Thread: Oil Burners for Casting Furnace.

G'day Barry,
Seems you're heading in the right direction.
Cupla years ago, LPG was probably the go...no more.
There is another thread here on Babington burners with every link you're ever likely to require. Don't forget the very small hole required to get them to work efficiently.
Lots of luck

Be interested in your progress, Barry, read a couple of the links Noel mentioned the other night & ruminated on making a workshop heater based on the same techniques.

Keep us posted.


Cheers................Sean

G'day Sean & Barry,
Here are some more links for oil burners.
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_...earth/me4.html
http://pateri.com/Foundry/Burners.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/libra...ber/Cheap_Heat
http://www.angelfire.com/pro2/jason_...oilburner.html
There is another Mother Eearth News article, where the guy uses a Gas Cylinder as the heat radiator for a workshop, with an oil burner up the spout.
I have "gifs "of the burner, but not the entire article

I use kerosene, and will probably switch to waste oil in the very near future. Not because kero is expensive, but the burner I use isn't exactly user friendly. A waste oil unit isn't all that user friendly either, but at least it has scope to be a little easier to work with and potential for more BTU/h.

Since you have compressed air, give the babington a try. I am not keen on them since I don't have compressed air, and if I did I'd be running a pressurized system identical to what I have now with adjustable pressure and stick with kerosene.

There's nothing special about them, main things are a good mix of air and fuel, along with ability to adjust the balance and to have a burner with good reliability and flame stability.

(I'll be blunt here, I don't like the babingtons very much because it seems to be an awful lot of jerking around and there are not all that many out there and being sprouted as being a good thing. That worries me a little, even though I fully understand how they work and why. Don't let me stop you though since I know they do work, I just don't like them all that much.)

I plan to use a small can lined with insulation and a thin hotface of castable, inlet and outlet as a kinda pre-furnace to heat up the oil and air and make it get going. If it doesn't work out as planned, I'll stick with kero till I work it out and the small can will become a small melting/heat treat furnace.

Schtoo, and others i guess...

I see you dont have compressed air... but, all the fiddleing about with a preheat etc to have enough heat inside to be able to get the oil to start combustion is just a huge pain. The way i did mine was to use kero as a start and then change to oil with the aid of a twin needle valve (made for the job) to mix in the oil and to back off the kero seemlessly and also giving the ability to adjust how much heat you want to generate. In the 44gal drum that the furnace is built into, i could have it running on straight oil in less than 2 mins... Just a thought or different way of doing it that others might like to try...

Let me put it this way...

For the cost of a single needle valve I could buy a compressor and use it to run the burner, and have it do only that.

I don't have have any needle valves, so I design accordingly.

So, how does your burner work specifically?

Schtoo i adree with you about not being able to aford to buy a needle valve, let alone a twin!!! Mine cost me about $9.00 for brass fittings and the rest was a scrap block of Aluminium and some M6 stainless rod and about 4hrs of my time...

My furnace has 2 pressurised pots, one for the kero and the main pot for the oil, used auto trans fluid in my case, both of these have about 25 psi of air to them. Each pot goes to the twin needle valve, and the outlet into a jet mounted inside a piece of 65mm pipe, with a reducer down to about 22mm, at the end of the pipe. The jet is located (depth wise) maybe 10mm back from the front of the reducer ( this gives a high speed air stream to help with the atomisation of the kero or oil as it enters the furnace). The piece of 65mm pipe has the exhaust of an industrial vacume feeding into it for the forced air supply, and there is a hole in the side of the 65mm pipe with a simple slide collar to be able to bleed off the unwanted extra air, for when the furnace is being started or running at a lower heat level.

I hope all of that is a lil clearer than mud!

(Somewhere i think i have some pics if anyone is interested, but they might take a lil finding.)

G'day All,

Thanks for your replies. I'll have a look at those websites for suitable designs. Discovered a couple of likely suspects on a Casting Web Ring. Will report back with some thoughts once I have a clearer picture of which way I'll go.

In the meantime I'll start construction of the furnace. Seems as though I'll need a 2" minimum inlet pipe for whatever burner I use. I'm using ideas sourced from Casting publications I have to hand as well as what I've found on the net.

Thanks again...........Barry.

Originally Posted by Mick C.

(Somewhere i think i have some pics if anyone is interested, but they might take a lil finding.)

Yep, interested

Here's a few pics, sorry bout all the dirt etc but its been a few years since its been used!

And the last few... If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask!

Thanks Mick, it's an involved looking contraption

It's a lot easier to use than i guess it looks But then again aren't allll projects out of the shed supposed to be a lil over the top or excessive or over engineered in some way

EPA just love oil burners...