Tools, Glorious Tools! #3 - Home Shop Foundry: The Furnace
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Hey Folks,
By request the full detail on my furnace, please enjoy!
Cheers,
Chris.
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A very special thank you to Patrons:
Sinking Valley Woodworks (www.sinkingvall...)
Glenn Trewitt
Mike Manfrin
Christopher Warnock
Guy Loughridge
Charles Frodsham & Co.
Peter John Richardson
Adam Slagle
Tim Bray
Dan Keen
Samuel Irons
Sean Kuyper
Matteo Neville
Daniel Cohen
Larry Pardi
Olof Haggren
Stassinopoulos Thomas
Florian Ragwitz
Andrew Smith
Bernd Fischer
Sam Towne
Jack Cause
Jeremiah G. Mort
Andre van Soest
Matthew Middleton
Thomas Veilleux
Dave Seff
Robin Haerens
L'Enfant Watch Company
C. A. Patrick Voigt
Mark Coburn
Bogdan Dan
Steven R. Crider
Gary Levario
Pete Askew
Jeff Armstrong
Rudolph Bescherer Jr
Robert Petz
Ralph McCoy
Jim Popwell
Kaedenn
Bradley Pirtle
Alan Carey
PaxAndromeda
John A McCormick
Thomas Eriksen
Michael Hardel
Tim Ball
Dominik Rogala
Xanadu-King
Eric Witte
Peter
Grant Michener
Jonathan Teegarden
Steve Hossner
RuKiddin06
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Furnace Dimensions:
Outside shell constructed from 0.8mm mild steel sheet, with spot weld joins. For the inside insulation details, refer to video.
Lid - Outside shell 330mm x 50mm, with a center hole in the top of 100mm OD. The actual OD of the exhaust hole is further reduced to approx 60mm after application of insulation/ITC100.
Body - Outside shell 330mm x 230mm. Central cavity has diameter of approx 220mm after application of insulation/ITC100.
Base - Outside shell 330mm x 90mm, with diameter of cast channel = 220mm. The Plinth OD is 150mm, giving a channel width of 35mm.
Regulator
BOC Gases 6000 LPG Regulator www.boc.com.au...
Brass Fittings for the Reil Burner
Hose Barb to Female (Parker product code: 126HBL-4-2) amzn.to/2u0lCVo
End Cap (Parker product code: 213P-2) www.mscdirect....
Long Nipple (Parker product code: 215PNL-2-30) amzn.to/2FNF11m
Steel Fittings for the Reil Burner
¾" Black Coupling www.supplyhouse...
1½" x ¾" Black Reducing Coupling amzn.to/3D21LFg
¾ " x 6" Black Pipe Nipple amzn.to/3Tw6Exy
1 ½" Close Black Pipe Nipple amzn.to/3CWNF8s
Refractory, Insulation & Crucible
1400C Castable Refractory consolidatedre...
1400C Ceramic Fiber Blanket (25mm) consolidatedre...
ITC100 (High performance hot face ceramic) sourced from www.pinches.com.au
Salamander A-6 SUPER Clay Graphite Morgan Melting Crucible: amzn.to/2pkVAak
Ingot Moulds: amzn.to/2pfpgWz
Fiberfrax Rigidiser (Colloidal Silica ceramic wool rigidiser) www.unifrax.co...
Sodium Silicate(High temperature adhesive) bacto.com.au/i...
Rubbedin Hot Spot Mortar 1400C (For tuning the tuyere) rubbedin.com.a...
Petrobond Sand: amzn.to/3TPESvx
References:
The Ron Reil Burner design: www.abana.org/...
The Navy Foundrymans Handbook: archive.hnsa.or...
John Campbells Casting Books, eg The Ten Rules Of Casting Practice: amzn.to/2HF3VfL
Backyardmetalcasting: www.backyardmet...
Thehomefoundry: forums.thehomef...
Mr Pete: • FOUNDRY CASTING Making...
luckygen1001: • Furnace dimensions, an...
myfordboy: • Metal Casting at Home ...
Jeff Williams: • MELT STUFF - How to Ma...
FZ- making knives: • How To Make The Metal ...
Lundgren Bronze Studios: • Making a keg foundry f...
VOGMAN: • SIMPLE Homemade Metal ...
Corporals Corner: • The Cast Masters Elite...
eddie2799: • Homemade Propane Found...
