Building and Oil Fired Foundry Furnace - Part 7: Pouring Refractory and Removing the Forms

[Music] hello Keith right here vintage machinery org so today we're going to be going ahead and doing the refractory pour on the furnace this will be a tent number two as you may have seen in my previous videos we've tried this before we use the cardboard saw no tube in the main furnace excuse me and that failed and basically had to go back to the drawing board so we've got a much more sturdier metal tube in here this time that hopefully it's going to give us a much better result so if you want to go back and see how we built the forms you go back take a look at the previous video you know since then basically what we've done is we've just let everything kind of set up we've got some spray foam insulation down inside the tube here to kind of give it some more strength but more importantly to make sure we got a good seal around where the the tube is going through here there will be cast into the bottom because in the previous pour that is where the failure occurred right around that and I want to make sure we have plenty of support and that everything was going to be sealed up really good down there also I went ahead Phillips foam insulation in this little plastic tub more anything else just to kind of give us some rigidity to that so that again it doesn't collapse this down from the concrete that foam in there is taking up that space and helping us out a lot over here on the mold that's going to become the lid of the furnace we made a few little small modifications I guess since since the first video I got to thinking about it and I was really worried that there was nothing to keep the refractory from just sliding out of this this metal ring which was basically being used to lift the top up and down with so I went in and just kind of bolted some little strips in here and basically what these will do is serve as a key on the inside of that so the refractory would be cast right around that and that would give some some gripping power I guess to that though all the refractory when this a lid is lifted up and dropped down on the furnace so anyway that's the plan there just to have a little bit of just that little keyed or area around the outside ring to help us out and I also went ahead and just like we did on the other forum agrees this up using some vegetable oil we used Crisco some shortening and that's just a service release agent so when we going to take these apart that would will hopefully come apart from the concrete a little bit easier of course I've tried not to get any Crisco on the outer ring because we want it to bond to that so you know maybe a little bit down in here a couple of spots but for the most part it's pretty clean so we should be good so with that I think we're ready to actually start mixing up some refractory and getting ready to go we got to get a little bit more work done to our cement mixer to mix it up in and we'll be back shortly and get that going it's a little bit about the refractory we're going to be using this is a product called Express 30 plus it's made by a NH refractory companies and they're sold through a lot of different distributors around the country I got this from a dealer outside of Birmingham Alabama and I could probably get it family closer but I was I was over there with work and it was just convenient for me to pick them up come in 55 pound bags and basically this refractory material is a rated for a maximum temperature of 3000 degrees Fahrenheit which is a 1650 degrees Celsius I've got about six seven bags of this I can't remember but anyway we should have enough to do what we need to do I was able to use I was able to calculate the volume and like cubic inches or whatever that I was going to be need to pour and then figure out how much a bag would go and calculate how much I needed we mix a half a gallon of water per bag with this according to the paperwork and I'm probably going to mix it a little bit on the dry side and add some more water to it as needed to get the consistency I'm looking for this is a self flowing refractory it does not require vibration some refractories need to vibrate it in to kind of get it settled in there that's actually one of the pluses for what I'm doing because I don't have to have a vibrator to get this to go in there it will sell flow and hopefully this is going to do a good job for us the having that temperature top-end temperature it should allow us if we if we desire to down the road to be able to actually melt cast iron in the furnace although I'll probably mostly be using it for Bronson aluminum but it does give me that flexibility should I decide to use [Music] so that's got the poor done everything appears to be looking good we don't see any failures I'm not happy with the surface we got up on the top of this you know this refractory I remember from the last time it it's easy to get it to wet and it looked like it was a little stiff and dry when we were working it but there was actually a lot of moisture in there that you could really see it it was very fluid once they got in there so we're just fine with everything here so plan now is we're just gonna let this stuff sit at least overnight I may even let it sit a couple of days and harden up and then we'll come pull all these forms off and see exactly what we got a little bit extra fracture left over so we just poured it up in some buckets here I guess you can see that maybe it's in frame but these will be used as a little block for the crucibles to set on inside the furnace to get it up off the bottom so that worked out real good had a little bit extra just enough to get plenty of those made up so anyway we'll come back and see how it all comes apart we've let this sit overnight and everything's getting hard now is I'm sure it's still curing but it's set up well enough that we can mess around with it with no problem so one go ahead and start tearing these forms apart first thing we got to do is get a little pipe out down here and when I first started messing with it it was in there pretty tight and I said you know I've got all the stray insulation on the inside it's probably kind of locking it in place so I got a cordless drill was a little spade bit and I got in here and basically we should say well stir this thing around in there and break that spray insulation that foam installations up also went down actually drilled through the plastic tube to kind of break it up to get it where I could pull it out and I think it's going to come on out and now I've actually got to move so let me zoom you in and we'll pull that out so I've just got some big channel locks here and that broken loose and it looks like it's coming out pretty good they want to grip it very well there we go and you can see where I drilled through there kind of broke that up but uh that's out now that factory was the part I was most worried about let's throw this away well guys I'm making an executive decision here after feeling up in here is still a little damp it's not it's set up but I'm just worried that it may be a little premature to try to take these tubes apart our forms apart so I'm gonna put this back in and we're just gonna let this sit for a while longer I agrees that up so it should come out pretty easily next time and we're just gonna let it fit I'm gonna be gone for a couple days so this is a good chance to let it cure for several days and we'll pull these apart when I get back well we're gonna get back on the foundry project again now just kind of give you guys a little update we poured this be Tuesday a week ago so this actually been seven days since we poured the refractory on this I had to go out of town for a