Your furnace looks interesting. How did you make it? How do you fire it?
Not Quite Farm Engineering or a Quick Bodge.
- Thread starter Pan mixer
- Start date
It's crushed firebrick mixed with fireclay and a little water. You make an inner form out of thin sheet, cut a hole in the 45 gallon drum where you want the burner to go in, fit a tapered wood bung in there, then ram the mix in. Leave it to dry out for as long as possible then build a wee paper fire in it, few kindlers, and very slowly warm it up so that it drives out the moisture without cracking/spalling (mine is like a jigsaw puzzle) few more logs and after a while turn on the blower, then you turn on the oil...
The oil drips into the inside at the very front of the burner nozzle and gets thrown on to the furnace wall.
It melts cast iron so it's like water, steel just melts.
Thats very cool
Shovelhands
Member
- Location
- Sunny Essex
Lifting a pot of molten iron out of there (never done anything constructive with iron yet, only played with it, a bit more with aluminium though) is phenomenal. Had a tiny gap between the welding jacket and the gauntlet, and my wrist started to cook!I think it’s more ‘very hot’!
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
A shame Landyman isn't on here still, you need his advice where handling molten metal is concerned.
Shovelhands
Member
- Location
- Sunny Essex
It is now possible to reach him, if you know which buttons to push and what to search for
Zebbedee
Member
- Location
- Scotland in the best bit
What do you do with the molten material??.
- Location
- Lancashire
The aluminium got poured into roller wheels for the pipe roller, a few other small projects too.
The iron just got poured out into an open sand mould.
JohnBoy
Member
- Location
- Southern Ireland.
@Deutzdx3 asked about work I've done on a loader and rather than clutter his thread I said I'd stick it in here instead.
I'm not sure I can stop at a pic or two, loader has been on the tractor from new, formerly a dairy farm, it spent 10 years or so in the nettles.
The loader was really too big for a 3 cyl tractor and rotten, and the style of wrapping the arms around the implement really limits choices. So I welded a new crossmember out towards the front, cut a rotten foot or so out and welded it back together.
pulling pins was a major battle
did a lot of playing to figure out the crowd linkage, replaced the rams too as it was cheaper than getting imperial chrome locally.
Plumbed it with a third service and fitted new crowd rams
After using it for a while I found swapping implements was a pain in the hole as was making brackets for things as it was custom so I bought a headstock from ebay. Had to redrill that and put some bushing tubes in to carry the pins as they're only inch pins and the headstock is setup for 30mm. put a slight kink in the crowd links too which help with getting the most out of the geometry.
Geometry isnt amazing in terms of curl vs dump, but it is what it is.
The tractor cant move, but it can pick up a tonne bag of gravel, seen here testing the pallet forks I made that can go front or back
It's taken 7 years to get this far amongst other projects, life and actually using the loader. The lift rams and their mounting uprights are the only things left. I'd love to come across someone scrapping the detatchable version of the same loader to take the mounts/subframe from
But maybe I should go all out like Deutzdx3 did and put modern brackets on it altogether
I know I could have gotten a much nicer/newer loader for all the time and money I've put into this one, but I've enjoyed it, and you dont notice the money when it's only a bit here and there over the years.
I'm not sure I can stop at a pic or two, loader has been on the tractor from new, formerly a dairy farm, it spent 10 years or so in the nettles.
The loader was really too big for a 3 cyl tractor and rotten, and the style of wrapping the arms around the implement really limits choices. So I welded a new crossmember out towards the front, cut a rotten foot or so out and welded it back together.
pulling pins was a major battle
did a lot of playing to figure out the crowd linkage, replaced the rams too as it was cheaper than getting imperial chrome locally.
Plumbed it with a third service and fitted new crowd rams
After using it for a while I found swapping implements was a pain in the hole as was making brackets for things as it was custom so I bought a headstock from ebay. Had to redrill that and put some bushing tubes in to carry the pins as they're only inch pins and the headstock is setup for 30mm. put a slight kink in the crowd links too which help with getting the most out of the geometry.
Geometry isnt amazing in terms of curl vs dump, but it is what it is.
The tractor cant move, but it can pick up a tonne bag of gravel, seen here testing the pallet forks I made that can go front or back
It's taken 7 years to get this far amongst other projects, life and actually using the loader. The lift rams and their mounting uprights are the only things left. I'd love to come across someone scrapping the detatchable version of the same loader to take the mounts/subframe from
But maybe I should go all out like Deutzdx3 did and put modern brackets on it altogether
I know I could have gotten a much nicer/newer loader for all the time and money I've put into this one, but I've enjoyed it, and you dont notice the money when it's only a bit here and there over the years.
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Had that very loader on a 4004 county,, probably still in the nettles here somewhere.
You may regret putting the kink in the tilt arms, i found they soon bent if coming under pressure.
Had a lot of trouble with hyd filter blocking which i traced to the tilt ram seals breaking up eventually.
We ran it along with a grays and a 24-1 loaders.. the blue one was by far the best loader.
the county front axel was the pits and tractor was changed back to 2 WD.
what was noticable was how much the the smaller wheels affected grip.
Dont waste too much thinking about going to drive in, the actual benefit is not great
- Location
- Norfolk
i also have same loader on a ford 4000 but keep breaking stub axles (once breaking the bell housing aswell)take it easy with the weight or maybe you've a better front axle
)take it easy with the weight or maybe you've a better front axleford stub axelsi also have same loader on a ford 4000 but keep breaking stub axles (once breaking the bell housing aswell
for somebody handy with the welder and tools, a lorry front axel would be answer, and with the bigger wheels having much less rolling resistance.
orbital steering makes conversions like that so much easier
- Location
- Central Scotland
Horndraulic Loader?
looks like it, maybe steel fab same company ? sold in ford colours, good loader which ever, and could be 50 years old now and still quite modern
Any detail of the burner? been looking at them on the yank sites for a while now, some of their casting is impressive
What you using for crucible ?
The burner is a copy of a Brute injector, think I copied it from the backyard metal casting site. Pretty much just a blower (mine was a fan that drew the dust out of a grain elevator, belt with buckets) and the nozzle is a piece of 50mm pipe about 350 long, 4 vees cut in the end so that you can knock it into a short taper, hole drilled in the top of the pipe at the end, weld a length of International 574 steel fuel line into the hole, doesn't need to be far through, and any other steel pipe around 8mm will do if you don't have a donor tractor to hand, then bend it down parallel to the top of the 50mm and tack it in place. Step up the 50mm pipe to fit the blower housing. I will try take a picture later.
The oil just drips into the air flow and is thrown on to the furnace wall. It needs to be set up so that the air stream rolls around the furnace lining, not hitting the crucible.
the crucibles are bought ones, you kind of need to for iron, and you can't melt different metals in the same one. I'm going to make a steel one and coat it (once I've found out what to use) for aluminum.
I've not done much casting, I got the thing running and then the bloody farm sapped all my time.
ta for that
I used to be as you say, full of projects untill farm took the day, then months and then years, now i is a menace on the farm and got a bad chest..
Got to hand it to the metal casters, they are resourceful, especially the eastern europeans, seen them melting plough shares and recasting..
locally , Widecombe church used to collect lead and cast into plaques depicting the church for sale
I used to be as you say, full of projects untill farm took the day, then months and then years, now i is a menace on the farm and got a bad chest..
Got to hand it to the metal casters, they are resourceful, especially the eastern europeans, seen them melting plough shares and recasting..
locally , Widecombe church used to collect lead and cast into plaques depicting the church for sale