Building a diesel burner how hard can it be
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Can I build a metal melting furnace burner that doesn't use an air compressor or require a propane preheat cycle? There's got to be a way.
Here are the links to the parts I used to build my burner
Blower - www.amazon.com...
Check valve - www.amazon.com...
Nozzle - www.amazon.com...
Pump - www.amazon.com...
1/4" nipple - www.homedepot....
Adapter - Apparently Amazon no longer stocks the adapter. Search for Delavan, Inc. 287383 Long Female 1/4" Thread Nozzle Adapter and you should find one.
Help keep the videos ad free and purchase many of the items you see in the video at plmfoundries.com
Visit me on Instagram at / realswdweeb
I get asked about the moisture content of my sand. I have settled on a ratio of about 2 liters of sand and 36-42ish ml of water for my ratio. I start with sand that is dry.
#beablessing #metalcasting
I made a drip burner 15 years ago. When it was running well the heat was downright terrifying. I was afraid the radiant heat would catch my fence on fire-and the fence was 10 feet away! When it wasn’t running well, it looked like a plane had crashed in my back yard. Clouds of black smoke. The neighbors were not impressed. 😂 But I’m very impressed at how far people have brought the oil burner idea since those days. Well done.
Thank you. Yeah, mine is so bloody hot I had to put the furnace on a cart that O could wheel out onto the driveway away from the house. I almost built a drip burner and know a couple of guys that still run them.
Well, thanks for the how-to. I may end up building one of these for making crucible steel.
@@matthbva The one mistake I have made is the volume of my furnace is disproportionately large as compared to the size of the crucible. As a result I end up having to heat a lot of space before the metal melts. I've tried putting the crucible in the path of the flame and that helps but having a "tighter" furnace would be a big help.
Excellent -design -instructions - parts list - demonstration - just excellent!
Thanks. Hope it makes someone's life easier. 😄
Nice set up Perry. Even with neutral flame and the door cracked, it'd be a good idea to get yourself a CO monitor running that indoors. Stay safe man. Best, Kelly
Thanks Kelly, That's an easy safety precaution I can do
Seriously, I am a little speechless... I will watch this a couple more times and try to digest it all... Never in my wildest dreams did I think that diesel would get that hot...
The other thing about it that surprised me was how cl an it burns
Good work. It might become a bit better by having some adjustment for the fuel pump.
I've since added a higher pressure fuel pump and you're right, it is better.
Hey you’re welcome buddy! Glad my video could be of some assistance to you 👍🏻 are you having any more trouble with copper now?
Nope, copper melts just fine now.
Nice presentation!
No excuses, no more delays.
It is MELTING time.
Been melting a lot more since I got the muller and this burner dialed on.
Love the burner, simple but very effective. I wish I wound have seen this before building my burner that is a lot more complicated and more expensive. Thanks for video.
That's a bummer. This burner was about 6-8 months in the making. A lot of thought and discussion went into it. I could have never built it without the intellectual help of multiple people.
There are pros and cons to every design. The pros of the pressurized atomizers are a quick startup, as shown. This is pretty much the design that all the Beckett burners use in the northeast for home heating, though you see some diesel water heaters with the same burner elsewhere. They have the motor, blower and pump all on the same shaft and run an electric arc (traditionally with a 10KV/23mA oil ignition transformer) through the fuel spray so that they are being ignited 120 times per second and have an electric eye (CDS cell) that sees if the flame goes out and controls to shut it off (so the burner doesn’t keep pumping unlit/unburnt fuel into the combustion chamber). This design is a simplified version of a Beckett burner and I imagine if you could find a commercial one on the used market, you could simply strap it to the side of your furnace and go. The pumps for becket burners typically top out at 2.5 gallons per hour, so I got three of them and 3 sets of 2.5 gph nozzles years ago before I settled on the drip burner that I was using which could go through 7.5 gph. The Achilles heel of pressurized atomization setups is that the orifices in the nozzles are so small, they are easy to clog. So you HAVE to have clean fuel. Gas station diesel in a sparkly clean new tank means you probably won’t have any problems. I would probably still run it through a filter that filters down to a half the size of your smallest passage in microns, particularly if you experiment with fuels of an unknown pedigree or even from dirty containers as it only takes a tiny speck of dirt. The nozzles often have sintered metal mesh filters built into the back of them, but not foolproof. This also means you can’t use WMO unless you filter the heck out of it or run it through a centrifuge and preheat it to get the viscosity down (or cut it 50/50 with a lighter oil like diesel). The Beckett burners will often use pumps by Suntec but they are usually rated for Number 2 oil (diesel) and lower (thinner). The A2RA7710 model will pump #4 oil (waste motor oil) if anyone wants to experiment. These Suntec pumps are all designed for continuous duty and will put out 100 psi (at the low volumes mentioned). My Beckett burners run at around 80 psi, IIRC.
Another point worth mentioning- The nozzles aren’t just rated for a max pressure, they are DESIGNED to run at a certain pressure, and if they don’t get it, the atomization will be poor- (this is covered in the literature and there are special more expensive hybrid nozzles that are designed for a wider turn down ratio that work well under a varying input pressure) . In a furnace, you can get away with poor atomization to some degree because there’s so much heat to vaporize any fuel that hasn’t been atomized well. This is essentially what a drip burner is- very low atomization. In practice, this is a misnomer as it doesn’t drip- the fuel gets ripped out of the end of the fuel pipe and atomized by the air, often assisted by necking the air pipe down to speed up the air and that effect, but it still doesn’t work nearly as well as with these nozzles, so it relies on existing heat in the furnace to vaporize bigger droplets of fuel that it doesn’t atomize well. This is a catch-22 for startup, as mentioned. I would still consider putting a pressure gauge somewhere between the pump output and nozzle T’d into the line. Then you can tell if your nozzle is clogging and creating unusual backpressure or if the fuel pump is not up to the task. The longevity and performance of pumps used off-label is unproven, but I hope it works because new Suntec pumps are between $80 and $130 each (and then you also have to buy the motor and coupler)
Good stuff, thank you
Oil burner nozzle's are rated at 100 psi, that fuel pump may deliver 4-6 psi max. If you up the pressure, you can reduce the nozzle size. This is why you need such a large nozzle rating, because your psi is low. It works, that is the main thing.
