Wayne, about your stove...it looks like you've coupled a commercial used oil burner with a piece of 20" pipe and then done a heat exchanger. I've been struggling for 2 years (just piddlin' now and then) to make a homemade waste oil burner using a babington burner and had no real success. Where did you get your commercial unit (assuming I'm correct that that is what it is), how much did it cost, how well does it work, what maintenance do you have to do on it, and how hard was it to plumb the oil and power to it?
I did have a stove going before that. It was a old coal burning stove with the used oil burner inserted into the side. It worked fairly well but I wasn't able to add any extra fuel like wood or trash due to the limited flue capability. The new stove gets around that with a large flue capability. :-)
Nope that sounds like a standard wrap on pipeline pipe. It actually comes off pretty easy with a air chisel or chipping hammer when cold and aged somewhat. What I'm talking about is a green epoxy paint that El Paso used to use on there pipe. It's pretty tough to get off with a wire brush and really needs to be ground off. But like I said it seems to be thinner on this piece of pipe than others that I've dealt with. It can be burned off but you do need to be up wind when it happens (the fumes are really obnoxious as another poster indicated).
The other piece with the end bells doesn't have any paint and isn't to bad on the outside. I don't have a clue on the inside since it's closed.
That burner cost me nothing. It came out of a old oil fired forced air furnace. The kind that is suspended from the ceiling and used to heat a shop. The fire box was corroded to the point of no return when it was given to me. I did have to buy the tank and pump which feed the burner or rather trade for it.
The burner works ok as long as you keep the filter changed and don't let any water get to it. Water is the big killer and will cause me to have to clean the nozzle at least a dozen time in a week to keep it running after I let it get to that point. My big problem currently with the burner is that it doesn't put out enough heat to really heat the shop completely warm. I have to add wood or other materials to keep the shop really warm (I must be getting soft since I got by with lower temperatures when I started).
The burner is rather simple but yet complex at the same time. The actually nozzle is the exactly the same siphon type as is used in a major brand kerosene "torpedo" heater (I don't remember the brand right now). But it needs higher air pressure to work. There's a preheat tank with electric heating elements in it that preheat the oil before going to the nozzle. There's also a preheat for the air going to the nozzle (I'm not positive that this is working on mine). The high voltage transformer, flame sensing, and safety control are all standard oil burner components. It has a small draft blower like is used on a standard oil burner but I currently have it disconnected since my new stove draws well enough to do without it (and the bearings are starting to go in the blower). One main feature of the burner/stove is that there is a float tank which has a float switch to activate the pump from the main tank. This is placed above the burner and uses gravity to feed the burner (I made this tank height adjustable on my new stove so I can control the pressure to the burner). The pump from the main tank pushes the oil through a fairly standard oil filter before getting to the float tank. This gets rid of most of the crud which would stop up the nozzle (as long as I don't let it get to dirty and start to bypass).
Since I already had the main components it wasn't hard to plumb. I don't think I would of ever made a burner exactly like this if I was building it from scratch. There's a lot of complications in the design which while good from a total safety stand point aren't all really needed for a supervised burner. If unsupervised burning is needed then all the safeties are needed. I can tell instantly when it's not working right as long as I'm in the shop. The sound it makes is somewhat on the loud side and definitely missed when the flame isn't doing right.
If I ever get a chance I plan on trying to build a babbington type burner to replace this burner. But at the current rate don't look for that till about 2030 or so. :-)
Understood, but the man asked about a 1/4" wall. I simply didn't want him to think that's how thick air tanks are. I agree, an air tank, or even an old large diameter water tank might serve the purpose, assuming he doesn't really need the 1/4" wall he's talking about. I didn't want to re-engineer his project, for he may have good reason for the thickness he requested.
Harold, thank you for your points, and they are a concern. I want 1/4 inch because I feel it will hold up to years of service, particularly where the fire is actually built inside; the intense heat and, presumably moisture from the wood or perhaps moisture from humidity and/or rain seeping into the ashes, seem to cause thin metals to rust rapidly (I've seen fireboxes that were 1/8th and 3/16th thick that had
*supposedly* only lasted a few years (maybe 3-5). While that's all loose information, and I've not done any testing to see what kind of longevity I can get (and any testing would seem to be subjective to the particular design and environment), the amount of time and effort that goes into building one of these things (I spent about 10 months of free time on the first trailer-mounted one I built, including the trailer) it would be a shame not to build it to a spec that I feel comfortable with. 1/4" sounds good to me, 3/8" inch would seem excessive but I'll do that if that's all I wind up using.
Anyway, I appreciate your position of accepting the requirements that I've set up for this.
I think you have a valid position. If the cooker requires much effort, you could find yourself rebuilding it quickly thanks to corrosion. I had a stainless burner assembly go south on me in a gas barbeque, something I swore wouldn't be a problem. The products of combustion coupled with moisture seem to raise hell with metals.
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