Subject: 640,000 Btu's per hour enough for brass and iron?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 05:14:31 GMT

A friend just aquired a cast iron industrial premix unit(centrifugal 
blower and gas mix unit) with regulator, safety shutoff and burner tip 
The unit was built in the late fifties but looks brand new.  It is a 
Maxon premix #2 unit.  It says it is capable of prodcing 640k Btu's per 
hour.  My friend thinks he wants to sell it to me for $50.  It looks like 
a deal, just add castable refractory and a 55 gallon drum and I've got a 
crucible furnace. I would like to be able to do cast iron though and am 
wondering if this would be sufficient for small melts of cast iron.  I 
assume that it will handle brass since I found notes with the unit that 
indicated it was used to hold temps of 2000F.  Exact notes say it will 
produce 640k btu's per hour when operating with .05"w.c. positive combustion 
chamber pressure and supplied with 1000 btu natural gas at a plant supply 
pressure of 8 to 16 oz.  Are these reasonable numbers for a shop in a 
residential area?  Thanks for any guidance.  He also picked up two 2000f 
thermocouples (BlueM) and a Blue M electric muffle furnace with a cubic 
foot or more internal space for $100.  Some days you get lucky.  I got 
his old 1850F furnace(good for small knives) for $20 though, so it trickles 
down I guess.

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From: Andrew Mawson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 07:52:04 +0100

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] writes
>his old 1850F furnace(good for small knives) for $20 though, so it trickles 

Hi,

As a guide, I once had an oil fired iron melting crucible furnace
(Morgan No 5) that would melt 112 lbs of iron at a time. It fuel input
was 330 Kw (5.5 gallons of diesel per hour)

Used to reckon that gliders would circle over it to get the updraught !

Andrew Mawson ------> [email-masked]
Bromley, Kent, UK 0181-466-5582

<-------------Happiness is a fully ticked off list------------->

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From: Mike Rehmus <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Jun 1996 18:30:17 GMT

I cannot answer your question but would like to point
out that pottery craft suppliers frequently carry
cast iron gas mixing nozzles that are real bargains.

Claymaker, a local supplier here in San Jose, will
sell the complete unit (minus the safety features
you mentioned) for about $25.

Best regards,

Mike Rehmus