A month or two ago I bought a 500 gallon propane tank from a guy up the road,

No pictures yet…I still need to go pick it up  Lol

anyways I bought it with the intentions of turning it into a wood stove for the shop,

Ive done an image search but I’ve only found a few here an there,

I guess most people turn them into smokers instead, (which ain’t a bad idea!) lol

I’m lookin for different ideas either vertical or horizontal, I was wondering if any of y’all have ever built a shop stove outta a 500 gallon propane tank? 

i figured if I don’t use the giant bowl ends for the stove part, they could be giant flower pots, fire pits, quench tub, cat food bowls ect…

Billy, cruise over to weldingweb.com and check with those guys over there.  Someone is always making stoves and smokers...lots of threads on the subject.  To search, you might have to make an account.  No charge, free, great site for welding projects.  That would be a huge stove!!

I have used smaller air compressor tanks and 55 gallon drums, Horizontal is easier to put in the baffle and secondary and primary air. How big is the shop? A 500 gallon tank is going to be huge! A 30 gallon compressor tank will heat a small house. Now a 500 gallon would be perfect as a charcoal retort….

i certainly can walk you threw what I know about air tight stoves. 

5 hours ago, arkie said:

cruise over to

Thanks, I made an account over there and started browsing through, haven’t found anything like I’m wanting to do yet, but I’m still looking through, 

Charles, 

Ive been using various wood stoves that were built for a house over the years an ain’t none of them really quite been enough to heat the shop,

it’s not a big building just 25x30 but it’s old drafty an un insulated, concrete building with a tin roof 

also I get tired of factory built stoves with their tiny doors, 

I wanna be able to burn any sized an shape wood without monkeying around with a tiny door,

mostly for those hard to split crotch pieces and if I’m just wanting to be lazy and throw some big pieces in without cutting them down lol

also I’m not gonna use the whole 500 gallon  propane tank for a stove probably a little Less then half, 

I thought about a charcoal retort for part of it too! 

I dunno, it was one of those deals that were to good to pass up an I bought that big tank without really thinking everything through,

I guess I could use it for a big air volume tank for my steam whistle! Lol

but I really just thought it’d make a nice big wood stove!

 

Hmmm, if you go with vertical and build a giant rocket stove with a draft and damper that close tight you could start a stoke it full, enjoy the fire, then shut it down, close the draft and damper. It will stay hot for quite a while and pyrolize the remaining wood into charcoal. Charcoal retort and heater?

Frosty The Lucky.

Billy, keep us posted on your stove/smoker project...remember, no pictures; it didn't happen, 

Diameter?  always wondered about a tank in tank horizontal version with the inner tank justified up against the top of the outer tank and clean dry sand poured between them about halfway or more to make some thermal mass for long term heating while the top is contiguous for fast warmth.

9 hours ago, arkie said:

remember, no pictures; it didn't happen

Thats gonna be a bit, my trailers are loaded down an I’m back up in the shop, but I’ll post some as soon as I have it here,

Thomas,

I dunno know for sure but I’m guessing it’s maybe around 3-1/2’ 

thats an interesting idea though!

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

Charcoal retort and heater

Two for one! I like it lol

 

So if you go horizontal, you fit a baffle  in the top to direct the smoke path over it, verticals work with a notched edge baffle but honestly it’s harder to fit the secondary air. With a horizontal you use the secondary air pipe as a brace for the front edge of the baffle. The gap only needs to be big enough to match the cross section of the stove pipe.

 

 

I know I don't have to tell ya about when it's time to cut that monster up, be very very careful. I have no idea how to flush that big tank and get the mercaptan oil out of it.

Can you say, cadaver dogs, lol

I just went and measured our 500 gal tank for the house and it's 38 inches in diameter and 10 feet long.

I would be VERY careful about cutting into it unless it has been empty and open for a long time and there is no odor when you remove the valve.  Even a small amount of something explosive in that large a volume could make a pretty spectacular explosion.

As to suitability for a wood stove it strikes me that it may be like a long forge, too long to be practical.  I'd think that anything that long would have to be stoked from both ends.  I'd think anything longer than 4' would present problems.  That said, you could always cut it in half and make 2 of them.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

back in the day when working on tanks that had been used for nice flammable things like hexane, pentane or similar, once we had the pressure off and could access the inside, we'd drop about 20-30 pounds of dry ice into them so the CO2 filled the tank and drove out any nasty gases remaining inside to make it safe to cut.  Obviously we did use combustible gas indicators to ensure the tank atmosphere was 0% combustible and a CO2 meter to check for its percentage.  Maybe we were lucky or just good, but we never had an issue although we did run up quite a bill for dry ice.

I built a furnace by putting a 55 gallon barrel inside a 500 gallon tank and forcing air through the tank. This may not work for the chunks of wood you are talking about.

11 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

 

I know I don't have to tell ya about when it's time to cut that monster up, be very very careful

 

Thanks Randy!

9 hours ago, George N. M. said:

 

I would be VERY careful about cutting into it unless it has been empty and open for a long time and there is no odor when you remove the valve

 

Don’t worry George, that thing has been setting for years with no valves on it

9 hours ago, George N. M. said:

cut it in half and make 2 of them.

Yes it’s too big as it is, I would be cutting the big bowl ends off both sides for other uses and probably but the middle in half again 

9 hours ago, Farmall said:

we'd drop about 20-30 pounds of dry ice into them so the CO2 filled the tank and drove out any nasty gases remaining inside to make it safe to cut

That’s a pretty neat idea I’d never heard of that before!

Laynne, 

that’s a cool idea!

I wasn’t planning on doing any forced air through it just a big wood stove lol

If you cut the ends off it they'll make some decent sized forges. Still, I think a stoke it once a week heat stove has a lot of appeal.

Frosty The Lucky.

Twisted, I think that’s way overkill for a shop heater. I’ve made several from 18-24 in pipe 30” long that was more than enough to heat a shop , and tin camps in the woods, your size and only use 6-8 pieces of regular firewood per day. We’d throw a couple of sticks of wood in before bed and sleep comfortably all night. 
I would weld a piece of walkway grating on top and we had a place to keep food and water hot also. 
I’d cut that big tank up for fire rings and make pokers to go with them