DIY Foundry Furnace From a Propane Cylinder 

Just don't look too closely. Regards, Mark

Thanks for that. Regards, Preso

I used to be good at it but sadly, lack of practice and old age have ensured that I have had to lower my standards. Regards, Mark

@@Preso58 yes a perishable skill for sure.

You are correct but then I am lazy and not a very good welder anyway so most of my welds are "functional" at best. Regards, Mark

Wow, that must have been scary! There was a teacher killed in our region about 10 years ago as he was trying to cut the lid out of a 44 gallon fuel drum with an angle grinder. He had filled the drum with water several times and started to cut the top seam of the lid with some air space inside. The fuel had penetrated the top seam of the drum and as he was cutting the fuel was vaporising from the heat and building up inside the drum. It reached the flash point and exploded in his face. I think it illustrates that any receptacle that has had any fuel in it should be treated with respect. Regards, Mark

Thanks Paul. Today I mixed up roughly half of the pyrocrete to fill the lid and the base of the furnace. Tomorrow I will be making up the form to create the inner surface of the furnace body. Man it's going to be heavy. Roughly 60kg of pyrocrete alone plus the weight of all the steel.

You could do a lot with threaded connectors. Maybe a ready made solution for the wheels and frame would be a furniture removal trolley or a four wheeled dolly of some sort. Regards, Mark

John, I tend to be an impatient and messy bugger in the shop. I took a good look at my bench today after reading your comment and you will be happy to know I cleaned up and put away my other grinder so that it would not ingest all the metal dust from the other one. I also became more aware of where the sparks were being directed, especially when I noticed that the lens filter on my camera had metal particles fused to the surface. I just had to order three new filters! Thanks for the advice. I really don't want to kill my nice Milwaukee grinder! Regards, Preso

Peter, You were correct to remind me. I wanted you to know that I was taking your advice. Thanks for watching. Regards, Preso

Great project,well done,I’m wondering if the heat from firing the furnace will heat the tank sides enough to cause the galvanized vapors to become a breathing problem?

I did actually get ready to start the casting. I made my greensand too wet and the two halves of the sand mould stuck together (twice). I then purchased some calcium carbonate parting dust which took a week to arrive and in the meantime I purchased the graphite crucible which also took a week to arrive. Then I realised that it wasn't going to fit and on and on it went. I should be back ready to do the brass casting next week (I hope).

Lol Hopefully the rest goes with out a hitch. Looking forward to the rest of the build. Thinking of building a furnace myself. some day lol

Bob, I was lucky to get my LPG cylinder for free. I asked a mate of mine if he knew where he could get one and he told me there was an out of date one at the school where I used to work. It was in excellent condition but had past it's test date and apparently the gas company just left it there instead of collecting it and retesting it. I was going to get in touch with our gas supplier to ask if they had any old ones for sale but who can argue with free! I had also intended to check out our local recycling centre at the rubbish tip so that might also be a possibility. The pyrocrete that I used will be good for aluminium, brass and bronze but I am not sure it will stand up to temperatures required for Iron. There is another grade of pyrocrete called 241 which is more expensive but should be good for iron. Good luck with your build. I had always thought it was too hard and too expensive to get into home casting but no one was more surprised than I when my first casting turned out perfectly! Regards, Preso

Yes, I know, not regulation work wear but the day I was doing this it was around 35C in the shop and about 90% humidity. Just wearing a long sleeve shirt was enough to have me drenched in sweat by the end of the day. Getting a hot blob of zinc certainly livens up your footwork too.

@@Preso58 sounded like a good day for a beer or 3 😉👌

Harry, the total height from the base to the top of the lid is 21 1/4" or 540mm. That is more than enough for my #8 crucible. I don't know if there is a pyrocrete stockist in the USA but you could try a place that does pottery or kiln supplies. The place where I got mine also supplies to pizza oven builders. It is also used in brick kilns. We used to have a brickworks in the district and they used it to repair kiln linings but it was rated at a much higher temperature. Regards, Mark

I agonised over the placement of the burner for a long time and settled on putting it at the back behind the wheels and on the opposite side to the foot pedal. I usually have the propane fuel cylinder fairly close to the furnace and I try to keep anything that might be a trip hazard on the same side of the furnace and away from the working area. It's a matter of being disciplined (normally I am not) but when dealing with a crucible of face frying hot metal it tends to keep you focused. Regards, Preso