I've since added a 100psi pump. I've also dropped the nozzle size down since doing that
What did you bring the nozzle size down to? I am planning on using a oil gun from a furnace.
@@gjkozySorry I havent gotten back to you yet. I want to get you the correct information and havent been able to get to the burner to check it. I'm pretty sure I went from 2.5 GPH to 2.0 GPH but I want to check the nozzle I pulled out and the one that is in the burner. I could probably drop it a bit further to something like 1.75 but havent had the time to play with it.
Lots of good ideas there Perry. Looks like it is running efficiently. You have some good friends!
Indeed I do. You might even know one of them 😄
Great video mate, I like your simple explanations for everything. I’m looking to build a diesel burner in the near future. Thanks for your attention to detail. Take care, Kris.
Hey I'm a simple guy, simple is what I do best 😄😄
Thanks Kris for letting me know you appreciated the video. I hope it helps.
Moving up a little more. Bet that saves you a lot of time not having to deal with freezing propane tanks! Thanks for the video. Always like watching your videos. Good day sir!
Thanks, it's certainly less hassle
Great video. You are making me sort of want to switch to diesel.
sort of??? 😄😄
Congratulations Perry. R&D paid off big time. I'm definitely doing this too. Preso.
R&D, experimentation, multiple trials,... it's all part of the fun of learning and getting it working. I'm really happy with it. I need to fabricate some sort of trolley that I can mount the blower and switches on to eliminate wires running all over the floor. It might be nice to put the fuel tank on it as well. Probably need/want to shield the tank from the furnace some how.
Looking forward to your fully anodized and powder coated version 😄😄😄
Interesting. Diesel and gas are about the same price as each other here as well - but more expensive than you pay - around $2 Australian a litre (nearly 10 bucks a gallon), but diesel is currently an easier fuel to buy and store...
When I bought my diesel truck in 1998 diesel was cheaper than gasoline here in the States. Within a few months the prices switched and diesel has been more expensive that gasoline ever since. It's crazy!
havent seen anything else quite like this on youtube, great video man, keep it up!
Yeah, I'm the best kept secret out there. 😄
Thanks for sharing your ideas nice build.
No problem. I hope it helps others if they want to attempt something besides propane
Hi Perry, Great presentation. I mainly cast bronze. I, like you, started with propane and am able to get the heat I need. I did have issues with tanks freezing and was able to solve it by manfolding several tanks together. However, I'm tried of running to get tanks refilled. My furnace is near, only 8' away from my natural gas supply line so I 'm considering building a natural gas burner. ( what my first furnace was some 30 years ago).The one reason I started with propane was to be portable. So, I was excited to see this video! perfect solution to be portable. I really appreciate your listing all the parts and how it went together. You're the best!!
Cheers,
Bob
Thanks Bob. I really thought about natural gas but running the pipe would have been a lot of elbows. I have been experiencing problems with the check valves. I'm on my second one now and it seems to have stopped working. This leads to an unwanted siphoning effect after I've shut things down. I've recently been experiencing a lot of post-burn smoking. It never did this before and just started doing it a few weeks ago. I actually pulled the pump out of the fuel tank and the nozzle out of the burner after a melt yesterday. FAR less smoke when I did this. Something to keep in mind. - Perry
I recently started building a smelting furnace and hadn't got to the burner yet (I was going to just steal the one off my forge for a while). I'm sure glad you made this video. I love the idea of simple fuel and easy starting, i.e. no propane preheat and what-not. I mean, the whole burner is pretty simple! Just ordered the parts you listed and will be building one of these. Thanks a ton.
I'm glad the video helped. One thing that I've seen over time is I believe the check valve has failed and not only does it not stop the flow of fuel after I stop the pump but I believe it inhibits the flow of fuel to the nozzle. I think about removing it after I've fired the furnace. I need to think about it when its cold :-D Just something for you to keep an eye on.
Also, FWIW, smelting is the extraction of metal from ore. What we do is melt.
Don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions
@@swdweeb Thanks for the tip. Yeah, now that I analyze how the check valve you used would function in the fuel circuit, I can see how it's not really designed to do the function you wanted it to do, so I'm not surprised to hear the update on that. I think what I'll do to mitigate (a little bit) the problem you were trying to address is to just install a ball valve as close to the nozzle end of the fuel line as I might get away with, i.e. maybe just before it enters the air tube.
I almost have everything I need to get started. Just need to machine the adapter (I'm a machinist by trade)
My grand master plan is to assemble the burner to see if it looks like it will work and tweak until it is working properly, then start on the chamber.
A couple other things have come up to distract me this past week of course. So I'm not sure yet when I will have the chance to make progress. Hopefully not too awfully far away.
@@TyroneDamShewlaces Yeah, I think ball valve is a much better choice. Good luck with it. Let me know how it turns out
@@swdweeb Well I'm very close to finished. I used a keg for a container (just about the perfect size), 2" of ceramic wool, and a 1.5 gal/hr nozzle on the burner. We'll see if I need to try other nozzles, but it's all coming along pretty nicely. I'm glad you did the video on the burner because I love the idea for its simplicity, both in the build and the using. I need to make a few tools & stuff this weekend and should be trying my first melt next weekend. Looking forward to learning this stuff.
I tried firing my burner several times while tweaking and changing things as I went and was pretty dissatisfied with how it worked. I finally realized the fuel was just not atomizing well at all out of those nozzles (fairly sad honestly) with that little fuel pump, so purchased a larger cheap one and it got a tiny bit better, but still not good. THEN I finally grew a brain cell and decided to look up the specs for the nozzle - the manufacturer rates them for 100 psi !! AHAA!
I have a couple ideas on increasing the pressure and I'm gonna eventually get it right. Correcting the pressure is likely to improve the efficiency & performance of the burner significantly I think. I'll let you know what I learn here. If I can figure something out that doesn't cost a fortune, it might help you also to do some similar upgrade.
The revelatory factoid I've learned so far is fuel burner nozzles pretty typically run at 100 -150 psi. Knowing this, I feel optimistic now.
Looks like you have got the diesel figured out. You have out done me!
I don't know about that. I still think your burner is a work of art. I haven't forgotten the bronze I owe you.
