waste oil burner

[mhirst121]

Hello all, I have recently been reading up alot of books on setting up a home foundry. I will be using mostly aluminium and may venture to brass and bronze. Anyway, I would like to research a little more into waste oil burners. Does anyone use one? and did where did you get the plans to build one?

cheers,
MartinH

 

[IronHorse]

One of my Auto mechanics has one of those in his shop, it looks dangerous, especially after he showed me a large scar on his forearm from some "unknown" type of oil that flashed back at him. He goes around to gas stations to collect the old oil. The other thing to consider is the effect on the enviroment, can't be too good.


IronHorse

 

[woodnut]

The Backyard metal casting site of Sir Lionel has lots of good info and plans. http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

John.

 

[ShedBoy]

I have a waste oil burner which is extremely basic. It is loosely based on Lionel brute oil burner, starts on gas to get the refractory hot then it just throws oil at the hot interior where it ignites. makes alot of heat but some more temp control would be good. Check out my thread Shedboys furnace you can see it in some pics. Have a look at

http://www.alloyavenue.com/vb/forum.php?s=88eba2904b411a6c03a68bd37585186c

I lurk around this site getting all sorts of good info. I am going to build a spray type burner next, maybe a bebbington.
Brock

 

[mh121]

Thanks for the replies, I think It may be prudent to start off with a propane burner and move to oil if required. Thanks for the link to the forum shedboy, I had not come across that site before, lots more reading to digest.

Cheers,
MartinH

 

[JorgensenSteam]

I looked at oil burners when I was setting up my foundry, and after reading about them, I decided to use a 100 lb. propane tank.

For smaller melts, you can use one or two 20 lb. tanks, you may have to change from one tank to another if the tank gets too cold and won't allow vaporization.

The whole deal of storing oil, potentially spilling it, the oily residue on the crucibles and inside of the furnace, etc. is not appealing.

Propane with an efficient burner is just not very expensive.
You should be able to quickly recover the higher cost of a more efficient burner such as a Hybrid Burner with gas savings.

The waste oil really needs to be filtered, and should you get water in the system, it will probably explode when it hits the furnace. That was my biggest concern with waste oil.

You really need to atomize waste oil, and probably need to spray it through a nozzle with compressed air.

Waste oil is way to complex for me for home castings.

 

[ShedBoy]

I get no residue on my crucibles, when hot enough it burns completely. As for the straining the oil I have a 40mm hole going into my storage tank tha has some perforated sheet with 2.5mm holes, this strains out any big lumps. I pressurise my tank to about 5psi when in use and the orifice where it comes out is about 3mm. I find that if I use oil from a sump it has been filtered its whole life in the car and if you keep your oil tray clean when you dump it from your car it will stay quite clean. As for holding oil this is not needed because you don't need much, I have melted about 10kg of aluminium and only about half way through my first 9l tank of oil, So unless you plan on melting all day you do not need to stockpile old oil your car will produce enough. I had problems with my gas bottles freezing trying to get enough heat to get the temps I wanted but Bez was telling me he has a good simple design for a gas one. Hint Bez Hint.

Brock

 

[Jonpalt]

Hi,
Would a Babbington burner design work?
Best Regards,
Jonathan

 

[Shemuwel]

I've built one. It is a 2 1/2" pipe with a 1/4 inch copper pipe coming into it 2-3 inches back. Then I have 312 cfm leaf blower connected to the opposed end. The oil comes in the copper pipe with gravity feed. It is extremely simple and it works great. You have to preheat furnace with propane first.