Tobho's New Waste Oil Burner - Part 1

[@JulianMakes]

Love the casting of that plug and the rivets were genius. Omg you might be about as good at welding as me! Burner looks great

[@tobhomott]

Julian HG thanks, and at the risk of spoiling the part 2 video, the new burner seems to be working quite well. Looking forward to whetever you come up with next!

[@askquestionstrythings]

Good luck on solving your new burner issues. My eyes, my eyes... oh those welds... Good thing to remember: Grind and paint makes me the welder I ain't.

[@tobhomott]

Thanks AQTT, and lol. Never said I was a welder!

[@askquestionstrythings]

@@tobhomott I'm no welder either. I still haven't figured out how to walk the cup properly. Plus my flux core mig is a pile of junk that is near impossible to get the settings right. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford to play with one of the big kid TIG welders.

[@tobhomott]

@@askquestionstrythings yup, maybe one day. I hear you there.

[@windyhillfoundry5940]

Nice burner👍, your welding skills on the thin stuff are much better than mine. I blow big holes in it everytime

[@tobhomott]

Thanks, lol, my cheap little welder just plugs into a standard 120v outlet, I'm not sure it is even capable of blowing holes through anything! I only kept the propane on really low in the second test because that was how it was running when it started burning inside the tube in the first test. So I still need to try out the reducer I added with the gas cranked up a bit higher... And of course after the first few minutes I'm normally going to be using it with the gas turned off and the oil drip turned on anyhow!

[@jagboy69]

@@tobhomott We won't give Jeff too much crap over his shitty welding. lol :-P

[@MadOnions]

Cool idea on casting the plug in the back. I hadnt seen that method before. As far as the welding goes check the polarity on your leads, flux core should be electrode negative. Also doing small 'hot dots' rather than a long bead sometimes helps on small welders. If your still looking for a speed controller for your leaf blower check out router speed controllers. HF has them cheap but PA may not though... You've got me psyched up to try out lost foam though. I'm impressed at how fast and how well that worked out!

[@tobhomott]

Haha, my welder is fluxcore only, and I don't think the leads can be changed. But I will have a look, you never know. I only weld when I absolutely have to, so I'm sure my technique is WAY off. Thanks for the tips. . I've got a HF router speed controller somewhere that a friend picked up for me in the US a couple years ago (Princess Auto doesn't sell them for some reason), maybe I'll try that. I haven't given up on the leaf blower quite yet... Doing the plug this way was mostly the result of not having a lathe to make a nice machined plug like the one J. Vibert made in the pic I borrowed from the forums for the intro to this video. Hopefully I won't ever wish my plug was removable...

[@sandrammer]

In Molder school we used what was called a Oil Fired Furnace. It had a oil tank in which the fuel was stored and which was pressurized by LP air. The end of the piping that was in the furnace had a small tip that atomized the fuel, when it was being used, which made it burn hotter and was easier to light. Also there was a pipe that directed the blower air and helped shove the flame all around the inside of the furnace. Perhaps you should go to one of your local oil furnace (the kind that heats homes) stores and get a burner tip to atomize your fuel. Can't hurt to try.

[@jagboy69]

I think you missed the point of this build. This design doesn't require a nozzle or a pressurized fuel source to drive it. Once jeff's furnace here is preheated on propane, he turns off the gas and then this becomes a drip Oil Fired Furnace.

[@tobhomott]

Great suggestion, I have researched the atomizing nozzles. . The standard HVAC nozzles used for home heating use a pump to force the oil through a finely machined nozzle, or there is another type seemingly more often favoured by backyard metal casters, which uses compressed air and a venturi to force the oil through a similar nozzle. There is a very good example of this type on SVSeeker's channel. . There's also a sort of "poor man's" venturi based atomizing nozzle that David D from the Backyard Foundry channel here on KZbin came up with and named the 'Kwiky all fuel burner', which I have all the parts for if I ever decide to try building one. . Atomizing nozzles need very good oil filtration to run on free waste vegetable or waste motor oil, but they are almost set-it-and-forget-it once you have your fuel and blower air and compressed air settings dialed in. They are also very easy to light. . I've chosen this gravity feed drip injection type oil burner which requires a preheated furnace to vaporize the oil drips that get blown into the furnace bore, partly because it's what I am used to (this is a sized up version of the old burner I've used for years), partly because it can run used cooking oil practically without even having to filter out the french fry crumbs (though lately I more often just use diesel for convenience), and partly because with gravity feed, I don't need a pump or a compressor. Gravity doesn't break down on you at the worst possible time... But I do have to watch the furnace and keep tweaking the needle valve on my oil line as the fuel tank drains and the furnace gets hotter. . There seems to be an even split among oil burner users on the casting forums I mentioned in the video: some swear by the atomizing nozzles while others are hard core unrepentant drip injectors. There have been some heated "discussions" about which type is best for the backyard foundry, but I never once saw anyone get their mind changed. 😀 . Anyhow, I still have a few more tests to run just using propane (furnace preheat mode) before I am ready to see what happens when I crack open the oil valve and really heat things up...