Thank you for sharing your experience very nice and simple burner👍👍👍 i like it
It’s been working great. I’d remove the check valve and put. 1/4 turn valve in the fuel line if I did it over.
Thank you for posting this. I am guessing this would do cast iron far more readily than the propane.
I'll be joining you in the clicking valve club on Tuesday, so I am hoping to get back in the shop as soon as possible after that!
Wow Mark. Tuesday the 21st? I'm glad I had it done, I felt horrible before the surgery. Email me at swdweeb@gmail.com if you want to talk about it. From one cyborg to a soon to be another if you will 😄😄
Brilliant video as always. BUT I'm more interested in your refractory lining....looks really excellent!
Thank you sir, you might want to check out this ua-cam.com/video/iMCaic-0-hc/v-deo.html
Good job! I like seeing people build they're own tools.
I guess the next tool is to build a kiln so I can work on your project
@@swdweeb since you are having difficulties finding one it would be a good idea!
Hello Perry,
A very good and well explained video... thank you... See you on the next one...
Take care.
Paul,,
Thanks Paul. Working on the next one now.
Great build! I’m going to make one in the near future
Good luck with it. I've been really happy with mine.
Can't wait to see what you make with a crucible that fills that furnace
Maybe a partner to help me lift it 😄
The gang box was a great idea! I have a jet engine project I've been letting languish that I'm contemplating turning into a waste oil burner/forge powerplant. Probably the most overpowered hair-brained idea I've ever had, but hey, two fun projects to run simultaneously. Definitely a 'what could go wrong?' moment for the ages!
Ha! 😄😄 Words to live by indeed "what could go wrong?" If I let that stop me I'd never do anything. Good luck with it.
Good job, nice and simple design & construction, the fact you have thrown this together & got such a great result is a credit to ya. I am not an engineer, but it would be nice to know what pressure your pump puts out, with a guage maybe. I like ur ball n spring valve idea for the nozzle, this would be a way to adjust ur rail pressure to nozzle to a degree by how much force the spring puts on the ball & this could be made adjustable. My thoughts are that with higher pressures you can vaporise the fuel better and hence gets better control and efficiencies, I would suggest a higher than required pressure pump to feed ur nozzle, common rail diesels use very high pressures to gain more power and efficiency, you can also add a tee to return deisel to the tank via a needle valve for pressure reduction & fine tuning.
I see in comments ur saying u need more air to get the heat up higher & this is another thing I was wondering, if you had a better fuel/air ratio, ie: ‘the more air the better’, I would expect, if you want more heat without using a bottle of oxygen to make this happen. Should you not be able to get a nice blue or whiter flame if the mixture is right? You could cut around or drill holes around the blower air input to maybe get some more air throughput, but a DC motor driven blower would be easier to control & give a higher output also. Good vid, TFS. Cheers
I had another comment yesterday stating the same idea, that I need more pump pressure. I'm going to look into finding another pump today and see what I can do. I was thinking about the return mechanism in fuel injected cars and how I would deal with that. I appreciate your idea on the tee with a needle valve. Thank you!
I have a constant speed AC blower with a damper on it to control how much air goes into the furnace. The other comment stated that with better atomization I may not need more air.
Thanks again.
@@swdweeb thanks for getting back. I just binged the other guy’s series, he did based on ur model & design, & he got a pretty good result smelting a crucible in under 10 minutes with 2.5ltrs deisel (Aud $5), which proves that ur pump does have the grunt to do the job (just), but I do believe a higher pressure will give u better vaporisation/atomisation?, smaller particles give better ignition. I agree with the other guy that fan could supply enough air for a good combustion, IF: the vapourised or atomised particles are in the right quantities, ie; a given volume of air would require a given quantity of fuel in the right particle size for complete/efficient combustion, and that that would get easier to obtain with higher rail pressure. Ive seen turbojet engines & camping stoves run with beautiful blue flames on diesel, so I thought it must be possible to get a good clean burn for this use also, with the right tweaks. Loved ur vid & invention & Im sure you’ll get it all worked out. Cheers from Australia
@@evil17 One of the issues both Mark and I have with out burners is fuel saturating the furnace lining and then burning for a time after the burner is shut down. I thin finer atomization will help that. I've actually forwarded yours and the others on to Mark so he can see them as well.
I'm going to look for a diesel fuel pump this afternoon. Who knows maybe I can pick one at an auto scrap yard.
@@swdweeb Wow, with the temps ur getting up to, I would say this is a clear indication of over fueling or incorrect burn, & yes, a smaller particulate size (higher pressure) should help alleviate this issue. Another possibility that may help could be a pre-heating section between the pump and nozzle which would also increase the fuels flashing ability. Maybe a very small pump to circulate a heating medium like oil through a heat exchange system between furnace exhaust and the fuel line just before the injector. Ideally, a small piece of tubing inside the furnace (or anywhere hotter than the fuel) at a lower point than the injector line would give a natural circulation of the heating fluid without a pump.
Cool project, look forward to seeing yours & Marks collaboration efforts, & good onya’s for that. Cheers
Looks great! Love that swirling flame.
Thanks John, she does swirl 😄
Excellent design Perry, interesting to find out that diesel burns hotter than propane, I have the same control on all my blowers as well, none of this electrical nonsense keep it simple!! & the motor uses less power when it's fully closed.
Yeah, those motors really do just want to spin at full speed all of the time. Doing funny things to the voltage or frequency isnt the bet thing for them. The air dam works the best.
Someone recently told me... or I read it somewhere... that liquid fuels tend to have more energy than gaseous fuels. I don't know of that's true or not but it does appear that diesel has more potential than propane.
I also live in colorado, and I spent 120$ on a double regulator so I can hook two tanks to my forge because one kept freezing up. I want to make one of these for my foundry as it seems cheap and easy.
Given that we're not that far apart, you're always welcome to come up and take a look if you do get around to making one.
If you're ever interested in casting a handle on one of your knives, let me know. I did one one and think it came out pretty nice. ua-cam.com/video/_TYFSTJ1yyc/v-deo.html
Email me at swdweeb@gmail.com if you want to talk more.
