Wast Oil Forge Questions

[thompsonblades]

I've been toying with the idea of building a forge that runs on waste motor oil, since I have a great supply source. I've heard it can be done, but I have a few questions. One, once I get the forge heated, do I in any way need to preasurize the oil, or would a gravity feed with force air be all that I need? two, do I need to thin out the oil or use any additives? Three, is preheating the enclosed forge necessary?

Any other comments from your experiences would be appreciated also.

 

[69_knives]

Good Idea with the dedicated thread, I'll repost my reply to the other thread.

Here's a video of it working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKjy9fnL4YY

It basically a Ron Reil style venturi burner that I converted to blown and what I did was drill a hole in the burner tube immediately behind the flare and drop in some steel brake line, wrap the brake line 3 times around the burner tube for preheating and continue with the line up to a precision metering valve and into a 1/4" copper pipe soldered to a coffee can. It works very well, it takes about 5 minutes to warm up on propane then start adding oil and decreasing propane over about 1/2 hour. I use a cast forge so it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get up to full heat after that you don't need to run any propane. I realized early on that it is not adjustable so I just run it full heat. it burns up to 1.5 liters an hour, or in a 2 day weekend of forging running the forge 8 - 10 hours each day I use around 20 liters.


This is a pic showing the tubing and how it drops into the burner tube.

This was the first version with only two wraps and copper tubing but 3 wraps works better.

I don't mix the oil with anything, but you can notice that if the oil warms up while it is in the gravity feed can it will flow a bit faster, nothing major just adjust the metering valve as required.