What?! Another video so soon? Yeah I'm trying to increase my output to weekly. It's bad luck to promise uploads... so no promises that ill keep it up. At any rate quality will suffer but I'm not monetizing them beyond the minimum that I can anyway so...
Hey Cody! These electric to gas kiln conversions are great- a little tip as someone who has used them almost daily for some years now as a potter. If you enlarge your burner ports slightly and mount the burners slightly outside the shell of the kiln, it will provide 2 benefits: firstly, it will provide you with greater control over the combustion atmosphere inside so you can achieve greater efficiencey/temperature. By putting a damper over the flue hole, you will be able to control how much secondary air is dragged into the burner ports by the flame and adjust the mixture. This also cools the burners and prevents the metal scaling away due to oxidation. Adding a squirrel cage blower to each burner also increases the output temperature by a few hundred degrees.
Hope Cody takes this constructive feedback into account! Where do you mount the squirrel cage blowers? It looked like the outer skin of the kiln was starting to discolour, possibly because of the extreme heat, so I'd imagine mounting the blowers anywhere near the inlet ports would quickly annihilate them. Do you use some sort of piping to direct the airflow in?
@jafinch78 The first time I fired the one I made for my wif. The glaze came out full reduction. What was supposed to be a blue vase turned out red. Lol I've learned a lot
Nice! I have two kilns I need to get back going. A few of my nicer looking reduction fire samples as well. Plus quite a bit of materials for a few other kiln designs I was planning on working on, including a vertical kiln for heat treating and stuff. Such are the tangents with life. @@irwoody2
@@HubrisIncIf your electrolytic caps emit light, even once, boy-howdy! is that a spicy time. Now that I think on it, there might be another channel which you likely watch...
I love how easy it is to drill and work firebrick. Great material. I'd like to figure out a way to make it myself, I guess maybe like aircrete except made with alumina and waterglass instead of cement. Would be cool if it could be made to self expand. Great build! Wouldn't have thought about the conversion myself but it makes a ton of sense
this is adorable and youre way too humble nighthawk.. you guys gotta do the electroboom steve mould fake youtuber beef thing... maybe race each other to make something or get a better result than the other on something!
I've shocked myself on electric kilns hitting the coil with the tongs. I wasn't wearing gloves which would have helped, but still, live wires in there. I have a small furnace like the one he showed in the beginning and I usually don't turn it off to pull the crucible. I'm guessing he was comparing his process to the smaller one.@@NAJALU
A broken coil can be repaired. I got an electric kiln for cheap because of the broken wires. I've bought thin Constantan wire, stretched the broken wire a little bit to get the wires to overlap, used file to get the oxide off and the wound the Constantan wire around the overlap to reconnect the wires again. Repaired 5 breaks this way. Works fine for nearly 10 years now. You have to take your time and wind then tight to get a good connection.
@@illustriouschin?!? Elaborate. Pretty sure i have watched every video of his for years. He got harassed by youtube and the gummint, then his GF broke up because she doesnt like homesteading iirc and he was quite sad for a while. Understandably after that barrage of nonsense. But brain damage?
Very clear, very simple demonstration of the energy density of the chemical bond vs readily available electrical power. Most folks do not TRULY appreciate just how many joules of energy it takes to do something and how that equates to electricity. 1 kwh - 3.6 x 10E6 joules. Standard cubic foot of natural gas (SCF) = 1.1x10E6
It is a propane burner, so it looks even better, with 2.6×10E6 J per SCF. However, you have to mix it with around 24 SCF of air to burn it effectively, resulting in the release of a substantial amount of heat. You get hundreds of times more combustion products than substrate, and you have to dilute the combustible in the oxidizer. Moreover, one of the byproducts of propane combustion is water, which possesses a significant specific heat capacity, stealing a considerable amount of energy from the kiln in the form of steam. I am curious about the efficiency of this furnace and would bet it won't be more than 20%. Additionally, there are other differences; a gas-operated furnace will create a more reducing atmosphere than an electric one, typically intensifying oxidation. Furthermore, with gas, you give up easy temperature control. There is a lot of energy in chemical bonds but it is difficult to use it effectively.
So happy you got some justice with the whole RU-vid/payment debacle. I particularly love the added benefit of getting more mad scientisty videos more often 🙂
I'm 00:48 seconds in and as an electrical engineer obviously you could just rewind the heating coils but I'm leaving this comment for the algorithm. The video is about converting it to propane and Cody never fails to make a good video.
I grew up watching cody and then youtube stopped showing his vids till i tracked him back down and RESUBSCRIBED. RU-vid sucks, cody, you rock. Keep on being a mad scientist
I was not expecting that firebrick lining the kiln to be that easy to cut into. Going at it with a hole saw, one-handed, at an angle too, was surprising.
Very nice conversion. You could probably cook a frozen turkey in 4 minutes ( or cause a steam explosion). If you line the inside walls with Kaowool Ceramic Fiber Insulation , your hard refractory will last longer. The refractory in electric units tend to be soft and brittle, very porous. I use 1” thick on my furnace and change it every year. It also mitigates any splashing and splattering from eroding the hard refractory of the furnace. Keep up the good work. Chicken Hole Base is coming along nicely too.
Great use for an old kiln. That being said, pretty easy to replace wire. For such a big furnace, might want to consider switching to propane/diesel hybrid.
thats a big upgrade from that little gas kiln you were using. now you need to prepare everything in advance because you wont have enough time with how much faster the new kiln melts stuff.
That’s neat! But, one improvement I would make is how I’d keep that lid from falling on you. Looked like the locking bar was red hot. Maybe a reflection, but either way I’d not want that thing to fall while I was reaching in. If I had to guess, you’re already aware and making it a priority! Thanks for the video!