Black Beard Projects: • I Made a BIG Furnace t...
bigstackD Casting: • Devil Forge 10 kg Ligh...
Don Brandt: • Building a 170k BTU Pr...
Lost & Foundry: • Greensand Foundry Pouring
Lunarburn Studio: • 5 things to consider b...
swdweeb: • Building a professiona...
Brian Oltrogge: • FIRE-KEG Foundry Furna...
Make it Extreme: • Metal Melting Furnace
Mr. Craft: • How to make gas burne...
FarmCraft101: • Making a Foundry Furna...
Mateusz Doniec: • Piec do topienia metal...
... and many more builds that I've seen but don't recall precisely where - thank you!
I think at least part of why that lump of mortar works to hold the flame in place is because it makes the main jet of gas detach from the bottom of the furnace just behind it. This creates a turbulent recirculating zone with low flow velocity just behind the lump, where the flame can stay despite the main gas flow being faster than the flame velocity.
It's a somewhat similar mechanism to how the flame holder in a jet engine works.
Came here to say this. It is exactly the same principle as a jet engine flame holder.
@@rocketplane8862 It's a vortex generator, basically.
I just felt a tremor rock the foundation of my world: I heard Chris utter the words, "I had a metal fabricator make... "
I really like how your design removes the need for an extra tool. By being able to lift it from the side, you don’t need to take the extra step of rearranging tongs. The best part is no part.
Love this stuff! Thanks for the video!
Low thermal mass is a huge pro.. don't have to wait days to bring it back inside to store
Mine lives permanently outside because of this. DAP castable refractory is magic but it has crazy thermal capacity and is still burn-hot many many hours later.
Clearly the next step is to start digging holes in your backyard and mine and refine some ore! Good stuff!
Clickspring meets Primitive Technology. It’s gonna be beautiful.
@@mitchstilborn well, they do live in the same town, so it might happen. Hell they might even be the same person. One never talks, the other never shows his face...
Time for trip to Cody's Lab
Since you are capable to melt copper, it could be interesting to make your own aluminium bronzes. This stuff is expensive but an amazing bushing material and resitant to corrosion in saltwater
Not exactly, aluminum bronzes can indeed be quench hardened like we do with steel, BUT it needs additives to keep good properties. Also the amount of aluminum will dictate its hardenability and overall toughness at very high precision (for exemple an 8% aluminum can't be hardened, a 9% can, and you should never go above 13%)
For controlling the grain size and the phases, you need to add iron, nickel (nickel should be at least as much as iron), and sometimes other additives. Each ratio will give drastically different properties, down to a percent of modification.
A well made aluminum bronze can be forged, i do forge aluminum bronze sometimes, but it's a PAIN and requires extensive training in temperature control.
Aluminum bronzes usually have their melting point at around 1100 degrees celsius (so with the nickel and iron), but beacause aluminum melts at a lower temp, it will destabilize the alloy at high temperatures, making it crumble if not forged properly.
So basically he can make his own alloys, but working with them is a whole other set of skills
They are expensive for a reason
@@jeanladoire4141 I'll second this. At my work we have a casthouse that does large quantities of aluminium in a number of different alloys. We have a pair of spectrometers to analyze every batch that is made or to adjust the alloy mixture before pouring. To adjust the alloy we have over a dozen different materials, material combinations and fluxes to add or remove certain elements from the alloy, some of which need to be timed correctly. We need all this to stay within standardised alloy tolerances.
I'm no expert on this because I work on mechanical problems, but I do know that producing a proper alloy is no joke.
Most hobby casters think that making aluminum bronze is adding aluminum to copper. Mostly they are interested in decorative castings that don't have any requirement when it comes to actual physical properties. But if the end product does require specific physical properties then it really does matter having the correct ingredients and combined properly.
@@tinayoga8844 well yeah but it's a shame, tempered bronze is surprisingly hard and tough (i can shave off pieces of steel from a sheet of mild steel)
With the epoxy, I suggest leaving the excess on the paper beside the project. That way you can check the paper for hardness instead of the item being bonded.
Removing the slag is so satisfying.
The other thing is since the furnace will wear out, having a lot of leftover supplies to make more is a good thing. It is also recommended for melting at higher temps to put cardboard under the crucible to prevent sticking.
There are few things to make it even better.
