gas crucible furnace

[MEANIE]

i am building a gas crucible furnace
a 30 gallon grease drum for the body
rescocast Insulating Castable is what i use for the lining
propane fired

so i got it built for the most part. dryed it for a week and on the heater for 3 days .
today i draged it out out side and test fired it
it went good and bad
The good
heated to red hot
lining held up no cracks or any thing
so i put my metal pot in it and melted some aluminum

The bad
1.burner dose not work right it needs more air i think
2.i need to make a insalated lid for it
3.the tongs i built FAILED...i had the pot near the ground so it rolled over and the aluminum ran out....on the sand bed (one lb of aluminum)
its very inportant to have safety gear on ..i am glad i did though it wasnt dramatic failure
leason learned there
no matter what you do or how simple your test is going to be
SAFETY is number one thing to think about
soon i hope to post some pics

MEANIE

 

[butcher]

Ahh we have to wait for pictures.

 

[MEANIE]

sorry my girl friend has the camara and shes gone to be with family..you know a end of life thing,,but when she gets back i will have some...what would you like to see...becides my mess up

todd aka MEANIE

 

[butcher]

A picture the burner would be nice, and everyone likes to see fire, pictures in general are nice to see.

 

[Jimmy]

What works really good for this type of furnace is a old oil burner from a oil furnace. (You can use a new one too). Propane is dificult to use. You really need a 100 gallon tank to keep the pressure up or they dont heat well.
A cheap electric kiln works too.
A good lid is either a piece of 2" ceramic fiber blanket of board.

 

[chaseonbase]

I would like to see how your fire source is set up. I was watching this one guys youtube video and he had something that looks cool. Dont know how it works he rambles alot ,but the system seems to work. Im looking to build one myself. I posted it under my ghetto kiln thread the guys user id is robl1 I think.