DUDE!!! I have the exact same kil with some damaged bricks thats going to cost a pretty penny to repair correctly. I'm doing this to mine! Thats perfect for my needs (also metal casting)!!!
As fast as this is, also is an EXTREMELY thirsty setup. Only worth turning on when you want to, like, cast an anthill or something. Or if you buy a gigantic crucible and the tools needed to move it carefully
I mean, assuming he dials in the amount of gas flow needed to reach a certain temperature, it could end up being less gas than the old furnace would use for an equivalent task. Since less heat will be lost out the top if the metal takes less time to melt.
What's up with Cody?! He's totally *on fire* 🔥 !! Pumping out those amazing YT videos one after another recently! 🤗 And never looked better whilst doing so 🤩
I don't know about forges or furnaces but I have some experience with home built gas kilns for pottery. I wouldn't put the burner inside the kiln. My burners are about one inch from the outside wall. I think it helps to increase the lifetime of the burners. I'm using natural draft burners so they also get some additional air like that. Also the hole for the burners are a bit larger than the burner itself. The burners allow to adjust the amount of air going in. That and adjusting the cross section of the chimney helps to control combustion and hopefully make it efficient. Just saw others already commented the same thing.
Very cool Cody! I was offered an electric kiln recently from a co-worker but and with our 18% increase in electricity from PGE here in Oregon, converting to gas seems efficient in my book. Just converting to natural gas a couple years ago dropped my electrical bill from =>400/month in the winter months to +-80/month with the additional ~120/month gas cost.. with the increase this year the last electric bill was at 132 which is clearly over the 18% it's supposed to be. Anyone else in different places experiencing large electrical increases?
I would get rid of the big useless electrical box. Acquire some firebricks so you can raise the floor of the kiln, for easier access. Better hose management, tripping so close to molten metal would be bad. Several people have suggested using diesel/oil burners to cut down cost. An MCU board with a thermocouple and servos to regulate heat, if that is ever needed. Those are my suggestions.
Nice to have things turn out better than expected. The new setup is a beast! I think one point most of the Cody clan agree on is that we not only enjoy you explaining the science but also take joy in seeing you have fun! Now I'm curious to what you made with that bronze!
I bought the same kiln and had to rig a 220v outlet in the garage to support it. It’s good to know that I have alternatives in the event that the coil dies on me.
I bought an old paragon kiln for $90 on marketplace last year. I got new coil wire on Amazon and installed a $30 PID kit. I use it for heat treating and LostPLA
Hey Cody, if you're in need of video ideas, you can make some Mg-Al 50/50 alloy, it's even more brittle than anything, hell rock candy is stronger. Super easy to crush it into a powder
Regarding kiln to furnace one of the best channels that I know of, where he happily accepts questions, would be BigStackD. Guy in Australia that melts everything but steel ( his propane furnaces can't get hot enough ). Goes over gas furnace use and maintenance in more than a few of his vids. He's also working on using a large kiln IIRC.
Add some layers to the furnace so, if you are smelting metals, there is no need for such a big chamber and it will get hot really fast (+you save fuel). On the other hand, if you need a lot of space to fire pottery then move the layer up (like a concrete and insulation mix).
Holy smokes, that thing is a beast. Very impressive. Though I imagine the propane bill to run it will be pretty impressive as well. On the other hand, it clearly gets quite hot post-haste, lol...
After watching the improvements I can think of is a shelving of some sort with gas ports higher up to make it easier to retrieve the smelting and reduce the overall space second(I don't work with gas so I don't know the safety on this) a main line shut off/central station for the gas so you wouldn't have to go around in circles to turn on/off
If the thermocouple on the kiln is still working you could go a few steps further and get an electric regulator for a larger propane tank so it is all controlled from the kiln panel.
Hate to say this, but seeing that in the northern hemisphere. The natural rotation is clockwise. I do not know if it will be an issue. You are much smarter than I. It seems to function well.
Ya need Baffles that the flame hits for proper Gas kiln. There are updraft and downdraft varieties but its used to ensure oxygen concentrations are even as well as the heat distribution.
Would have been better to rebuild the electric one instead - a good electric one using resistive wire like that, can go up to about 1300-1320°C (2372-2408°F) - even though the heating will be quite slow the last bit as the power has to be limited to not melt the wires (room temperature to 1300 can usually be done quite easily in one hour - but 1200°C/2192°C can usually be done in just 30 minutes and 1100°C/2012°F in just 20 minutes). I doubt a simple gas one like that, will be much better, and it wastes a ton of energy just blowing out hot exhaust gas. That's why you need the big hole on top. But building a good electric one, need some calculations to get everything right (which take a little too long to write out in this post - but I can do if intereted). Also the wires should be on tubes inside the chamber - making grooves in the walls made of insulating bricks, will impede the heat flow a lot to the chamber - causing the wire temperature to increase. As the melting point of the wires is often 1500°C or less - there is not much margin (and the reason a metal with higher melting point isn't used, is that it's a special alloy that doesn't burn in contact with air. Many metals have way higher meltning points, but will burn in contact with oxygen).
Might need some more insulation since the outside of that sucker seems HOT lol, back when I was an apprentice knife smith the popular materials were k-wool coated with a refractory paint called itc-100. They do an excellent job insulating and reflecting heat, and both are fairly cheap. I'd stuff some k-wool in the grooves where the coil was then add 1/2 inch to the walls, coat it all up with itc-100 and that bad boy will last a life time guaranteed. Probably also only need 2 of those propane torches, for a forge roughly half that size we only used a single torch.