On my furnace I added a metal grill to preheat the metal scrap and use up the exiting heat to remove the moisture prior to charging the crucible. Also, my crucible is lifted from the base on a small metal "stool" made from rebar to prevent the loss of heat through thermal bridge to the bottom. This thing with the lump of mortar is very smart.
BigStackD has a whole channel based around casting from a home furnace. It was cool to see your furnace set up compared to his. I think the 3 piece design does have a few benefits
His setup is one produced by someone else, too.
His stuff is metal melting asmr crack, every post ya gotta watch
@@thaphreak 8 hours or less til his next vid
Was about to comment this myself, I was suddenly wondering if Big Stacked and Clickspring have ever had a chat.
@@thaphreak 100% agree
Very nice build, one place to find smaller amounts of furnace building materials is at a pottery and ceramics supply. They usually have everything needed and are used to catering to hobbyists.
The postit note for epoxy.... GENIUS
Isn't it? I use a bit of packing tape slapped on the workbench.
A tip about the burner -- with sheet metal ("flare") wrapped around the tip of the pipe, the, I think turbulence from the step, as the flow goes from pipe ID to OD to air, makes an effective flame stabilizer. I've built burners of this design which are stable down to a trickle of propane -- comparable to the flow rates of residential natural gas stoves, but with much simpler (read: not an array of holes) geometry!
So, a strip of sheet metal, long enough to wrap around the pipe OD, and about two ODs wide, so it sticks out about one OD. You can use spring force alone to hold it in place, or hold it with a hose clamp. It will of course get very crispy inside the furnace; a tight-fitting tuyere serves the same purpose.
An additional mod I've seen some people make is to drill and tap the hole in the pipe for a gas nipple that can be replaced to adjust the hole size.
Gosh if I may?
I used to cast precious metals as as a precious metals fabricator (bullion, bars, and blocks) and some things that may help your cast are:
- put a layer of carbon on your moulds with a yellow oxidising flame after you've heated them up to evaporate moisture. You'll be able to then just tip the metal out immediately after it is set. Your moulds will live longer.
- if you can - which I know is not really possible on your own with a 2 handed pour unless you have a second person - but keep a flame on the molten metal at all times. In the crucible, pour stream, and mould; and keep it on there as it sets. You'll get a muuuuuch better result with very little sinkhole.
I made my own water glass using 100% silica gel kitty litter. Add it to perlite potting material with sand. Cheap and great casting material. It even makes great briquettes for the propane barbecue! 👍 😃
Molten metals are so beautiful. A mostly pure element holding a huge amount of energy, losing it rather rapidly and changing forms.
Nice ingots, definitely much better than what Ea Nasir provides.
One addition you may like to look into is a flashback arrestor.
Great video as usual. 👍
i've watched a lot of melting/casting channels. the ability to lift off the main body and then pick up the crucible using the same tool you'd use to pour with seems like a huge time/effort saver!
Such a complicated thrill seeing Clickspring using JB Weld; I have so many memories of using JB for janky farmer fixes, and if you told me Clickspring was going to use epoxy, I'd assume he'd make it from scratch, lol.
Give Big Stack D a call . He'll put you right on the finer aspects of pouring cast metal ... namely , opening beer and saluting the flag , seeing what the boys are up to and the esoteric choice of socks .
alternative design options, mine has a T above the reducer and the gas pipe goes in line from a hole in top, i use a MIG tip for gas port and on side of T i have metal flaps to regulate air. having a bell reducer for a flame keeper also helped mine maintain velocity
Looks like the modular nature of it also means you don't have to switch the hot crucible between a pair of lifting tongs and the pouring tongs.
Thanks for the voice over. Makes the videos so much better. Keep up the good work.
Sticky notes for mixing epoxy. Brilliant!
Great explanation, it makes it easy to see why my own home built furnace isn't very efficient. Thanks
Put the epoxy in the kitchen oven at 50°~80° and it will cure in a few hours.
For the furnace , you can also consider the use of precast chimney components, refractory tiles and bricks that are use to make outdoor ovens and fired clay drainage pipes.
I designed and constructed a firebox for my indoor wood burner. The box was laser cut 8mm steel plate and I lined it with refractory cement tiles 270mm x 270mm intended for pizza ovens.
The tiles were $3 each as opposed to the ones from firebox manufacturers which were closer to $20 each and smaller dimensionally.
