Progress on furnace forms

The mold for the cylinder is finished.  Was finished yesterday but I hemmed and hawed about the burner inlet.

After much work by my sub conscious I have decided to make it part of the base.

The central core is  on the long side.  I was thinking I might want to use it for a taller furnace down the road.










Prior to casting the PVC clips will be removed from the core and it will be covered with plastic wrap.  The core is in 4 parts with 3 lightly glued to several 1/8" plywood disks.  Each disk has a string to flip it and pull it out.

The wall thickness was determined, nay dictated by the materials at hand. It is just slightly less than the test tiles I have been making.  About the same as thin fire bricks used in the Kerr 666.

On this first go around the 1 gallon can will be the outer shell.  Down the road I may be encasing the shell in foamcrete and will need a removable shell.   Maybe try bonding the lid to the cylinder with a shell of foamcrete and have it lift off the base.

Started work on the burner.  Don't think the burnzOmatic will work.  I am thinking the regulator I got to use with it does not have enough pressure.   Plan B is to go with welding regulator and cast a bell end so I can use a mig tip.  The pipe is 1"

The base will be a bit larger than the cylinder.   Maybe a groove for the cylinder to rest in.    If all goes to plan the base will have a flat center to accept a plinth with an rising one turn spiral starting at the pipe inlet to help the gases flow.

The cover will be nothing special.  Just need to figure out if I need to add any support to it.  Would at least be nice to have a metal ring with loops to pick it up. Maybe make it a polygon or even square.  Then I can cast it into an angle iron frame.  Now how big to make the vent.   Better too big as I can stop it down.  LOL with a 4.5 inch diameter maybe 3 inches?

I may cast the shell tomorrow afternoon when it warms up.  Use the morning to work on the base and lid forms.  The plan is to use Styrofoam in the base to build up the complex shape.  It will be a lot easier to pack the refractory around the burner inlet than it would be in the bottom of the cylinder.

After two weeks in the wet the latest test tiles came out to dry.  It has been a few days now.    I broke the near one while talking off the mold.  Need to learn to wait more than 24 hours.

The near brick has no perlite the back has 8 parts.  It is the original formula.