Thanks for sharing your burner design and experiences with it. After reading some of the comments and your responses to them, I am inclined to eliminate the check valve. It might be the case that it uses some plastic inside parts that melt after several hours. That check valve is very close to yellow-hot objects that probably radiate their heat back to the nozzle and check valve, resulting in melting and clogging by polymers. Instead, I plan to go with no check valve and a high-quality stainless steel needle valve (Hoke or Nupro) just upstream of the aperture, but as far downstream as possible. There will still be a dead-volume between the valve and the aperture, and the liquid fuel in that volume will still leak out into the forge after closing the valve at the end of the melt. But I will just let it burn out after closing the needle valve. Since the check valves are so cheap, this is not about saving money on replacement check values. It is about eliminating the annoyance of having to replace them when they fail in the middle of a melt. I might also just cut one open in cross-section to see how they are constructed. I will report back here with what I find.
Thank you again for your kindness. You are obviously a man who cares for others and promotes a spirit of kindness without overbearing or pompous religiosity.
Tom
Sorry for the late reply.
I haven't pulled my burner apart, but I tend to agree with you regarding the check valve failing. I actually don't notice the nozzle getting all that hot. It is outside the burn chamber and it has a pretty decent amount of air flowing over it. I don't know if my check valve has melted or not but I do believe it has experienced some sort of failure as the diesel will run out of the nozzle long after I've turned the pump off. It will siphon fuel out of the tank if I just let it sit.
For that reason, I pull the pump out of the tank and the nozzle out of the furnace and place them in a bucket after I've done the melt. Usually a minute or less after the pour.
I found the "dead" portion as you mention is a pain simply because of the mess it leaves behind. The dripping diesel will drip and smoke forever.
@@swdweeb My buddy and I had a chance to do our first tests of your design with the check valve left out and a 2.0 GPH, 60-degree fuel (diesel) nozzle. The tests yesterday were all done with the burner jet just shooting out into the air, and not yet shooting into a closed forge. We suspect that the flame dynamics will be considerably different with the flame swirling inside a much smaller volume. Other particulars: 2-inch muffler tube, about 18 inches long; 1/4-inch NPT fuel inlet plumbing (like you), about half-way along the 18-inch tube; starting at the jet nozzle and working back: adapter to go from nozzle's 9/16-24 thread to the 1/4-inch NPT, about 2 inches long; 6 inches of 1/4-inch pipe on the axis of the 2-inch tube; 90-degree 1/4-inch elbow "up"; 1/4-inch pipe, about 1.5 inches long, welded to make a seal up through the 2-inch burner tube; a second 90-degree 1/4-inch elbow "back" to a 1/4-inch NPT ball valve; 1/4-inch NPT hose barb connecting to 3/8-inch ID tygon tubing from the in-tank pump.
Observations: 1.) We noticed that the flame tended to blow out as we added air by opening the blower damper. Anything more than about a 0.5-inch opening in the damper was too much air for the fuel to remain burning. 2.) Throttling down the amount of fuel using the 1/4-inch ball valve was never helpful. It seemed that we needed more fuel, not less. Therefore the ball valve in place of the check valve will only be used to prevent unburned diesel from leaking out after a melt. 3.) We changed to a shortened fuel line to the jet (3 feet long vs 8 feet long previously), with a larger ID (3/8 inch vs 3/16 inch previously). This higher conductance seemed to increase the amount of fuel delivered by the little in-tank pump, but we didn't actually measure it. After this change we were able to use more air before the flame blew out. 4.) To decrease the turbulence and air velocity at the jet nozzle, we flared out the 2-inch muffler tubing to about 3 inches, over a taper length of about 2 inches, starting at about the jet aperture. The jet aperture was thus about 2 inches inside the flared taper. This also seemed to allow us to use slightly more air and reach a better balance between rich and lean. 5.) We could never achieve a roaring jet with a well defined blue inside cone, like is sometimes seen in other people's jet design. Is this an unrealistic goal for a diesel burner of this design, shooting into open air?
@@thomasbeebe7480 I spotted this too late tonight to go through it. I'll go through it in the morning and respond more thoroughly.
I can tell you with diesel you won't get a blue cone flame. It goes from orange to almost white (when you get the air mixture right, it will be very light yellow, that's the color to shoot for.
The nozzle doesn't produce a cone either.
The chamber has to heat before you can start adding more and more air, the heat of the furnace chamber really makes a huge difference in the way the flame burns.
I expect I would have very similar results if I took the burner out of the furnace and tried to force air around it.
If you want to email me at swdweeb@gmail.com I can explain better. I can do drawings of what I’ve got at the furnace and show you my flame
i want to add that ceramic insulation is the ideal way to insulate. the foundry you have in this video has alot of open space. id decrease the space inside. you can achieve a blue flame with diesel. thats about as hot as youll ever be avle to get it.
The space was put in so I can use larger crucibles. I’m changing the burner setup a little to get a better burn
Seems so simple. 😳 Excellent resource that I have saved for future reference. You keep making it easier for me to dive in and give this all a try. Thank you 👍😎👍
That's the goal 😄😄
Nice Perry 👍 eagerly awaiting the arrival 😁
The arrival?? Do I look like I'm expecting? Don't answer that, I know.
@@swdweeb 😂😂😂
So I come from an automotive and electronics background. So seeing your fuel pump there, spraying directly into a nozzle, just looked obvious to me. This was the very first diesel burner design I saw.
Then I watched a few other videos and oh my they are really over complicating it. It's only after seeing what other people were doing that I appreciated the simplicity of your design.
For me personally I'm going to use a fuel pressure regulator. Partially because I have one on the shelf that'll work but primarily because I know if I hold the fuel pressure consistent I can keep everything else consistent. I'm pretty sure your fuel pressure is only steady because the small fuel pump either has a bypass built into it or is just not capable of pumping more pressure.
I'm going to use what I have sitting around so in automotive fuel pump would be too powerful, but by using a automotive pump and regulator it'll give me a simple, steady pressure to jet from.
Also while I appreciate how nicely designed your air blower is, it's 200 something dollars online when you can get a 12 volt automotive HVAC blower for $8 or less used.
Since I'm going to run a 12 volt system for the fuel pump, I might as well run the blower off of that too.
I think you helped me decide how to proceed with my system. Thank you
Thank you. I wish I had a better shutoff mechanism. I put that check valve in there but I think it’s failed. I end up pulling the pump from the fuel tank as soon as I turn the blower off otherwise it siphons.
