Customer Reviews

Build an Oil Fired Tilting Furnace (The Small foundry series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you love to build things and are always doing "weird" things in your garage, then this project might be for you. You might want to check with your neighbors and local ordinances before firing it up. This is not a trivial undertaking.

Seriously, this is a well-researched book on how to build a furnace for melting relatively large quantities of aluminum (by home shop standards). The furnace is designed so that the entire furnace and crucible tilts about the pouring spout so that one person can safely pour the 50 pounds of aluminum that you will generate with each heat. The book is 192 pages of very tightly written instructions and almost every page has at least one engineering graph, photo, or engineering sketch that help with the engineering and construction of the furnace. The instructions given are complete enough so experienced metal workers should be able to complete the project without too much difficulty. You will need access to an oxy-acetylene torch, arc welder, and lathe.

The book is divided roughly into two parts, engineering design and furnace construction. The design portion of the book is very thorough. The section starts by describing the different types of foundry furnaces and their benefits. The tilting furnace allows melting of quantities larger than one person could lift and pour from a lift-out crucible furnace that is common in home hobby foundries. Chastain then quickly moves into the design calculations used for his furnace design. His purpose for such design detail is to provide the builder with the knowledge necessary to make modifications to the furnace. If you are interested in home foundry work this section will be very interesting regardless of your intention to build the furnace. Tables are given for the thermal properties of common home foundry metals. Equations are given to determine the quantity of heat required to melt a given quantity of metal. Then Chastain calculates the amount of fuel needed to provide the proper amount of heat to melt the metal. If these formulas and charts are not enough, an excellent bibliography is given that should shorten any library search. This information should be enough to safely re-engineer almost any modification to the tilting furnace.

One of the interesting features of this furnace is the use of used oil (motor, transmission, brake fluid, etc.) for the fuel source. The use of oil complicates the design and construction of the furnace, but once operational you can run the furnace with very low fuel cost. This design uses propane to warm the furnace and start the oil fire. Some tips are given in case you want to change the design to fully propane operation in order to simplify building and operation.

"Build an Oil-Fired Tilting Furnace" is the second self-published book by Steve Chastain. If you are serious about home foundry work this is a worthwhile book, even if you are not going to build this particular furnace. The engineering section will provide the data needed for many types of furnaces. Chastain's first book showed how to build an Iron Melting Cupola. A flyer included with the "Oil-Fired Furnace" advertised a third book in the series due in September 2002 and titled "Sand Casting Manual". From the list of topics it looks like that book will also be a "must-have" for the home foundry library.

This is a very good book that has all the calculations and everything worked out. He tells how to independently design your furnace in case you want something slightly different and what to take into consideration. Unfortunately, it requires a lathe, quite a few welds, a cut off saw that can cut metal, and an oxyacetylene cutting torch. But if you already have those, you can make this furnace for a reasonable price and ease.
Trevor

Good book, practical and clear. Arrived very promptly at the other side of the world.

Steve has writen anouther great book. I am designing my own furnace using his book. You can build the furnace just like Steve did or change the design as I'm doing. I'm no math wiz but the book takes all the mistery out of building a furnace and getting it right. All the math is explained and Steve has included many charts that will help also. I expect my furnace to work very well by using the book to design it. A very well writen book in my opinion.

Marvin

Nice book, a lot of drawings. Usable information including scaling up or down. Not too hard to understand for a handy person. Oil makes it cheaper to run (waste oil).

Steve Chastain knows his subject, but is short in conveying it
in a lucid manner. If he had better graphics in detailing the
parts of the tilting furnace as he had in his book on cupola
furnace, it may have helped. But even the cupola book would have
a hard time beating C.W. Ammen on the same subject. Buy the book
for Steve Chastain's knowledge...it's worth it.

Steve Chastain has done it again. His Irom Melting Cupola book is the best book for a do it your self Cupola. Now Steve has a new book, Oil Fired Tilting Furnace.

I have both books and they are well written and easy to understand.

You can build the Oil Fired Furnace just as Steve did of use the book to design your own furnace. Everything is well explained, even the math required. I don't like math myself but with the book I will be able to do the math required an design a furnace to meet my requirements. The book takes all the mystery out of building a working furnace.

There are many charts also that will be a great help. If you want to build your own furnace I highly recommend this book. You will not be disapointed in my opinion.

Marvin