work trip and have some other things going on it's over the Christmas break while I'm doing this three days from Christmas right now 2015 and anyway we're gonna go ahead and I think now and try to pull these forms off it's a nasty rainy messy day down here in South Georgia it's about 70 something degrees I'm sweating here is three days for Christmas I'm sweating it's hot and humid but we're gonna we're gonna pull these forms off and let's see where we're at so so again we'll start with the pipe that runs up through here this is kind of key and everything together so hopefully it's going to come on out good deal and you know you've seen it previously we had already kind of gone in here and open this up on the inside I drilled all that out with a spade bit cleaned up all that insulation and yeah now my refractory is nice and solid and I think these forms ready to come apart so continue on won't start by kind of tapping this around here and see if I can write this loose from the mold a little bit a nice little ring to it [Music] some will cheat a little bit trying to pull these forms out we're going to use a little mechanical advantage we got the forks on the tractor hooked up I've got to cut a hole in my metal here and we're gonna use the hydraulics to see we can persuade that form to come on out let's give it a try well I can see this is going to be a fight guys pulled out the stiffener board that's up in the top and uh this rod is actually attached to the bottom board I'm gonna try to just pull it out I think it'll come out on its own and that will hopefully help kind of pair up the stability of this tube so we're going to try to pull that pot with a disc out of the bottom right now and put any luck the whole form will come with it but I doubt it let's do it I for up to about Plan C or D now I'm not sure which but I've actually cut the inside of the form all the way down through here and we're gonna try to snatch this out again so keep our fingers crossed it worked this time we're making progress but we're not quite there yet I see if I a little more brute-force here I may have to cut the other side as well [Applause] the backside here is all free but it's just still grabbing over here on the front all right next plan all right I think we're making some progress now all right so we're gonna make another attempt here I've got the plywood pour out of the bottom now which I think that's really what was holding on to everything I've got two slits down the side of this form so there's just a little ring in the bottom that I couldn't fight skit splinters out that was under that plywood I'm hoping it's just going to pull right on out now let's see what happens all right perfect perfect perfect perfect this kid is cleaned up and we'll let you take a look in here well the light kind of sucks out here right now but maybe you can see with the flashlight all in all I'm very very happy with the results of the pour here we got the sides are relatively smooth I mean yeah there's some those small dimples in here but nothing that a light you know watch of the refractory on the inside won't take care of the bottom looks good there's a little trash in here still just from duct tape and paper from the little cutouts I had but it should clean up fine this looks excellent I'm very very pleased with the results that we got here so let's go ahead and finish pulling the outside forms off and see what it looks like oh man it's messy out here today let's pull these forms off and be done with this [Music] [Music] see how these come out [Music] [Applause] so now we just need to cut this plastic form off ah doctor [Music] [Music] all right looks good so this outer area here is going to be filled with insulation to provide some extra insulation we'll put a metal jacket around it to kind of hold it in place but coming together nice looking really good I'm very very happy with what I'm seeing well that entered form on the furnace was a bear but we got it we won so analysis we can get the forms off of this lid without too much trouble I'm starting by seeing if I can just try to get this foam insulation out of this bucket so we can hopefully get this out without too much trouble there we go that actually came out pretty clean in the bottom so I got two screws in there hold by the end let me uh change bits very good alright so that looks pretty good I'm going to flip the form over and we'll start taking them across apart from the bottom [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] finally I think we're gonna call it a day on this pretty much got where I want to be for right now and we're going to come back and work on this some more hopefully over the next week or so while I've got some time off on during the UH the Christmas holidays and this year so just a little review we got the the lid off the forms I the lid and just so you'll know this this void area in here we're going to put again insulation in here and then we'll put a cover over the top of this there will also be a hinge just mounted on this it allowed me to pick it up and pivot the whole lid off so you can access where the crucible is and stuff will go down into actually already have the hinge fabricated and I'll be sharing some information with you on that later I did come in here and weld in some support for three album two in the front and one in the back these supports here just go between the the bottom metal ring on the bottom and the metal ring on the top and it's just to give it some more stability there's a lot of weight all in this top ring and I don't want all of the weight to be bearing on the refractory itself so hopefully by doing this I've taken some of that weight off of the refractory put it into these legs that will give me some support one thing I want to comment on because I've gotten comments on this online and I last time we did the poor I got comments I just want to address it real quick several of you asked about why did I not put any reinforcement rod inside the refractory and the reason is is because I was advised very strongly not to do that by the refractory company and the reason is is that remember this stuff is going to get heated up extremely hot it's going to be expanding and contracting in the metal inside the refractory will expand and contract at a different rate and it will actually cause for refractory to crack so we didn't put any reinforcement bar inside of this but anyway I don't think that's gonna be an issue it shouldn't be an issue but anyway that's the reason why I noticed you've been asking about that so with that we're gonna close down for today this weather out here as I've said already just really sucks is it's it's about 75 degrees it's just a light rain enough of a rain that you can't get out in it it's just wet and because of the temperature and the humidity it is just I'm soaking wet right now and I've just I've had enough so enough is enough we're calling it quits for the day we'll come back out here when the weather is a little bit nicer and try to work on this some more but making progress very happy with the poor I think everything went well and you know next steps we've got to get some insulation blankets to go around this will cover the outside this for the skin again I've got to work on the hinge mechanism for the lid and the burner will also be coming up in upcoming episodes so looking forward to talking to you later we'll see you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Keith Rucker - VintageMachinery.org

Views: 42,812

Rating: 4.9569378 out of 5

Keywords: Machine Shop, Machinist, Foundry, Furnace, Refracotry, Shop

Id: rryEn2aOfCQ

Length: 31min 46sec (1906 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2015