I think having more than enough pressure on the input side and regulating it as it enters the nozzle is a great idea
@@swdweeb I might suggest a solenoid for you. You put it between the pump and the nozzle hose. When the solenoid is powered the line is open. When the solenoid is closed, even if the pump is on or off nothing will flow through there.
You may still get a little dribble out of the hose but only the fuel that's in the hose past the solenoid can go in. Everything between the solenoid and the pump including the whole tank will stay there.
@@TravisFabel Yeah, moving the check valve awy from the heat might work better as well. The dribble kinda sucks as it can leave unburned deisel dripping into the refractory in the furnace, ask me how I know that. I've taken to pulling nozzle when I pull the pump to minimize the dribble into the furnace. I will say that when the check valve worked, the drible was minimal
Even though new to this art, considering a larger furnace for steel eventually. As always, thx for the knowledge Swdweeb. Great move with the check valve too. One more question, I’m seeing you do most in the garage. For convenience, I’d like to do the same. Go do you regulate heat in there? No concerns of fire to the ceiling and such? If you’ve made these in past videos, what can I say, I’m lazy sometimes. 🤣
Well.... I probably got real lucky. My roof is pretty high and its relatively open so I expect the heat dissipated but... I never saw any sort of heat damage, in fact I have a fluorescent light fixture kinda right above the furnace. It would swing back and forth with the blast coming out of the furnace but it never melted.
But... it always bothered me that I was doing it inside. I have a video that I need to finish shooting that shows my new set up. Basically everything is on a cart that I can wheel outside and just let it set on the driveway. I feel 10000% better about this new set up. I still need to do a little work on the cart before I reveal it but I will show it once done.
@@swdweeb Thanks, 👍🏻👍🏻
I use a stainless steel beer keg they are perfect for casting lots of room for a bigger crucible.
Here's my furnace ua-cam.com/video/iMCaic-0-hc/v-deo.html
Another amazing video. Love the videos keep making them I learn alot from them
Thanks Dustin
Thanks. That was a great demo and a good design.... like.....😎
Thanks Ron
Awesome build great job mate, it'd have to be cheaper to run than propane! Thanks for the video!
Thanks Dale. Yeah, I got to the point where I believed "anything would have to be cheaper than propane" 😄
Very nice solution, and thanks for the links! 👍
What kinds of temperatures are You able to get from that burner? How long does it take to melt a specific amount of various metals? Maybe an idea to a follow-up video? Anyway, thanks and have a nice one! 😎
Good questions to which I probably only have bad answers.
The way many small retail furnaces work the burner (typically propane) faces directly at the crucible. This causes the crucible and subsequently the contents of the crucible to be heated by direct contact from the flame. I was told early on that this will cause premature crucible failure. As a result, I built my furnace to be larger than the crucible and thus allow the flame to not be pointed directly at the crucible. The flame in my furnace encircles the crucible.
Basically that means I need to heat the entire furnace and the crucible + contents are heated as the ambient heat of the furnace increases.
All that to say I can melt metal about as fast as the small retail propane furnaces you see out there. If I reduced the volume of the furnace I could melt faster.
The thing about this burner, is I believe I'm starved for air. I don't think the blower I have attached pushes enough. I keep thinking I need to look for a larger blower but never seem to get around to it. I say starved, I could probably push 10-20% (a pure guess) more air and thus achieve a better fuel/air ratio resulting in more heat. More heat always equals a good thing. :-D
The diesel burner will get plenty hot to melt whatever metal you want to melt. Clarke Easterling over at Windy Hill Foundry @windyhillfoundry5940 uses diesel to melt cast iron.
@@swdweeb Yes, I think You're right about premature crucible failure. I also think that You don't need all that free space around the cricible. Maybe You should cast a new liner in Your existing furnace?
I'll be subscribing to see how You do in the following. Thanks for the answer, and have a nice day! 🤩👍
@@qivarebil2149 Well... my intent is to do larger pours requiring a larger crucible. I'm not there yet, but will be before long.
Congrats on getting it going Perry👍
Next you need to buy some spats, hairy legs and that kind of heat are a good fire starter, unless you shave your legs 🤔. I'd still wear spats😁
With all of the ads on TV and YT for "personal grooming" devices I must be the only guy out there that still only shaves his face. 😄
Yes, I do need to get dressed for hotter temps, there is no doubt. I need to find another rotor or two so I can try iron again. I'm a little scared to find out that I'm still not there. I have melted coper without issue so I'm hopeful.
@swdweeb, a few years ago my dad made a drip fed waste oil furnace, we simply added an 1/8th of a cup of kerosene or gasoline and away it went, the problem being when it gets hot the oil gets thin and will proceed to trickle through the value being used to control the flow, we got lucky as we checked on it 20-30min later and the wall of the gas cylinder used was glowing a beautiful bright cherry red, luckily we didn’t burn down the garage.
Man, that's scary stuff. I watched another guy build a drip burner based on a pump and not gravity so that if he lost power it would stop pumping fuel. I had a problem with siphoning even with the pump inline so I'm really glad I put the check-valve in the line. When turn the power off the check valve stops the fuel flow almost immediately. Even still, I continue with the blower running to help cool things down.
Thank you very much for sharing your build and results! I'm in the process of designing my own diesel burner foundry, and wasn't too fond of the idea of using an air compressor to atomize the diesel like you touched upon in the beginning. I'm happy to see a blower-type burner still works quite nicely, and there's overhead for higher temperatures if you change out the atomizer nozzle.
My apologies if you've already answered this elsewhere, but were you able to get to temperatures hot enough to melt iron using the 2 gal/hr nozzle? My goal is to set up a workshop where I can cast complex parts for my projects, but wonder if I have to go the "Tim Allen" route and resort to an air compressor and high flow diesel supply system.
Quick answer is no, not really. I melted but it was too cold to pour. I am in the process of changing somethings that might very well get me to the point of melting iron. I've gone to a higher pressure pump. I hope to have a video on the upgraded pump out soon. We'll see if I actually melt any metal with it. I'm still under doctor and wife orders to not lift anything very heavy, a crucible of iron or bronze likely falls within that criteria.
Makes sense. I surmise it's the sand that's drawing too much heat from the melt, and it can't flow properly so you're getting cold shuts and whatnot? Not enough of an overshoot of heat to account for that loss?
