after floods - so highly appropriate !
My intention was to somehow shift the big transformer and get on sorting out the foundry infrastructure but I got distracted by having to sort out my Hydrovane 502 compressor - I knew it was due a service and was getting slower to build up pressure, but when I drained the oil from it and opened it up I found that the 'separator cover' was cracked around the housing for the minimum pressure valve. I managed to source a replacement which along with new O rings and oil has solved the problem, so back to the foundry !
awemawson:
As I'm a bit more mobile now I thought I'd try and tackle that transformer, get it onto a small dolly that I used to use for oil drums, and release the pump up trolley for the foundry.
How hard can it be, after all gravity was helping as the dolly was much lower than the lowest setting of the pump up. Well, actually NOT that easy but no fingers or toes were lost and it's now on the dolly - phew. IF ANYONE WANTS a 240 volt transformer for goodness sake come and take it away. (I'd intended to make a very large 3 phase converter with it but now I have proper 3 phase)
So - to clear a bit of space I decided to initially concentrate on the 'tilting' furnace body and put the 'inverting' one in storage for the moment - it got tucked away in the generator room once I'd worked out how to roll it's not inconsiderable weight over the threshold strip that I'd installed to keep rain out (answer - sheet metal ramp and take a run at it :bugeye:)
This allowed me to move the tilting body to close to it's final resting place, and offer up the pump up trolley. My intention is to make a stand to take a ring shank pouring tool for most pours, but the trolley will be used for simpler stuff direct to the mould.
. . . but that's in the future - at least a bit of progress after several weeks of enforced inactivity.
RussellT:
I can't believe you haven't got a hoist somewhere that you could use to lift your transformer.
Russell
awemawson:
Got got a blooming great fork lift but I couldn’t get it near enough due to clutter. :bang:
I’ve got an old (actually new never used but old if you know what I mean) Haltrack engine hoist that was so tangled I gave up !
In the end I just did a highly risky tip and hope job !
awemawson:
Today's Job - Find my ingot moulds ! I used to have two ways of producing ingots from scrap.
Firstly I had (have) several ingot shaped blocks formed from wood as patterns, and painted to lay on a board to make open moulds using sodium silicate sand. I've cast hundreds of ingots using these patterns and I've actually managed to locate them - but I'm not yet ready to mill sodium silicate sand (although I have all the materials)
Secondly I had a series of ingot moulds formed from inverted angle iron with plates welded on the ends - sadly these are long gone and lost in the mists of time.
So today, armed with a length of 3" angle iron left over from the Generator Room build, and a plate of 3 mm steel that originally was part of the CNC Plasma Table before I re-built it, I set to to make one at least so that there is somewhere to pour the left overs of melts.
Simple welding job, but of course you have to test it don't you :clap:
First attempts didn't go too well - I was anxious not to 'stew' the melt (that bit of die casting that I melted yesterday) and when I came to tilt the pot to pour the metal out it solidified as I did it :bang:
The good thing about foundry work is that you can hide your mistakes by melting them down again - second time no worries about stewing - just wack some 45 Kw into it until it's jumping out of the pot, turn off the induction driver and pour it. No issues with flow this time but it did show the the floor istn't level !
Now I need to source some aluminium alloy scrap - I had huge pile of ingots before I moved here - they all went to the scrap yard to avoid having to store them - so now I'm looking for clean engine / gearbox / castings to replenish my stocks.
It's mighty fine just being able to start the generator and bore hole cooling system, kick off the Induction Furnace and produce molten metal on demand with very little fuss and bother and pretty quickly.
On the Generator I did notice a minor diesel leak on a fitting on the feed from the tank to the lift pump - just a drip but I need to sort it - don't want to return from a melt to find the generator on fire :bugeye: Of course the tank shut off valve is stuck firmly open so I'll let everything cool down and probably tackle it tomorrow. It's the type with a taper core, so it probably just needs a tap in the right direction to free it but not while the engine is hot I think!
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