The refractory cement is easy to cut and drill.
Please don't put JB Weld (or any other epoxies) in your kitchen oven.
@@scottwilliams895 tbh he deserves it lol
This kind of high quality no-nonsense description of a furnace build is perfect for hobbyists looking to learn
Very nice design! Being able to remove the mid-section to have an easier access to the crucible I think would make a huge impact on safety.
Your videos inspire me to be creative.
Best JB weld job ever 😂
Awesome as always.
Finally this guy's doing something that most of us can relate too( jb weld it)
Great video, with enough information to replicate the burner and furnace. Also a pleasure to hear your voice again, Chris!
Was wondering where my cable off-cuts went. Nice ingots. Cheers.
Gday Chris, that’s a great setup being modulated, perfect for the homeshop, thanks for sharing mate, cheers
I love the easy listening jazz music
Hmm. You could drill the brass pipe nipple to accept carburetor jets so you could have an easily-adjustable gas flow rate.
Hi Chris,
I'd be keen on hearing how your furnace has held up so far. What (and how much) have you put through it?? Comments on the size and efficiency of your furnace?? Pros and Cons??
I'm a way off following in your footsteps but always keen to learn from others who have "been there and done that".
Soldier on buddy and keep up the good work.
Hello Harry, the furnace has now been in service several hundred hours over roughly 6 years mostly working with copper alloys and continues to work well for what I do. I have yet to find its upper limit lest it interrupt production, but its still on the to-do list. I cast fairly ad-hoc so don't have anything meaningful to say on efficiency other than its gas consumption seems reasonable to me. The only change from what's shown in the video is that I've modified the lid design slightly: I now have 4 fasteners coming in from the top that hold onto some thin mild steel straps, retaining the ceramic fiber in the lid shell a little more securely. Before I made this change the lid was slightly flexing after a long day of melts, and this was leading to the center sagging a little; the straps immediately solved the issue. I have been pleased at how little maintenance it has required. Other than the occasional patch to the lid due mishandling, its still in great condition. The base, barrel section and burner are all original from the video, no signs of wearing out any time soon - Cheers :)
Wow, Love these videos!!!!!!
Finally a long video
I love the work man 🙏❤️
Mate I love your videos and I’m always seriously impressed but you’ve made me feel stupid for not thinking to use a pack of post it notes to mix small amounts of epoxy!
I got much better performance from my propane burner when I used a Tweco tip from a MIG welder as a jet. 0.030" size if I recall correctly. Just drilled and tapped 1/4-28 and screwed it into the gas pipe. Seems like moving the jet further into the bell creates a much better venturi effect.
I really do enjoy your tool episodes! The regular content is mesmerizing and beautiful but the tool episodes are interesting in a different way and really fun too.
Another great video! Thanks so much for making it!
You said nipple!! Awesome content as usual.
My assumption with how the hump works is the low pressure zone on the back side, combined with the small vortices generated by its rough shape. Force the air to follow the wall. Kinda similar to votex generators.
Side note for ya chris! If you ever need some more ooph for your forge you can always attach a blower to the end of that pipe and go forced air. Love all the work you do brother 🧡
Beautiful video! Thank you for sharing how you've created your furnace. Its really useful to have an idea on what is achievable in the home shop in the line of melting metals.
Simple, effective and efficient
Best Home Furnace I have seen so far.
The modularity has so many benefits.
Again, a great video.
Excited to see more of ClickStackD Casting.
Excellent video Chris. This furnace will be a great addition to your work shop and it’ll be interesting to see what you make with the ingots. Thanks for sharing.
Tack!
A great way to reform my I’ll-gotten pirate booty! Arrrg! Great video, Thanks
mate you're a legend, doing such an awesome brekadown vid, i'm in brissy and expect to be looking back to your vids when it comes to setting up my workshop once it's up and running to make sure i've got what i need to do a fraction of the cool stuff that you do.
Beautiful work on this furnace! I feel inspired! I've been saving up my copper and brass, and have probably 40 pounds total that needs melting...
Just beautiful
I like the modular design. It really makes grabing the crucible so easy. I can only get 1001°c out of mine. My burner is a passive air mix burner, too. I want to add an impeller mixing chamber. I believe that will get me the temperature I want. I made a huge mistake when I made my first furnace. I let the guy at the supplier talk me into a different setup.
