FIRE-KEG Foundry Furnace | Prepping the Keg (Part 1) 

Brian Oltrogge Good call man! Thanks for the response

Heee, Hee, He, Or seven years later, still good, still informative Thank you!

Good advice!

Yep. BTW it's nice not to have some crappy techno blasting my brain.

Thanks! I have a fairly in-depth video about the torch... if that isn’t good enough, I have a plan set that goes into even more depth on the foundry and torch on my website www.grunblau.com

Realise this is a pretty old question. One concern would be what you are planning on melting, the refactory material they are using looks to be rated to a pretty high temperature, the stainless will melt around 1500° C so depending on how hot you are planning on going may not be ideal. I'm guessing thermal expansion and contraction could be a problem as well with long term use

The rings are flush with the edges and provide a pretty flat mating interface vs cut edge of stainless. They also provide a physical ledge to hold in the refractory in the lid.

I know your question was posted long ago, but thought I help out a little. I built my keg foundry using his version, except that I did use the kaowool on the sides and the lid. The idea of using it on the lid was a small "fail", it worked but because the wool is laying horizontally, and then covered with a layer of refractory cement, the heat and weight caused many cracks in the cement. Then it falls into the crucible. Not good! I've since removed the wool and poured it with cement, as per his video. (I recently watch another video that suggested cutting the wool into "wedge shapped" pieces, & turning the wool on it's side so as to use the natural strength of the wool. Then it's placed in the lid like spokes on a wheel, covered in Satanite refractory cement.) Kaowool will easily pull apart in one direction, but stays firmly in place when pulled in the other. I hope this isn't super confusing!

@@walter2990 thanks for replying...i actually am revisiting this build in the spring...have new space now...jsut finished my cnc builds...so the foundry is next.

@@minskmade All the best on your building of the kegger foundry!!

Great! I have considered hinging mine… was looking at the hinge on the “Big Green Egg” BBQs for inspiration. Good luck with your build!

I believe the ones I used here were cobalt.

+Marty Swartz 100's. Still going strong! There are a couple small cracks that I think developed from the screws holding on the handles. I don't expect to have any issues, but if I did, I'd chisel out the bore and just recast the wall. Good as new!

Dan Humphreys there is

they are on his site grunblau

The strap is likely much more straight and uniform than the cut edge of the keg. This provides a better mating surface.

It will take about 5 of those.

+Brian Oltrogge You are serious? 250+ pounds?

Yep. I finally found a local supply of castable refractory, and some mixtures weigh 122lbs per cubic foot or more. The keg I'm using is ~1.8 cubic feet accounting for the bucket sized chamber inside.

Sam Powell well alright then. Good to know

+Matthew Cantrell I got mine off of Craigslist. Apparently some distributors will have damaged kegs they will sell. If you rent a keg and keep it, that could be considered theft, so be careful.

All your answers are here .... and more. TL;DR - standard half-barrel keg.

Nope… not on the lid… but I suspect the bolts that hold the handles on to the keg may have contributed to small fractures in the bore…. All good though.

Should the fact that they are also that way in the CAD file be a cause for alarm?

+Brian Oltrogge never.

Half barrel. The American standard not European and it must be stainless. Some kegs are aluminum now and would melt...

Brian Oltrogge Thanks!

+Jody Justus Soon when I get a tiny bit of linear time. Crucible is a #10 but I will likely get a #12 when I reorder. As far as the insulation goes... This furnace is hot enough to pour aluminum in about 30-45 minutes on propane. Less on oil and even less if I don't care to slowly raise the temperature. If this was a commercial furnace that would run all day, I'd care more about the efficiency and heat loss through the refractory to the skin. I have ceramic blanket that I chose not to use because I eventually came to the conclusion that I would rather have a small dia body and a large bore with 2-3" of solid refractory. I probably run it for 2-3 hours per fire-up to be a bit efficient about turning scrap into ingots. So a pour looks like this for me... 1 Load crucible with ingots or scrap and place in furnace 2 Heat crucible and furnace with lid off for a few minutes 3 Turn burner on full blast 4 Place lid 5 Place scrap or ingots on the lid 6 Note when more metal will fit in crucible and add 7 Prepare additives 8 Note when last chunk melted 9 Wait ~3 minutes 10 Remove dross 11 Add additives 12 Remove dross 13 Pour mold and/or ingots leaving a bit in the crucible if continuing to melt 14 Place crucible back in furnace (Repeat steps 4-14 until out of scrap) 15 Plug holes for cool down and cover with a steel tub if there is a chance of rain. The furnace will still be warm in the morning...

Dunno, standard size I guess.... You could make a knife forge out of a pony keg!

Thanks for the Info

+Douglas Gordon That is a standard 15.5 gallon sanke keg. Also known as a 'commercial' or a half-barrel keg.

Brian Oltrogge any way to get a copy of the template you used to cut the holes in the side and pale. gtlucier@gmail.com

+Paul Jarrett Check out my website! www.grunblau.com

+Christopher Jones The wooden plug is so that the hole saw has a center using the integrated drill bit. The screws in the lid provide a mechanical attachment of the refractory to the lid. Otherwise, it would just fall out since the refractory doesn't stick well to stainless steel. Especially since the skin expands at a different rate than the refractory when it heats up.

Brian Oltrogge ok thought so.. just wanted to make sure.. just saw a guy on here who made one and thats exactly what happened to his... top fell right out. Good idea. Maybe some in the side couldnt hurt either?

+Christopher Jones leave them out of the side. If I was to do one thing differently, it would be to mask the screws that hold the handles. The keg skin grows by about 1/8 dia when hot. Might be what lead to my small cracks. The ring around the top gives you some mechanical attachment, but it isn't like you are going to flip the keg upside down. Gravity will hold it in the keg :)

Brian Oltrogge what do you mean mask them? like cut them shorter or cover the ends in masking tape?

+Christopher Jones Yes. Make it easier for the skin to pull away when hot... Shorter fasteners covered with tape would do it!

He has plans on his web page now for the burner and the fire keg

+Sergey Romanov A foundry furnace like it says in the title.

+The Aviation As long as the whiskey barrel is steel!

Standard 15.5 Gallon stainless keg

+razie85 1/8" x 1" if memory serves...

thanks for your reply

Stainless steel. Aluminum would probably melt.

at 0:25, you can see "15.5" stamped into the top of the keg. Standard "half-keg" size.

Marty Swartz oh nice, i didnt catch that, its what i was shooting for anyways, lol

They were sent to your tk*****@inspire.net.nz email on the same day.! Please send me a note if you need me to resend. Be sure to check your spam folder!

This.

One of the only legal places to get kegs is from a distributor!

@@Grunblau proof? I own around 300 kegs and at least 100 have been nicked. That's around $12,000 of assets stolen, kinda hurts. Admittedly I'm in a different country and when we have end of life kegs (10 years) they are crushed so that no one thinks they are still rated at their original pressure rating in case someone decides to sue when they misuse the keg.

Lol. Please forgive. I am actually considering recompiling these with a voice over and no music. Had like 3 subs when I posted these…