Hope you heal up nicely there! And despite putting a damper on your foundry work, it's good to hear your significant other and doctor are looking out for you! :)
I look forward to seeing that video sir. I'm very happy I stumbled upon your videos as I was looking through some engineering textbooks, to try to be smarter in my design, and while I understood some of it, I'm a very tactile person...so seeing someone actually put those principles into practice is greatly appreciated! Thanks for all you do! Cheers!
@@mashedtomatoes8516 Thanks, yeah there is melting temperature and pouring temperature. I needed to be hotter and just couldnt quite get there.
Have you seen Mark Presling's series on his diesel burner? He just finished it and it is quite impressive. There are five videos in the series. Here is the first ua-cam.com/video/rmiP7RSh558/v-deo.html
Thank you! Yeah, I finished up watching them the other day, he was actually the gentleman that sent me your way! I really enjoy how in-depth he goes with machining trick, and good practices when it comes to manufacturing. I actually work in a manufacturing environment, so those learnings have actually come in handy with my work.
I do like how his system is portable, and that everything is adjustable on it (nozzle positioning, fuel rate, air rate), so he can play around with different cone angles and flow rates if he so chooses. The challenge for me would be to get access to the machines necessary to build those parts. I'm fortunate in that I have easy access to SolidWorks for drafting up my system, but actually manufacturing the parts I need will be a different story...
@@mashedtomatoes8516 I'm like you and have no access to the tools that Mark has. As a result, my burner looks the way it does and Mark's looks the way his does 😄😄
Friend : Hey my tv is bigger than yours!!
Buddy : Thats ok, I got a BIG FURNACE !!! :)
Its way hotter too 😄😄
@@swdweeb oh yes !!! I forgot 😅
Nice, I am a drip burner guy as you know but I can see how the use of a pumped fuel nozzle rather than the compressed air driven siphon nozzles most hobbyists choose greatly simplifies things. I'm almost tempted... 👍 I had the same problem with my big heavy furnace - painfully slow to heat up when starting from cold. Have you tried using a taller plinth in order to position your smaller crucibles up near the top of your furnace to heat them up faster (maybe 2" below the bottom of the lid)? Direct flame impingement from a burner can really eat up crucibles fast...
You along with most people running diesel. I started down the drip burner route and in fact built one that worked ok but I had trouble getting the flow regulated right. The needle valve that I used seem to be binary, either it didn't run or it ran too fast.
I have used a plinth to raise it up and probably should go back to that. I started putting it in the path of the flame after a conversation with Clarke. He does that and said he hasn't noticed a big difference in crucible life
Does having an extra-tall plinth make the bottom half of the furnace act sort of like the pre-furnace combustion chamber of the Ursutz furnace design?
@@JCSalomon I think part of the idea is to give the fuel space to combust down below, and the upper part of the furnace seems to get hot faster. I know a couple hobbyists who have experimented with refractory discs set on top of a plinth, or casting a wider diameter donut section into the bottom of the hot face wall to contain the first swirl of flame (seen this called a volute, but not too familiar with that term), to encourage the flame to do a full swirl before rising up higher, when shooting for cast iron temps. Also seen a few setups where smaller crucibles get an extra plinth set under them to get them up closer to the lid.
Thanks for this vid! I've got some old diesel I pulled out of my skid loader a few years back when I first got it, and a bunch of old used motor oil. I wonder how well a design like this would tolerate blending that stuff into new diesel so I could get rid of it all, and save some money in the process.
Read all of this with the caveat of "I don't know." 😄 I would expect that if you filter stuff so that you're not pushing big particulates through the nozzle it would work. Maybe add a thinner like kerosene if your oil has thickened up on you. Remember the caveat 😄
@@swdweeb Haha no problem with the caveats. I'm preparing to use a kiln with a PID control on it initially. After I finish welding up some lifting tongs, I'll be seasoning my crucible.
Once I graduate from Aluminum, then I'll need something like you have shown in your vid. Diesel seems like a better bet than propane anyway (same issues as you; I'm from Iowa.)
If it wont eat my old oil and diesel, I'll just have to take them to the dump to get rid of, nothing lost really.
@@shonkydonkey Lry ,me know how it works out, I'm always interested. Hopefully you get to enjoy fall in Iowa. I think we're going to stay in summer mode until it starts snowing.
Would it be possible to fill in the useless space with a spacer of some sorts when using a smaller crucible?
Maybe build a firebrick insert of some kind?
Keep up the good work!
It is possible but I'm lazy. Well sorta. I'll spend months perfecting a burner but can't be bothered to spend 30 seconds pulling fire brick out 😄😄
@@swdweeb I resemble that remark!
@@sparkiekosten5902 The truth is most of the time the brick would just stay there since I generally use the same size crucible. Thanks for bringing it up 🤔 😄
Thanks for sharing
My pleasure
Might be a good idea to add some filter just before the pump.
The pump has an external filter attached to it
You spoke of the larger "space" around your typical sized crucable, whould there be an advantage to setting fire brick in to change the size of the annular space to work with what ever crucable you are working with at the time?
The easy answer is yes. However. Where I think I would run into a little trouble is the way my burner enters the chamber. It is tangential to the opening causing the flame to wrap around the circumference of the chamber. If I start putting bricks they're going to be directly in the path of the flame. That is unless I put them on one side of the furnace, the back side if you will. That may be ok.
The other problem is, as I wrote to another comment, I'm lazy and even though I can spend a month building a burner, I can't seem to make myself spend 1 minute to put bricks in and take them out 😄😄
So for the big project that you are going to do, considering all of this capacity that you have, are you going to build a cannon?!
I do love a bronze cannon. Perfect for 4th of July!
Cheers from Southeast Alaska,
Greg Chaney
A canon is definitely on the list of things to do. I’ve even got a place I can fire it. The hardest thing will be getting a core into the mold so I don’t have to pour all that volume.
It is called an oil burner from a furnace. My foundry reaches 2k without O2
ok
I had no idea how you where able to run your furnace in your garage until I discovered forced air lol.
Yeah without it nothing would melt and I'd have a garage coated in black soot. My wife would have made me find a new hobby long ago 😄
Very cool man!