The Pyrocrete that I used is made by an Australian company called Foseco. I purchased it from a company that sells to potters. There is another company in Brisbane that sells soft and hard refractory materials for making and repairing pottery kilns. Some suppliers who do pizza ovens might also sell a similar product. I get most of my stock for melting in the home foundry from a car recycler. I can buy cylinder heads, intake manifolds and the like for about $1 per kilo. The problem is cutting it up to fit in the crucible. I can get access to a large metal cutting bandsaw but you need to avoid the valve seats and the valve bushings. They are really hard. I was told that wrought aluminium is not always suitable for melting but I sometimes add a few bits to the melt if I have scrap that is no good for machining. Sorry, but I don't know of a US equivalent to Pyrocrete but try the pottery market. They have to fire their kilns to similar temperatures. Brick makers also use refractory cements to repair their kilns. Good luck!

Have a look at Keith Rucker vintage machinery on utube. And look back on his videos. A couple of years ago he built a furnace, and he lives in Georgia, USA.

@@gibbsey9579 thank you I will give that a try.

@@Preso58 I looking into to making one now that I have seen yours, where did you get the pyrocrete from? Foseco don't seem to have it on their website, but not sure if they would sell me just a couple of bags anyway. There is a shop in Milton selling it online but they only have 5kg bags, I will give them a call to see if they sell bigger amounts

You can clearly tell that I am no welder. I make what I call "functional welds" I think I will leave the "cosmetic welding" to Jody et.al.

Frank, I found a set of drawings online although they were all in inches (we're metric here) I redrew the design in Autodesk Inventor. You can find the drawings here kinzers.com/don/MachineTools/bender/ I just checked and it doesn't specify the angles but you can calculate them by drawing out the linear dimensions to scale. I reality, I don't think the angular dimensions are all that critical but mine were bent to 150 degrees. Regards, Preso

@@Preso58 that's the same drawings I have I just don't know the angle of the two bends

@@hippizitify Hi, did you read all of my reply? I set mine to 150°

No I did I'm sorry but I got it now thanks

I have a 2D drawing of my furnace assembly on Dropbox. If you follow this link you can download a copy for yourself www.dropbox.com/s/j7bopx7noxi96vn/Mark%27s%20Foundry%20Furnace.pdf?dl=0 Regards, Mark

Mike, but then it would be asymmetric! 😮 To an Aspergian personality like mine it would drive me nuts. As it turned out, I found that the lid just clears the cavity but now I realise that it gets really hot. The blowback from the burner seems to travel up the hollow tube. I am going to have to block the hollow end and maybe make some sort of wooden insulator/hand grip. I test fired it yesterday and so far it's looking good. Next episode out in a few days!

Ran out of red paint?

John, you can buy bare steel in flats, sheets, rounds and angle but all RHS and SHS comes with the blue finish. It could be something to do with the low volume of sales here compared to other parts of the world or because we seem to have just a few companies selling steel in the domestic market. I was watching a channel called Scott Turner. He makes industrial style steel furniture and he has to strip all the blue paint off his stock with paint stripper before he starts his projects. Go figure!

@@Preso58 I'm really interested in this build, its something I've always wanted to try my hand at. I like your design

@Barry Manilowasuch a forgery.

Will, the truth is that I used to teach at a secondary school before I retired. At the end of the year we would clean out the piles of unfinished student projects and anything that was still straight stock was fair game. So, "Alec" donated his stock to me because he was too lazy to finish his coffee table😁 Regards, Preso

@@Preso58 ahh a life lesson then don't be like Alec and not finish your project. 😂

Adam, Most of the parts were turned on the lathe. The rectangular slots for the air vents were filed by hand. The long stainless steel tube is just press fitted onto the gas jet holder. The gas hose barb was a commercially available item threaded into the mild steel gas jet holder. The jet itself was a brass fitting I made from scratch but I am sure you could buy them ready made. Check this video. It shows more details on the burner at about 15:21 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KGFYJwvKLRo.html Regards, Mark

Andrew, it's a Cigweld Weldskill185. It will do MIG, MMAW and lift TIG. Regards, Mark

Mark Presling thanks for the info!

Rodger, You are correct. I just googled this and now realise I was mispronouncing it. Sadly I just finished filming the next episode of the foundry build and I must have mentioned the "C" word about 50 times. I will try to make amends! 🙄