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ShedBoy

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Had half a furnace sitting around for a while now and got sick of seeing it outside the shed door. Time to make a start. Had an old edger frame th was going to the tip next trip so it was used for wheels, handle bars and what ever else required of it. The body is a water pressure vessel from a header pump about 480mm round.
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Here it is on wheels
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From the driving position
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Put some reinforcement in for the refractory lining, former for the drain hole
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This is the former for the inner.
I have got to get the cement mixer out to pour a slab for an aviary so I will mix after that and start tamping it in. I am using a local made product I got from Potters World in Perth only $60 a 25kg bag. Sila 165 good for 1650 degrees celcius so iron should be okay. I have nearly got a propane burner finished aswell and parts for an oil burner, just need to go to the tip to get some more parts.
Question for the masses;
The refractory says to mix only 3% water by weight, does that mean 25000 grams of refractory needs 750gram of water?
Will this mix okay in a cement mixer or is it a mix by hand job?

Brock
 
Shed boy
750 cc water is correct and using a mixer will make life a lot easier
 
Is cc the same as millilitres. Both of these are volume not mass. Normal cement mixer or will a glue mixer in a bucket be better? Anyone know what some of play time I will have with this stuff.

Brock
 
It won't set up real fast, leastwise the stuff I used didn't. you'll have plenty of time to ram it up.

gbfurn3.jpg
 
You are correct Shedboy , 1cc =1ml. 1000cc of water equals one litre equals one kilogram. (pure water room temp at sea level etc etc). The mix would be a bit on the dry side so to get a really good mix a cement mixer is the go
 
Thanks for clarifying that. The lid is done now with a hinge. Mixing today, should be fun. Gas burner is done to. Pics later.

Brock
 
I HATE REFRACTORY CEMENT :mad: I don't think the woman who sold it to me had any idea about %s of water. There is no way 3% was going to do anything! Ended up at about 10% and it was still dryish but at least it held together. Still needed alot of ramming to get it to go in. Then I was hitting it with rubber mallet and the centre former started floating hence the bricks. Help from her indoors worked wonders why I found some weights to put on it.
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The end product.
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Got a burner sorted too. Should be good. It burns real nice once I put that bellmouth on the end of it.
For those of you inthe Perth region There is another place called Furnace Technologies who can supply material or a cast refractory which just needs housing at quite reasonable prices. He has lots of moulds and a bin out in the carpark which has old fire bricks in it.
Fingers crossed And we will see when I unwrap it next week then we can cook it. There is a certain process which I got from the furnace tech bloke.
http://www.furnace-technologies.com.au/index.html

Brock
 
I have named the beast Davey because it is a davey pump product and it is already written on it. I tried the gas burner in the previous post but it took an hour to melt 500g of aluminium so I made a new burner. This puppy is simple and runs on wste motor oil. I had a great day at the tip, found a gas bottle to use as a storage tank for the oil, some waste oil and a set of oxy and aceteylene regs with a handpiece. If anyone wants a free handpiece one of them little ones send me a pm. Pics of the oil burner because the first burner was a let down.
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Gas start up
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Add oil
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Hot in there
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On oil itself
Davey can now melt about 1kg of ali in 15 minutes from a cold start. I will post burner details later. Need to make some pattern plates.
Thanks for looking
 
tel, can i ask where abouts you got your refractory cement from? i live relatively close to you (blue mountains) and have been looking for some of the stuff for quite a while without any luck.
 
I have been runing it more and it runs better with more height on the oil tank, my need a bigger oil feed pipe in the burner. I need to make a decent handle for the lid because grabing it with multi grips is not too good :-[ lost all the hairs off the back of my hands. All in all I am impressed with the burner. Made some ali muffins. Got some steel to make a cope and drag tomorrow and have found the first pattern I am going to make. It will be the block for a twin cylinder steam engine in a copy of interesting projects from the first year of model craftsmen magazine 1933. Should be fun and I will have the patterns to make more if needed. Bowl turning lathe building tomorrow.

Brock
 
Just been rummaging around in the tip a work (I seem to spend alot of time in tips) and stumbled on a mine of scrap ali. They have just done the pistons and liners on a large generator so I now have 3 hunge pistons on the way to my house. I reckon they are about 4kg a piece.

Brock
 
kye said:
tel, can i ask where abouts you got your refractory cement from? i live relatively close to you (blue mountains) and have been looking for some of the stuff for quite a while without any luck.

Sorry for the delay Kye - missed your post somehow! I get the refractory, and bentonite, and fireclay and heaps of other goodies from Victoria, at Potter's Needs in Oberon - 'bout a 45 min drive for me, but well worth the trip!

http://pottersneeds.com.au/
 
Made a flask today :) I am getting closer to making something out of molten metal.
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The whole lot put together
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The locating pins
I made it out of steel because I am going to melt iron one day. Got to find some sand tomorrow and pick up some bentonite.

Brock
 
I took the advice of Bez and tried to cast some wheels for my furnace because the original plastic ones were going to melt before long. The rain cleared for long enough to wheel Davey out for a melt and we had no welder so got to a bit of a wall with the bowl lathe so my mate said lets melt something. A large cummins piston was on the menu and I used the wheel as the pattern, just filled one side with sand dropped it on a bed of san then rammed around it.Camera was flat when the furnace was started so I did not get any photos of the process. But i got some finished photos. I just used an open mould and poured it in.
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On on spot the sand was stuck to the pattern but I could not be bothered ramming it again.
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About 1 1/2 kg of ali in it. 3 pound to yu who are scared of metric.
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I put it in the lathe and smoothed the outside to see how it looked. Turns out it was not to bad. Really happy with the sand but I have a list of more things I need to make the process smooother. I added no clay to the sand because my research into soil sample from the area it came from had the clay content at about 7%. Just need to get a better surface finish but for a first atempt I am really happy. Rain came back before I had time to cast another.
Brock
 
excellent...and welcome to casting..... :) finer finishes are hard to acheive..... commercially the moulds are pressed with about 20 ton pressure all over!!! hard to acheive by hand..... petro sand produces a finer finsh....however its very expensive and you have to sift out all the burnt sand. :) it doesnt however take long to knock a rough casting into shape with a grinder ready for machining. :)
 
In my search for more heat I decided to make a dedicated blower with speed control. Found a smashed up garden blower and removed the internals and went to work.
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Might add a cover to them holes
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Tada one blower total cost 3 hours, with the use of my hot wire dimmer I can control the speed. :)
That seemed too easy, I can see bronze on the horizon.
Thanks for looking in
Brock
 
i can not see the pics.is my computer not working well or my internet connection failed? ???
 

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