My Metal Forge

[Bob]

 I got interested in melting Aluminum when My good friend Sonny Jeffers showed me some of his work in the field....
 I started off with a car rim welded to a 8" x3' piece of well casing I scrounged up from somewhere.
I trimmed off the bottom half of the car rim just below the hub attachment point and put it on the top by using large washers to keep it centered, this ring can be removed, and is mainly for added depth.
...(see first Pic.)
that unit used wood or bricketts as a fuel source and it worked fairly well, but it was quite SLOW in melting the aluminum... so it evolved...
 I started experimenting with making a kerosene heater for it, and after many experiments I came up with this appratious...(second pic.)
...
this heated up the alum scrap in about 30 min from start to pouring.
my crusable was a large 3"x6" 1/4" wall piece of still pipe with a 1/2" bottom welded to it.
... More to come
Bob.....

[Bob]

Reaching a High tempiture quickly was hard to do however, so I tried to insulate the forge with Lava rock and that helped a great deal.... except I didn't take the lava rock down to the burner at the bottom....where I should have... (live and learn!)
it then heated up to the melting point in 10 to 15 min Max.
(see first pic.)
 I used my forge like this for a few years and made a bunch of solid alumimum pieces for meterial for the 3 in 1 lathe /mill machine... which I made many things from the alumimum.
the blanks were crude at best... but usually trimmed up nicely and gave me lots of meterial to work with from scrap !
(see 2nd pic.)
...
more to come.
...
Bob......

[Bob]

when I began my experiments on burning the Kerosene I saw a square unit that was supposed to work great on the net, so I build a pipe version for testing....
...see 1st pic.
 Here is a pic of the unit I finally came up with in operation.... yes its HOT !
...see2nd pic.
...
more to come...
Bob......

[Bob]

the Oil DRIP system came from an old military water heater (which I still have and use periodically for many things)...
(see 1st pic)
...
 the Large rate of flow was needed under full burn when Melting a full cruseable of Alumimum
as in the other picture when the sides of the forge are glowing red hot !
...although it usually took 20 to 30 min to reach that stage of heat it did it fairly easy
...
 The fans I used for the Forge were constantly giving me trouble till I came up with these 2
the one in use in this Photo is from a Microwave I think or something with the ducting still attached to it... I just plugged it in and stuffed the outlet in the pipe and it worked!
... the other fan behind it (not in use) was too strong and gave me a flame out every time I tried to use it.... that wouldn't have happened if I had had better insulation such as refactory cement all the way around my forge...
see 2nd pic.
...
Bob......

[Bob]

I find out now that an even better burner has been designed and will work on old automotive oil
or Veggi oil from restaurants...
 I down loaded it from this fella's site and hope to make one like his unit soon so I can melt IRON ! .... never have done that ...YET !
hehehehe
( I doubt he'll be upset about free advertiseing! <GRIN>)
...
Bob......

[Bob]

in the Pic above, the one inch line goes into a garbage can that has about 4" of refractory cement
on the walls and bottom... the propane is needed to get the unit hot enough to atomize the oil...
once its hot enough the propane can be turned off and just the waste oil and blower are used
... a good blower is essential for a good working forge BTW.
the fella that made this has melted Iron many times, and that is saying something !
however if your melting aluminum you would have to be careful not to over heat the aluminum and Oxidize it, or you'll ruin the batch !. so timing is important because of the high heat!
....
Muffin pans make dandy molds for alumimum ingots , and they fit in the cruseable easy for re melting when making a casting!
...
castings can be anything from a "green sand" mix or a shape dug into the ground!
I find filling copper tubing gives me nice solid alum rods to work with on the lathe.
getting the alum out of the tubing can be a pain some times though , I usually beat on the sides to stretch the copper away from the alum and then drive it out !
...
Bob.