Thanks 😄
I went from a safety concern to a great appreciation of your design. There was a time when some people burned heating oil as fuel in their diesel cars because of cost. Isn't there a loss of BTUs in heating oil? Thanks for the video.
Thanks Don. I'm curious, what were your concerns and how did the design address them?
@@swdweeb I bought a burned out 61 Ford from a garage fire to part it out. The home built drum heater was left on to warm the garage over night
It was a drip design. Same thing on a garage fire that was left on to run out of fuel. Both were drip.
You have troll controlled system on a foundry. My pregidis didn't fit your application nor use.
AFAIK, home heating oil *is* diesel, but with the road taxes not applied, and some dye added to catch people who use it in cars anyway.
@@JCSalomon Thanks. I thought the red die was added only to diesel generator sights for leak detection. That clears up a few things. It's not for leak detection, but tax cheats; the BTUs are the same.
Yeah, I’ve always heard the same thing. We used to be able to buy “off road” diesel near here but I haven’t seen it for years. Be nice to find it again as it Gad much lower taxes tacked on to it
Check out"Farm fuel" it just has red dye in it, it's cheaper as there's not any road use taxes on it...
I'm well aware of "farm fuel". There was a station fairly near to me that used to sell it but not anymore. I suppose I should make more of an effort to find a place that sells it.
Thanks
What keeps the plastic in your check valve from melting? I've been planning a diesel burning for a while and I like your simplicity build. Also, don't you vent your garage? Seems dangerous if you don't.
I expect the distance of the check valve from the actual furnace chamber and the fact that it constantly has cool air blowing over it pushing the ambient heat back towards the furnace chamber as well. In early iterations I printed a plastic air diffuser that sat right next to the adapter. I expected it would melt during the first melt. It never did. I don't use a diffuser now as it only restricted air flow. It did create a neat looking flame but that was about the only benefit I saw.
I run the furnace with both my from and back garage doors open so I'm venting exhaust all the time. I'll probably want to come up with something different in the next couple of months as the weather will be turning much colder.
Hi I ‘m new to your channel, i’d Sure like to see what you did different to your second built foundry .
👍
Gaëtan
Your wish is my command ua-cam.com/video/iMCaic-0-hc/v-deo.html and ua-cam.com/video/ssubQhXGWU4/v-deo.html and
new sub here .......... big stack sent me over. Nice channel!
Thanks for the sub and thanks for letting me know BigD sent you over. He's a good guy
Could the oil burner from a boiler or furnace be used for this? I know that the tube is much larger 2 /12" to 3"? I own a Plumbing & Heating Company and have access to free burners.
Boy, I have no idea. I’ve never actually seen a burner for a boiler. I suppose if you could deliver sufficient fuel and air it would work
Bob!! Boiler and furnace will melt aluminum! Copper..brass. as I used them back in the 1970 when I was melting scrap at auto recyclers just make sure you get right nozzel
I wonder if you could use high grade kerosene if diesel were in short supply? Just wondering, and I apologize if that's a stupid question
I don't think it's a stupid question at all. I expect you could. People use kerosene to cut waste oil and the spray that through this same nozzle. The oil is filtered of course but the kerosene burns. I don;' know how hot it gets compared to diesel.
I run the hose on my propane tank just low flow and it keeps tank from freezing over
Running low volume of propane did not get hot enough for me to melt copper. When it's cold in Colorado the tank froze unless I put it in a tub of warm water
Morning. How about this weather. It’s rain in commerce city. Lol. Hope we get snow
Just what we need, 90's to snow. That's how it will happen, no fall.
I think you said you were going to say how long it takes to melt a charge. And if you did, I missed it. How long does it take before you can pour?
I did say that and was hoping no one would catch that I didn't actually say it. For a small pour like that its about 10 minutes from the time I fire the furnace to the time I pull the crucible.
Its pretty darn quick
Hi Perry,
Does your burner also work outside the furnace?
I am currently building a diesel burner, and during testing, i couldn't get a stable flame in the open air.
If you email me I can give you the info you’re looking for. Check ny channel “about” page for the email. I can send you drawings
Very cool project! I started building something similar after the last time I refilled all my propane tanks. What adapter did you use to get from the burner (9/16-24-ish) to standard plumbing fittings? (There's an adapter link in the description but it does to a dead page for me)
Apparently Amazon isnt selling it anymore. Here it is on another site
controlscentral.com/tabid/63/ProductID/314619/delavan-287383-long-female-1-4-thread-nozzle-adap.aspx
Awesome video! I subbed!!!
Thanks Danny
Do you have to have a pump or can i get by with a gravity feed set up
I am running a pump. The nozzles require fairly high pressure to operate as designed. This is the pump I have www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09W64GPKB
time to melt some copper or iron now that you have the ability!
Have already melted copper in it. No problem. I just responded to windy hill that I'm afraid to try iron as I don't want to find out that I'm still not there.
@@swdweeb lol I just think you don't want to risk burning down the garage when iron or cast iron is sparking everywhere!
I might pull the furnace outside for that one. The heat in the rafters will get really high independent of the sparks
@@swdweeb nah, live on the edge!
What type of crucibles do you use?
I use graphite clay crucibles from PMC Supplies.
Wondering,in gallons, how much diesel being used per hour?
Well, given that its a 2 gallon per hour nozzle... I'm assuming two gallons. It's probably actually less as I don't think my pump creates as much pressure at the rated pressure for the nozzle. It also only takes me about 10 minutes to melt aluminum so (1/6)*2 should tell you how many gallons per melt.. approximately
Diesel and heating oil is the same , add kerosene to . That being said , my furnace man told me you want to see no smoke and black tips on the flame . If you lean it out to burn hotter it damages the liner of the furnace . That may give you an idea of how much you can push it .😬
I was pretty surprised that pushing too much air was actually causing the furnace to run cooler and I had no idea that I could get smoke from running too lean.
@@swdweeb the cool thing (pun intended-always intend your puns) is that running the furnace perfectly balanced between rich and lean, but with too much fuel+air flow, can _also_ make your furnace run too cool. There’s some black magic involved in sizing burners to furnace sizes, but I’m the wrong sort of engineer to make recommendations.
