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Post by dimitrisgr on Dec 21, 2014 10:03:23 GMT -8
GOD:Well..here's more firewood for you!....oops!
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Post by PNW Dave on Feb 24, 2015 1:00:17 GMT -8
Some progress this weekend. Finished mortaring the red bricks and filling with rocks and perlite. None of the rocks touch the inner firebrick core-  Including an arch over the burn tunnel area   This one shows the table built around the center pillar of the structure-  Here you can see the lid of a 55 gal barrel that I cut a hole out of, so it fits over the smaller barrel. This will be sealed in place with space for the "exhaust reheating barrel" to be attached/detached. The duct exiting the manifold area will be insulated but the top of the duct will remain exposed, where I'll install some TEGs with heat sinks. The top of this area will be a glass top table with LED lights highlighting the TEG setup. I intend to have some other heat powered ambient lighting as well. Once the rocket is fired up, the lights come on.  A half-length, half-barrel fits over the feed tube area to match the arch, this will prevent woodland critters from getting in and nesting in the burn tunnel-  Here is an air gap to allow air in when the cover is on, in case there are still any embers left when the cover is put on-  We placed rocks all along the sides and bottom of the trench (filled in the sides after the form was in place)-  Then used some 8" duct as a form to pack fireclay coated perlite around the trench-  Then added a strip of pebbles along center of the bottom-  Closeup-  Then aluminum foil was laid along length of the trench sides, just down to the pebbles, so condensation can drip down and drain into the ground- (No pic I guess) |
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mudder
Junior Member
Posts: 50 
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Post by mudder on Feb 24, 2015 5:42:35 GMT -8
nice looking bench you have going there! thanks for sharing it with us.
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Post by matthewwalker on Feb 24, 2015 7:25:50 GMT -8
Very cool Dave, some interesting ideas and very detailed execution. Thanks for the update, keep 'em coming!
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Post by malton on Mar 4, 2015 23:08:06 GMT -8
soo dave whats your final verdict on a riser/castable mix? im wanting really badly to get a trusted catable recipie. thx
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Post by PNW Dave on Mar 5, 2015 22:58:12 GMT -8
Thanks Matt! Will do.
malton, no verdict yet. I haven't even had one single good, long, hot burn with a fully loaded feed tube full of nice dry wood. Just silly little test burns. I kind of think that it would be a good idea to use more clay than is shown in my video with closeup pics, really get the perlite fully coated before drizzling and mixing the adhesive mix in. I wanted to make the most insulating mix possible, and I think I did a good job of that. I say that you just go for it, my mix is just a variation of Matt's mix from his videos. Basically my mixing method uses less water. I tried small batches both ways and liked the "dusting and misting" better. Whatever happens with this heat riser, I'll be sure to update the thread.
Fireclay, perlite, furnace cement. Mix and ram into a form. Light fire. Post pics.
I tend to over think things like this, that I've never done before. Then end up looking back and thinking about how easy it actually could have been.
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Post by malton on Mar 6, 2015 7:56:40 GMT -8
i hear you on the over thinking and looking back. imm in utah and found a compnay yesteday that has refractory stuff, and new what i would want. finially everybody ive talked to locally looks clueless when asking refractory ?'s. i might just buy the companys comercial stuff.
im thinking of wrapping my fire brick riser in a hi hemp insulation and then pouring it with reg cement mixed with cindes/scoria (lava rock). ive tryed to read about mixing it but with no luck. there is lots of cinders and lava rock locally.
heres a crazy idea of mine!! get a 6" pool noodle and shape it like you want with a twist at the end for a vortex and pour around it with refractory castable. then burn it out. thatll be way down the road.
chatatyalater
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Post by horseshoehank on May 13, 2015 15:35:24 GMT -8
Can I ask what brands of fireclay and fire cement you used? Just trying to nail down the recipe....
Chuck
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Post by belgiangulch on May 13, 2015 19:06:03 GMT -8
chuck; On the two i've made the first used lincoln 60 fireclay / perlite and rutland furnace cement. It lasted 3 seasons and only cracked when my 16 gal form barrel rusted thru when moving it and cracked the casting. I just made another a few weeks ago, the bottom half is a full bag of insulated castable refractory, the rest is fireclay/perlite with no furnace cement at all. I only had the one bag of castable to play with or I would have used all castable on it. I want to see how well it performs compared to the fc/perlite mix. The original mix performed flawlessly, if I hadn't kept moving the riser off and on during core rebuilds it would still be working! |
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Post by PNW Dave on May 17, 2015 11:19:52 GMT -8
Can I ask what brands of fireclay and fire cement you used? Just trying to nail down the recipe.... Chuck I used Lincoln 60 fire clay and Oatey Furnace cement 3000*. Soon I'll post an update, showing what we have been doing instead of finishing the Rocket. Hint... Growies! |
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Post by firewatcher on Apr 2, 2016 17:47:38 GMT -8
Sorry...newb here...dont know if anyone is still watching this thread. I tried the recipe 15:2:2:1 (perlite:fire clay:furnace cement:sodium silicate) and kinda got a gooey mess of a mix. I thought i should have ended up with a "dry" mix that you could makea ball oit of and squeeze to "pop". Did i do something wrong maybe? Did i not follow the "recipe" correctly?
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Post by PNW Dave on Apr 9, 2016 19:28:01 GMT -8
Sorry...newb here...dont know if anyone is still watching this thread. I tried the recipe 15:2:2:1 (perlite:fire clay:furnace cement:sodium silicate) and kinda got a gooey mess of a mix. I thought i should have ended up with a "dry" mix that you could makea ball oit of and squeeze to "pop". Did i do something wrong maybe? Did i not follow the "recipe" correctly? Hi Firewatcher, In your PM to me you said that you coated the perlite with fireclay successfully. From that point I had a helper very, very slowly drizzle the furnace cement mixture while I mixed it into the perlite, trying hard not to let there be any thick "globs". I think this might be key. It might also depend on how much fireclay was on the perlite, in my video the close ups show that the perlite is not 100% completely coated. Maybe you had too much fireclay? Or the perlite was too wet? This whole thing was very experimental, kind of done by "feel". Much of my reason for doing it the way I did was because I wanted to fire the sections in the kiln, the furnace cement & sodium silicate being a sort of temporary binder until the clay is fired. If you don't feel like foolin around with my mix, just do Matthew Walkers tried and true mix. |
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Post by firewatcher on Apr 10, 2016 18:26:56 GMT -8
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the response. I reread through the entire thread and rewatched the videos and had a thought of how i may have gone wrong. Did you use the entire mixture (2quarts furnace cement / 1quart sodium silicate) on 15 quarts of perlite? Or did you just use enough of the mixture to get the "right consistancy"? I thought maybe this could have been my issue based on the way that you worded your comment in the video. I ended up adding an additional 15quarts of perlite (for a total of 30 quarts perlite) before i got to anything resembling somewhat dry of a mixture. It was still kind of clumpy/gooey. I'm very interested in your mix, for one reason, due to its relative inexpensiveness. I'm not sure of exactly what Matt Walker's recipe is either. I've tried to look around the board for it, but have not had much luck finding said recipe. Any help directing me to it would be appreciated.
Unfortunately even using your mix, i have no way to fire it. Yesterday i propped it over my fire pit and burned underneath it for about 1.5 hours in an attempt to do so, realizing of course that this would have nowhere near the effect of kiln drying something. It was the best i could do though.
any help you can impart to aid in finding out where i went wrong with your mix is greatly appreciated.
If i can't fire this mix, then should it not be used?
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