senator Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 I have been lurking here for some time with out posting anything. I've read through numerous threads on a Waste Oil Forge / Burners etc and have not found any of the answers I am searching for. I have a nearly inexhaustible amount of waste oil and was looking to see what everyone uses to build their burners. Has anyone tried using diesel engine parts or automotive parts in order to atomize and pressurize the waste oil? The idea of having my compressor run for 2 hours at a time doesn't appeal to me as it would add undo stress on my compressor. I was thinking of using a small fuel injector or perhaps a diesel injector of some sort with the waste oil being pushed by a simple after market high PSI fuel pump. This set up when coupled with a small squirrel cage fan for induction should work? Has anyone attempted this before? I currently use a brick pile style forge with propane and my projects all have been smaller knives and bottle openers. I hope to move into larger projects if/when I get a bigger more efficient forge figured out. Respect, Senator South Bend, In. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timgunn1962 Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 I'm assuming the reference to running a compressor for 2 hours at a time is for some sort of Babbington-style burner? If so, I think you may have misunderstood the (essential) compressed air requirement for this type of burner: there is a (very) small flow of high-velocity air to provide the atomization and this needs the high pressure supply, but pretty much all the actual combustion air comes from a low-pressure fan or is provided by natural draft, depending on the detail design. The typical air jet for the atomization part seems to be around .010" with atomization airflow under 1 CFM. I am sure that there are designs out there that supply all the combustion air from the compressor, but it's not the only way to do it.. The Babbington-style air atomization is often favoured for waste oil burners because it is relatively tolerant of dirty oil. Atomization systems that rely on feeding pressurized oil through small jets are much more prone to clogging and, as far as I can tell, there tend to be more difficulties when dealing with waste oils of different viscosities/temperatures. If you can get the oil clean enough and the viscosity low enough, a modern Common-Rail Diesel would seem offer some potential as a parts source for a highly efficient atomisation system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senator Posted November 6, 2014 Author Share Posted November 6, 2014 Thank you timgunn1962 for your insight. Another low buck alternative I was looking at would be pressurizing waste oil via a power steering pump and injecting it thru an atomizing nozzle designed for spraying lubricants. The PSI generated by the pump would off set a lot of the issues experienced by lower PSI systems. I would draw the waste oil into the system once it passes thru a remote oil filter system. Finally, I just finished up looking at how a kerosene torpedo heater works. I would think that type of system could easily work to burn waste oil. There is a million different ways to skin the same cat. What is current burner type that people are using? All I've seen so far is the Babington type with compressed air. Respect, Senator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddDuck Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 Speaking as a backyard metalcaster who uses an oil burner, babbingtons have been tried and are difficult to build and tempermental in use. There are way simpler designs out there, for nozzle burners many use a variation or two on a Delevan siphon nozzle. Personally I use a duh simple drip burner style called a Moya/Brute burner. No nozzle to clog, no pumps to mess with, gravity feed for fuel supply. Unfortunately I don't think it would translate easily or work well in a forge application. I have thought about a forge application before, I used to use a style burner called an "Ursutz" hot box burner for my foundry furnace. This is basically a small chamber of refractory material that you get hot (on the inside...) drip the oil into it, it vaporizes and keeps the chamber hot and you use the exhaust (which still has beaucoup energy left, trust me...) to heat your furnace. They can be tempermental as well, and there aren't many designs for them any more, but I think this would work better for a forge setup. Check out www.backyardmetalcasting.com , or the newer version of that site, www.alloyavenue.com . Lots of oil burner info, and another forum full of nice people willing to share crazy ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oof Posted November 7, 2014 Share Posted November 7, 2014 The siphon nozzles out of a torpedo heater work great. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glumpy Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 You can get good heat from non Babbington designs that are pretty intolerant of dirty Fuel. This is one of mine working shown here: Posted video removed due to language violations I also did a design which Uses compressed air but is not in fact a babbington design. It simply uses a plumbing T piece to mis the air and fuel and is sprayed through a bit of copper pipe that was crushed to form a nozzle. You waouldn't want to run dirty oil in it but clean would be anything that was run through a bit of rag and had the chunks taken out of it. Video removed because posted refused to foillow Tos about language Be aware that you don't actually need to atomise the oil at all. All that is needed is heat to change the oil from a liquid to a vapor. Atomising makes this happen a little easier but for the outputs you'd be needing there is plenty of heat available. I am working on a design with a power steering pump and a fuel injector and also using an ABS Pump from a car. For the injector I'll either have it held open electricaly or pull one apart and remove the metering component so it's constantly open. By using Petrol type injectors at PS pump pressures, I think the oil will spray pretty well. For the ABS Pump, these will do Very high pressure like a PS pump and higher but have small flow. I have yet to measure the flow but it's the metering I want for controlling the fuel for small burners. The ability to have either 1 or 4 outputs would also add some controlability and turndown ration on the things. I'm really looking at these things for fun and entertainment because I don't think having all the extra equipment and bulk could be in any way superiour to the Blown air designs I have now. You can power them with a 12V car blower, a hairdryer or a Jumping castle blower and get heat outputs from 5Kw hr to 500KW depending on what you want. Mine run 300+ easily and I am hooping to get to one later today that I think should be capeable of 500KW witthout any trouble. Running a fan or blower in my book is much better than pumps and compressors but everyone has their prefrance. Good luck with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senator Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 Glumpy, Thank you for your input. I had not thought of the fuel injector being pressurized by an ABS driver. I have found a power steering pump from a Mitsubishi has a remote reservoir. I will continue down that path and see where it leads me. I was intending to use some sort of pressure regulator with a return line to bleed off the excess fuel. The system I am drawing up will still use some sort of low CFM fan (ie hairdryer or small squirrel cage fan) while the nozzle will atomize the oil at around 40 PSI. They have a host of different nozzles at www.Mcmastercarr.com . Seems like it should work....Ill post up pictures if I can get it to work. Heading into the holiday season I am not sure how much time I will have until January. Respect, Senator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ditt Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 (edited) In a recent posting under Facebook group 'Blacksmith Forges...', a Nathanael Brandt posts the following with photos, though without photos of his burner/blower arrangement. Members of the group are awaiting his details:'I have been building and tweaking burners for the last year or so that run on unfiltered waste oil. Whether veggie oil or used motor oil (trans fluid, diff. fluid and gear oil also) I think I've finally got a burner that not only is controllable its finally giving me a 95% burn with very little smoke. The oil is gravity fed into the mixing tube where air from a large blower is plumbed into the burn chamber. That is it, no air compressor, oil pump or finicky filtration system to keep from clogging atomizing nozzles.' Edited March 20, 2015 by John Ditt More clarification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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