Furnace build thread

[Rollin Karg]

Nice work Lawrence.

[Rick Sherbert]

Beautiful job on the furnace. Where did you get the latch for the kiln doors?

[Pete VanderLaan]

That is remarkably beautiful looking equipment Lawrence. I do have a question. Is the annealer with the arch brick crown made out of hard or softbrick? It appears to be hardbrick and I would be suspicious that it may be really slow cooling down in the lower range and somewhat slow heating up. What is the watt loading per cubic foot?.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Thanks Rollin, the Gambles spk hi of u. E trailer.com 4the latched all 2000 ifb

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Guess who didn’t put a kill switch on his furnace door…….duh

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Here’s more of the equipment update. This GH will have an interior dimension of 13”dia. x 14”deep with a 10” and 4” access holes, a 4x6 ribbon burner. At the butt end of the chamber I’m using a 2” 2800ifb w/3.5” fiber, the doors and retainer ring I’ll use casto-lite. The cylinder is going to be cast from a cheaper Pryor Giggly’s Econocast, this product is supposed to hold up better to the heat and flame.

Question….With the smaller I.D. and the flame so close (13”) to the opposite side I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to mount the burner at the top and let the flame shoot down on a sand covered floor,…but I don’t know if “that” positioning of the burner would adversely effect the use of the glory hole…….????

The pipe warmer was a fun little project,…the plans are a free down load from Durolite.
[still waiting on the burner though]

[Pete VanderLaan]

I would stick to a side shot Lawrence for several reasons. First try to follow the radius of the inside of the gloryhole. You need to leave some room for your air and gas to mix as well before combusting. Putting all the tooling up top will get it pretty hot since.... heat rises so I would expect it to be harder on your blower etc. There should also be some pressure up there from the combustion which the burner apparatus would have to overcome which implies higher air/gas pressure which implies more cost. Way back when, I switched the furnaces at Pilchuck from top to side fired and lowered the fuel bill about $1,000 per week.

I mount my blower down low under the barrel and take two 90's to get up to the side entry. That leaves me space for the needle valve and the solenoid. I know a lot of people just put it outside so they don't have to listen to it. I think my neighbor would come and destroy it. He likes it really quiet.

[Rollin Karg]

Originally Posted by Pete VanderLaan

I mount my blower down low under the barrel and take two 90's to get up to the side entry. That leaves me space for the needle valve and the solenoid.

This is a good configuration when there's a power outage too. It'll smoke like crazy but all the fuel will still get burnt.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Thanks guys. I'v been following Dane Gs lead on this except for the econo cast. Will be Ramming the wet fiber soon

[Pete VanderLaan]

I just turned Charlie Correll on to lubed fiber, which if you have never used -it is really nice. No dust at all, no water, it's sprayed with lanolin and is really the best when packing fiber.

[Virgil Jones]

On my pipe warmers I like to put a piece of rebar for both parts where the pipes rest. The little bit of corrugation of the rebar keeps the pipes where you put them, but isn't so much they are hard to roll toward the flame as needed.

[Richard Huntrods]

Originally Posted by Pete VanderLaan

I just turned Charlie Correll on to lubed fiber, which if you have never used -it is really nice. No dust at all, no water, it's sprayed with lanolin and is really the best when packing fiber.

That must fill the shop with a "fine" aroma during first firing.

-R

[Pete VanderLaan]

Does not smell at all.

[Lawrence Ruskin]

So on my Stadel mini I found three lairs of fairly dense fiber about 1 inch thick against the casting and that was backed with less dense frax out to the metal shell.In fact there was a bunch of ''chop'' next to the shell

What's the 1 inch stuff?

If I replace the 3 one inch lairs with some dense 3'' frax and another 3 inches of the same weight, is that going to make a difference in the heat loss?

[Pete VanderLaan]

frax comes in different densities. I am quite familiar with six pound which is really light and falls apart easily. I usually use eight pound for blanket that needs substance, or staying power. I ran in to the same circumstances today on my Moly.

In bulk, you can get regular bulk, or lubed bulk which is much easier to ram and doesn't require water. You have to ask for it and it's worth having.

[Lawrence Ruskin]

So now I'm looking for ''dip lag''

I spent all day looking for it in Vancouver. anybody got an idea where I can get a small ammount of it?

[Steve Stadelman]

The two layers closest in are 2600f, the rest is 2300f. Jeff at Hi Temp in Portland might be able to get you dip lag.

[Rick Sherbert]

Check this thread for Dip Lag...
http://talk.craftweb.com/showthread.php?t=8569

[Lawrence Duckworth]

I’ve never charged a furnace, but I'm thinking its gotta be awkward doing it alone……dya’ll think this overkill?

[Pete VanderLaan]

You may be overthinking this Lawrence. Make sure that metal is A) steel and B) pretty thick and C) not painted. Don't bang into your pot or you'll break it. Don't charge more than 40 lbs at a time with your size equipment.

I just ladle mine in, have for forty years.

If you really want to get fancy, make an auger on that thing. Factories do it that way with big equipment where the charge is 100's of pounds at a time.

Nice work I might add!

[Lawrence Duckworth]

To be honest, I’m worried about my back and knees. The ladle would be okay I suppose, ifn I could rest it on the sill, but even then I’m thinking I’d be slow at it and lose alot of furnace heat in the process.

[Scott Novota]

Everything you make is so damn pretty.

[Pete VanderLaan]

I rest on the sill all the time. Sometimes I take naps too.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Originally Posted by Scott Novota

Everything you make is so damn pretty.

Hi Scott, the secrets in the paint. Sherman Williams gunboat grey
We'll see how that purdy holds up to 2000 plus deg.......

[Lawrence Ruskin]

Lawrence, that thing is beautiful, just like all your equipment.

Let's guess, you have some Kool way of washing your cullet before you put in that tray.