Foundry

Mini-mongo burner. This actualy works pretty well, I've melted ceramic tile, and part of the furnace wall with it!

(Click on all images for a close up)

Close up of air holes. Enlongated and filed to try to keep air speed up, before I put the 1" pipe inside.

Nozzle. Drilled the first one in a pipe cap with a #56 bit. Purchased this one. Doesn't seem to work any different.

Note 1" pipe inserted into burner to increase velocity. This works so well that on the new furnace I had to put in flame holder nails to keep the flame lit!

Original furnace. Mostly scrounged parts, homemade refractory.

Furnace open, pipe crucible with kiln wash coating.

Water seal lip on sand box. This works very well at keeping the rain out of the nice oil bonded sand.

Sandbox and pit. Mom: "Bet you didn't think you would be making a sandbox for kids a year ago." Me: "Hey, that's MY sandbox!"

Rolling new furnace up ramp. This thing is HEAVY! 3200 degree refac in case I want to melt some iron. Takes a bit longer to heat up than the old one, but hey...

Wall mount pyrometer.

Close up of the inside of old furnace.

Expensive sand.

Motor in scrap pile. Haven't had the heart to melt it down, have since found a source of pistons, and may fix this motor.

Tongs for lifting pipe crucible.

$30 homemade pyrometer

closeup of business end

$20 meter with type K thermocouple input.

Milling machine I'm making.

Slide ready for scraping

almost done with this thing now. It's making it's own parts!

One of the prettiest machines I've made. 'Cuz I splurged and spent $4 on some cheap spray paint. Does 50lb of sand easily, and with modifications would do 100lb.

Another view. Tub is the bottom 2/3 of a 20 gallon oil drum, bolted on for easy replacement if/when it wears out.

I'm quite happy with the ballance durring the tipping operation. The safety rail from an old treadmill maks a perfect handle for this machine, and it stays tilted when empty!

Muller plow I threw together from an old rototiller tine. I may eventualy make a fancier one, but this one will work for now.

Note the tilting motor mount, for easily adjusting the belt tension. And in case I ever need to resize the pulleys. As it is, the belt slips a little in the small pulley with a 100lb load of sand in the machine.

$69 motor from Harbor Freight, $20 for pulleys, and $4 for paint. Not a bad investment, ya think?
Some BIG lathe bits I picked up at the local discount store. 1x1x7! One of the best things about this store is that you NEVER know what they will have! Wonder how much they fill fetch on Ebay?
Shot of arbor. You can barely see the slot and set screw I installed to keep the oilite bearing from turning. Working on an adapter so I can use my Harbor Freight mini-lathe tooling on the miller!
Picture of the motor setup. Need to get some bigger belts and turn some larger pulleys, slow the thing down by about 50% I think.
Closest my camera wanted to go. When you click on this one you should get a good shot of the flanged oilite bearing. Top is the slot cut through it to make it adjustalbe, front is the notch and the set screw.
Miller shots
Not plastic cup shield on motor to keep chips out, and cookie can box for electronics!