I was going to go with the keg refractory cement design. Small and easy. But I ended up with bricks surrounded by 2 layers of wool. It's too big and takes so long to cool. A huge waste of money.
First! yes! ... Another great vid Chris. Keep up the great work!
If some of you wish to make your own diy furnace, there are a bunch of small industrial oven maker companies, they are more than happy to sell you ceramic fibers, heat proof concrete or anything you need to build your own furnace
Chill as always to watch.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing Chris.
Brilliant! Looking forward to seeing what those ingots turn into...
Goog points Chris. I've made a few of these furnaces over the years and big ones are pain if you don't need them. Heavyt to move around, next to impossible to lift and take a lot gas and time to heat up. Also lining the furnace like you did to improve the efficiency is something I would do in retrospect to reduce heat up time and gas consumption.
2:55 mixing epoxy on a post-it note is genius.
I’ve been wanting to build one of these for a long time, and I like many things about this design, but I’ll wait for the long term update.
Yay :-) the perfect finish to my hectic day, a seriously well made video from Chris
Great stuff Chris, thanks for the video.
FYI: Sodium Silicate is also called Waterglass
I always wondered how you built your foundry and this answered a lot of questions. Thanks for making and sharing this.
This is not a foundry. It is a Furnace. A foundry is a place where metal casting is done. A furnace is one of the items used in a foundry.
Chris, Absolutely fantastic video. You have mastered the art of great content creation with brilliant videography.
Pure lvl 10 satisfaction , cheers Chris
Great video Chris!
I'll be right back.... Goes to home Depot.... Thank you sir.
Hey Chris, something I wanted to ask is if you've considered adding an extra (thin) layer of the ceramic fiber to the base and lid around the edge to create a flexible seal? It doesn't look like your furnace components seat together very well at the edges, so a bit of the ceramic fiber should provide for a bit of a better seal than the hardened ceramic that is needed on the internal walls of the furnace.
If you don't have a sheet metal guy, you can bend the same ring using the LPG cylinder to bend it around.
Thanks Chris, i need an lpg burner, thats a nice simple solution 👍
Congratulations
I already loved these videos but now, after seeing him use a sticky note for the jb weld - you sir just got a patreon.
Your fellow Aussie BigStackD would be proud of your setup.
If the holes in the bell are positioned right, the epoxy is not needed. Tightening the pipe nipple against the brass tube holds it in place.
Pity you had to buy so much to build this, but at least you can rebuild/repair as needed or build bigger as desired. I love the simple modular design; that alone makes it a hard design to beat for the average bloke who wants a one-off casting. Thanks for the video!
The jumping of the flame from the initial opening to the rear of the bump should be explainable by Bernoulli's principle. The gas expansion, and thereby the slowdown, in the initial opening is enough for pressures below X psi but exceeds the sustainable speed once above X psi. At this point the turbulance and further expansion of the air/fuel mixture behind the bump "catches" the flame.
Just for fun: maybe add a second bump and see if you can get another jump with even higher pressures
A regulator will pay for itself very quickly it will make a tank of feul last 3 to 5 times longer, great video..
It's good to see this again. My first furnace used solid fuel (charcoal), it worked, lots of fun. Thanks for posting!
Mixing the JB Weld on the Post It notes was brilliant! I wish I would've thought of that years ago
Thank you for another very high quality video. Please, pretty please keep them coming.
Awesome furnace!
Great video!
Definitely a interesting idea, I was thinking about making one myself but I was going to put the burner in the middle piece so the ring on the bottom could be used to catch molten metal if a crucible cracked or blew out. But my three piece was going to be a forge and furnace, so there is that consideration, for the design difference.
Removable side is quite handy.
sounds like you should make a bunch of them and sell them if you have a ton of left over materials, I'd buy one!
Man , that was a smooth but informative video
Very nice.
Next stop, custom alloys!
I didn't quite catch just what it was that you had to buy a lifetime supply of, but I'd suggest you offset the overpurchase by becoming a retailer for those materials - I'll bet you'd have no problem finding buyers through your subscribers here who've also desired to get into this kind of work.
Cast some tungsten for us!!! Just kidding. What an awesome video. This is a keeper because I'll be using this information later. Thanks, Chris!!!
Interesting that it can easily be repaired.