[@tobhomott]

@@jagboy69 to be fair Jason, I never actually articulated that point in the video I don't think... 😀 Anyhow, the next video will make that much clearer I hope. . Tom, if you're reading this, check out Jason's channel; he uses one of those 'kwiky' homemade siphon nozzle atomizer oil burners I mentioned in my first reply to your comment, for his ceramic shell molded lost wax bronze castings.

[@swdweeb]

Nice job. At some point I've got to up my furnace game

[@tobhomott]

Thanks Perr-bear, more testing is needed but I'm hopeful it'll work out to be an improvement. What kind of upgrades are you thinking about?

[@swdweeb]

@@tobhomott Bigger furnace (slightly), a layer of firebrick and an inner layer of 3200F refractory lining. All solid stuff. I have a roll of ceramic wool but I like the rigidity of the firebrick. I keep vacillating between oil and propane. I know propane is expensive, but that is a relative term, I spend $20/month when I'm casting. Right now I'm spending $0 :-( Careful with the name, I thought my wife was going to kill a woman at an office party when she called me that same name. After 37 years, I'm still afraid of her ;-)

[@tobhomott]

@@swdweeb lol, I don't know what I was thinking anyhow. Sounds like a good plan. If you keep the dense castable refractory layer thin, with good insulation behind it, fuel will be cheap no matter what you're burning. The 3200F dense castable refractory wall in my big furnace is 1" thick with 2" of insulating blanket behind it. Takes a little while to heat up, but holds its heat well for subsequent melts and it is basically bulletproof. I'd have probably built it less oversized and tried to cast that 1" wall a bit thinner if I'd been planning to use propane rather than waste oil most of the time though. Good luck!

[@HeinrichsMade]

Why did you put the tap for the propane behind the where the air comes in. I would think it might be better in front of it. Obviously it still works 😉

[@tobhomott]

I don't think it matters too much, there's only one direction for it to go. Maybe you're right

[@jagboy69]

Good job Jeff! I still hate propane. Must be my inner cheap skate.

[@tobhomott]

Lol, well I'm building this thing so that hopefully I'll need less of it to preheat the big furnace, so I guess I agree with you there. . Although in the new smaller furnace, the metal melts so fast on propane that it almost doesn't seem worth the effort of hanging up the oil tank for smaller melts!

[@MrNgocDai]

Like

[@tobhomott]

Thanks! & Sorry for the late reply...

[@garljoens]

Have you found that burning oil degrades your heat exposed surfaces quickly? I’m about to fire up my furnace for the first time, burning waste veggie oil

[@tobhomott]

So far I haven't had to reline any of my furnaces. As long as you have a good 3000F+ refractory lining and keep the burner tuned reasonably near neutral, you should be fine for a long time.

[@Иван-щ1с5з]

Good job 👍. Greetings from Russia

[@tobhomott]

Greetings from Canada, and thanks for watching!

[@frikkiesmit327]

I must adjust few things on mine .

[@tobhomott]

Good luck! & Sorry for the late reply

[@garljoens]

Balerion the Dread

[@tobhomott]

When he was in the fullness of his power, his flames could melt steel and stone, and fuse sand into glass... 😁

[@Joe-dw8sh]

That crucible is kindof tiny for the furnace

[@tobhomott]

Yeah, I know it. It's a #12, the biggest crucible I own, but I built the big furnace to have room for me grow into - one day I'll have a crucible that takes advantage of that extra space, and I'll be able to pour some big stuff. Meanwhile, the small furnace definitely has room to burn propane with the #12 in there, but not sure about oil (yet). I also built a drain hole in the floor of the big furnace, so that I can stick ingot molds underneath and direct melt large scrap aluminum castings to break them up into bite sized crucible friendly pieces.

[@Joe-dw8sh]

@@tobhomott well that sounds like an idea

[@tobhomott]

@@Joe-dw8sh I haven't actually done a direct melt in there before, but I like having the option.

[@Joe-dw8sh]

@@tobhomott didn't someone else have basically the same idea just purpose built to mass produce ingots to sell?

[@tobhomott]

@@Joe-dw8sh was it Masteryoda from the AlloyAvenue forums you're thinking of? kzbin.info/www/bejne/omLRnHtsfNKgjs0 He's an eBay ingot seller.

[@o34kg13]

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha