Fun with my Waste Oil Forge

W

Will Leavitt

Joined
Jul 28, 2006
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Ran out of used motor oil for my forge so I went to this lil restaraunt down the road to ask for some used fryer oil... the owner was going to give me some new oil but I told him used was fine, I left with 20 gallons of oil and an open invitation to take all I want. I wish I drove a diesel so I could make biodiesel with this stuff :'(

Errrrrrrr didn't know that waste vegetable oil burned that hot :eek: Same setting I use for motor oil had flames shooting out of every opening in the forge :eek: Heats were wonderfully fast. :D

I got to filter it though cause something clogged up the valve on the bucket so I can't finish forging this bowie until tomorrow. :grumpy:

The smell at the start and finish is better... fries versus engine oil.
 
I am building a contraption that will take the oil and heat it so hot it will turn into a gas and then will be piped into my forced air setup. i have done some experimenting and man it works nice. my first set up was just an old soop can on my stove burner with a VERY little bit of oil in it. turn on the stove burner and when the oil starts smoking a lot light it and man i was suprized haw well it burned and it was very clean. so now I'm designing an external oil smoker that will plug in :D
 
J, most of the home foundry guys found that the oil vaporizer/pre-heaters were unecessary except to keep the oil flowing at low temps. I'm too stupid to figure stuff like that out anyways :D
 
Will,Thanks for the update,Thats what I wanted to know,the fryer oil works better for high heat....I bet you will have to preheat the veggy oil as it will solidify some and get to thick (guess how I know)I gotta get mine up and running now.Great job on this also.

Bruce
 
No video camera.... :p

Bruce, I dunno, the heat radiating from the burner tube "seems" to heat up the oil when it gets to the control valve, I know it's warm to the touch so probably 90+ degrees at that point. When it hits the burner tube after it comes up to temp the oil vaporizes and is blown into the forge body.
 
Thanks Will...I was just looking at the Back Yard Foundary site again and like the new designs they have come up with since I tried this the first time years ago,I think I can make this now without any problem.

Bruce
 
JT,
Just a word of caution .

Liquids don't burn.....only vapors (as a basic statement).
So pumping warm oil is not too much worry. However, when you get to the vapor point, or atomize it into a mist (smoke), different rules apply.Oil mist is extremely explosive. If you make it gaseous as well as atomized ( smoke and vapor), it can really go bang. A flash back into a heating retort can take down a small factory. Make sure there is no air that can enter the system, or unhappy results may develop. That is why the oxygen and fuel gas is mixed at the torch tip, not at the tank, when welding. Also, anyone ever notice the label on an oxygen or air regulator or gauge? It says in nice bold letters, "USE NO OIL". That is because the tiny amount of oil that might vaporize in the air/oxygen stream would make the hose full of highly explosive mix.

Just being my old concerned self, but be careful.
Stacy
 
Our resident brainy smith has hit upon something. Google "fuel air bombs". These are the largest non-nuclear weapons in our military ordinance. You've heard of the MOAB right, that is the mechanism we're talking about.

Interesting quote about the Russians FAE bomb:

"Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian armed forces staff told the Channel One television station that the bomb is comparable to a nuclear weapon in efficiency and capability, but unlike a nuclear weapon, it doesn't hurt the environment. He described the mechanism of the bomb's destructive capabilities, saying that it is based on the detonation of a fine spray of combustible substance resulting in a shockwave and a high temperature explosion. "



and here is a great pict of a small one

fuel_air_concussion.jpg



"A small 500-lb fuel-air atmospheric air-to-ground munition device (GBU), just after primary ignition and moments before concussive impact on a test structure at Nellis, AFB. These were used prominently in Afghanistan in 2001-2002 on Al-Qaida cave openings, and caused exhaust plumes on the complete other side of the mountain when they were placed properly."
 
You've heard of a "daisy cutter"? these are used to make LZs... it's a 25000# fae that's dropped from a cargo aircraft. During Desert Storm the AF dropped one of them on a Republican Guard unit for fun.... a SAS BDA team was reported to have radioed in "The Yanks have nuked the Iraqis." It does create a "mushroom cloud".

I never put misted oil together with FAE but yeah it makes sense and I want no part of it.
 
Maybe don't make the vaporizer. You just don't need it. The burner assembly will be plenty hot enough to vaporize the oil just before teh point of combustion, which is where it is needed. Not that this fuel/air thing is too much of a concern. Reaching stoichiometric, or even lower LEL for that matter, would be extremely hard to do with an air leak at a vaporizer. Even if you did, you would be talking about a very small quantity of oil that would do little more than make your ears ring. Get an electric tank heater if you have cold flow problems.
 
Sorry to bump an old thread, but When I was in the trade we used deisel / oil / kero heaters to heat the workshop they used to glow red hot. Why could you not build a burner like those space heaters where the oil is ignited and burning and instead of the oxygen being supplied through a gate valve have it blown in with the exhaust to the side instead of straight up? Only thing is they had an elbow back to the base container and it scavenged unburnt smoke / vapour and it was reignited on the units own flame? That sounds very messy maybe I will try prototyping it and if it works post again. I think it would work and that resolves any oil injection or gravity feed issues. From memory cresote did build up in the smoke stack but we just knocked it out and we lit the oil with a peice of paper. They would burn all day and not empty the oil pan. Ok This works but the flame isn't shooting out the burn tube rather out the top of oil tub, Hole in top is same size as burner tube, so I am guessing I just need to seal the fill port to minimise exit of gases but still enable filling of oil pan. That will be another day though................... thanx for your interest hey! LOL

DW
 
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