It’s makes sense that excess air in a furnace will cool it since it contributes nothing for combustion and simply dilutes the temperature with its own mass that the furnace also has to heat. Without seeing the flame dynamics of what’s going on when the extra air is added, I can only speculate, but it’s possible the air could be blowing some of the fuel in such a way as to not combust and it may be just unburnt fuel. As the furnace heats up it would be less likely as there are more sources of ignition once the walls and crucible are glowing. Theoretically, a perfect stoichiometric (neutral) flame is the hottest for the very reason that there is zero excess air and zero unburnt fuel, but in practice, we tend to run them a little rich. Hot air with available oxygen in it is murder on graphite-laden crucibles as well as metals (more dross), so there are other reasons to avoid running lean.
I don’t agree with the idea of getting too hot in a foundry environment (maybe for a home forced air heater). The refractory you use it you’re going to melt iron should be able to take 3,000 degrees. I have destroyed my plinths made of Mizzou Plus which means they were seeing in excess of 3,200 degrees (which it’s rated for intermittently, 3,000 continuously, as is KOL-30 and others), BUT the furnace walls haven’t fallen apart, even where the flame impinges, so after a few years of melting iron in it, I don’t believe you can get a plain burner too hot (assuming you have decent refractory) without doing an exhaust heat recuperator, oxygen injection, exotic fuels, etc. Newton’s law of cooling says that a hotter furnace will melt metal quicker and obviously also allows the melting of hotter melting point metals.
@@TroyeWelch Yeah, and there's no way for me to really film the flame as it turns out to be a big yellow ball when I try. The flame size does seem to diminish when I put too much air in so it may not be combusting all of the fuel at that point.
I built it all out of 3200F refractory so hopefully it can handle the temperatures required to melt iron.
@@swdweeb you should be fine then. What did you end up going with? There’s only a handful in that range and they all have high alumina (Al2O3) content.
Have you melted cast iron with it
I have, but just barely. I need more air so I can get more heat out of the flame.
I work in injection molding. Would you like some of the gates we use to study?
sure. Email me at swdweeb@gmail.com and we can talk about it
is there any difference between a devalan 2.00 x 60B and a2.00 x 60w as i cant get the B?
Check this out delavan.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Delavan-Combustion-Catalog.pdf it shows what the letters mean.
@@swdweeb thanks very much, that's interesting to see its the difference in the spray patterns.i managed to get the B in the end but by DANFOSS.i dont suppose that makes much difference (the brand)...far be it from me to say,it could be worth mentioning the thread for the adaptor is NPT for your audience?it got my search started with your advice but then the penny dropped after refering back to the check valve and nozzle and what their threads were.being in the UK most things come as BSP but NPT is quite easy to get of if you ask...anyway,i am getting there with the parts :) cheers!!Dave
@@jessbakerjess Plumbing threads here in the States are a nightmare. There must be 30 of them. I find I spend more time searching for how to connect this to that than I actually do on any other part of the project.
@@swdweeb haha..i know what you mean!,ptfe tape saves the day alot with mismatched threads :)
i think the difference between NPT and BSP is one is at 55' pitch and the other 60 degree thread pitch.so you think youve a match then it tightens up.but thats the only difference.
Just wondering what size tube your using and, what pressure your running at?
Which tube? The fuel line? It's probably 3/16" ID I don't thinks a 1/4". I don't know what the pressure of the pump is. I believe I saw somewhere that its less than the pressure the nozzles are rated at
@@swdweeb Ok, thank you for the information, I'm looking for options for a new nozzle. I made my siphon nozzle that uses little air but, it can be a little temperamental using waste hydraulic oil.
Even the diesel through this nozzle can be temperamental. Clarke Easterling has told me a few times that he’s always having to fiddle with things
Is there any fuel flow adjustment or that pump is just on/off mode?
No the only adjustment I have, and that I've needed, is on the air flow. The pump delivers a constant stream of pressure to the nozzle which disperses the fuel in an atomized mist to the chamber. The flame can't handle a large volume of air when I first starts it but as the chamber heats, within 15-30 seconds I can start adjusting the air into the system to maintain an optimum burn rate.
any temperature difference compared to propane? Hotter?
Yes, I've read as much as 50% hotter than propane. I doubt that I'm getting that much differential but I'd be comfortable saying 35% hotter. It's cheaper to run as well. Of course there is some smoke, not a lot, on startup and shutdown. As it's burning, its clean
@@swdweeb I need to try it. Seems very tempting.
@@waliza001 Its been a learning curve... I am trying a different size nozzle today in fact... but I don't regret the switch for a second.
What pressure do your pump put out?
No idea, the pump is in the description.
Ok,
Have been using propan but are working on my diesel burner.
Your videos are inspiring, I learn a lot.
Håkan ,Halmstad ,Sweden.
@@hakanmagnusson5667 Good luck 😄 If you get it working I think you'll be much happier with the heat that diesel puts out,
You had some good videos, just to bad you can't tolerate critics, I'm out of here
???
@@swdweeb Two times I have written to you, both times my comment was there 2 hours later, 9 hours later it was deleted. I told you that you were wrong about how much heat a gasburner could produce, with evidence
@@sidewind131258 I'm sorry Soren, I can assure you that I did not see the comments come in and I did not purposely delete them. I don't have an explanation for what happened.
I have only deleted comments that were offensive or abusive and I have only done that two or three times in over four years.
I am more than happy to be corrected. If I say something that is incorrect, it should be corrected.
I can understand how you feel, but please know it was not me censoring you.
@@swdweeb Funny enough, this comment have been here now 19 hours, what was I supposed to beleive ? What I said is you are wrong about gas vs oilburners at 2:03 , Devil Forge have a burner churning out 133680 BTU according their homepage
I got this one.
Here's the information I had, it had nothing to do with burners but the BTUs each fuel was rated at.
nhcleancities.org/2017/04/can-compare-energy-content-alternative-fuels-gasoline-diesel/ this page rates the number of BTUs in a gallon of diesel at 128,488 BTUs and the BTUs of a gallon of propane at 84,250
I saw other values for each fuel type on other pages but the ratios stayed pretty close at diesel containing 50% more energy potential than propane.
I can also tell you, unscientifically, that the diesel burner I am using melts metal much faster than the propane burner I was using. With diesel I can melt aluminum in about 1/3 of the time it used to take me with propane in the same furnace.