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al-k

cuten wood
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So I thought I would try and make my own stove. Grabbed a 275 gal oil tank from a friendIMG_20200111_161213531.jpg Cut it down to 3'IMG_20200112_114629141_HDR.jpg Moved the legs from the cut off to the shortened pieceIMG_20200112_130551531.jpg Cut a hole for the door and boxed it in.image.jpg and made a door.IMG_20200113_124114205.jpg That is as far as I got so far. I have 7 2.5" pipes I plan on running front to back. I want to put a blower pushing air through the pipes.I was thinking maybe a 2" pipe front to back with holes drilled in it on the bottom so I could blow air into the fire. Maybe have more control over it.
 
not sure why my text wasn't included with the above pic. Anyway, I also built a stove from an oil tank, not to heat a building, but for boiling sap, and I also once tried the pipe with holes in it to get more air to the fire to help with the boiling rate; maybe I used too small pipe ( I think it was one inch dia) or insufficient blower, I dunno, but it didn't work very well. The next season I cut an opening below the door and positioned a squirrel cage blower over the opening and connected a variable speed control to the blower motor; simply blows air under the grates from the front. Wa-la! By far the number one change that significantly increased my boil rate. Found a sweet spot by messing with the speed control and varying the cfm to the burn chamber. A word of caution though when running AUF (air under fire) as they say in the syrup hobby.....you'll experience much higher burn temperatures and can have embers shooting out of the stack with excessive air being injected into the stove. Since that picture was taken, I have relocated the stove inside a building and went with multi-wall chimney pipe and a metal roof to minimize potential issues. I think you'll see an increase in the air temperature in those pipes by adding AUF. Good luck with the rest of the build.
 
Top half could have used some kind of baffle plates? Zig zag the air flow. Maybe drop the flue sleeve low, just above the height of the door. Not sure if trapping that smoke will flash, WOOF, opening the door.
Do something for secondary air and secondary burn?
Incorporate flow inversion inside the top like the rocket stoves?
 
I'm trying to decide what size chimney I need. I was just thinking 6" at first but now I wounder if that will be big enough. I welcome any and all ideas
 
I'm trying to decide what size chimney I need. I was just thinking 6" at first but now I wounder if that will be big enough. I welcome any and all ideas
I'm using 6 inch on that syrup stove and it's been working fine, no issues, before the squirrel cage blower, and then with blower.
 
Is that just a stainless box sitting on top of the tank,,is it attached? My brother has been doing syrup the last few years. I have a oil tank he could use to make something like this.
yep, stainless, not attached....it sits on angle iron welded to the perimeter opening; large pan is 24"x48"; pan sits on stove door rope cemented on top of the angle iron, provides a great seal, no smoke in the sugar shack. A lot of syrup makers build stoves from these oil tanks but they always seem to orient the stove 90 degrees to what I did, I guess the way they cut it out they use the extra section to make the stove longer, thus taking advantage of using a longer pan, since it's all about surface area when boiling. I eventually caught on to that by lengthening the stove so I could fit a second pan between the big pan and the chimney, that one is 16"x24" and was on the first stove I built from a very very old water heater tank, crude but it made syrup. Just couldn't stand that "small" pan sitting there when it could be sitting on top of the big stove catching some heat before it goes up the stack. I also took a couple of coils of flexible copper line and wrapped them around the stack as a preheater - I pump cold sap from an outside tank through the preheater into one of the two pans.....goes from 40°F to 180°F by the time it hits the pan so I'm taking advantage of some of that heat going up the stack. My thought with orienting the tank sideways is being able to insulate the hell out of the fire box, maximizing the heat going to the bottom of the pans and minimizing it going out the sides.....the firebox is lined with old, thick firebrick that angles out as it goes up so it stays in place (avoiding the need to cement everything), it's about 20" wide at the bottom expanding to 24" at the top to coincide with the width of the big pan; behind the firebrick is 1" rigid high temperature insulation available for syrup stoves, and behind that is a section of sheet metal tack welded in place for the rigid to rest against. You can hold your hand on the side of the stove while it's cranking, so I'm not losing too much heat there. I also insulated the bottom of the firebox; even though heat rises I thought it would still help to some degree.....I like trying different things to see what happens to the efficiency. By far, the number one enhancement is the blower, so if your brother builds a syrup stove, he MUST plan for a blower, it doesn't take much forced air to really get that fire slapping the bottom of the pan....I can actually see a much more vigorous boil occurring with the blower vs without. Also, have your brother check out a couple of the more popular maple syrup forums on the Web, they have threads on many topics including homemade equipment, and just like this site, a lot of knowledgeable people who are willing to share what they know.
 
My friend built his from the ground up with an idea for his shop.
His had soldered copper pipes inside that anti freeze ran thru and went to two car radiators at each end of his shop.
they had blowers electric car fans controlled by heat senceing as on a car. He also had a big block of steel in the rear part and used a drip tank once he had a wood fire going to switch to used motor oil.

Worked great.

That 275 gallon tank to stove looks really nice. I have a couple tanks and should make a shop so I would need a stove and use one of them.

:D Al
 
Jims Idea was the oil above in a tank would drop a drip of oil on to the block of hot steel and splatter as it burned. Of course he used enough to know just where to set the valve to time the drips just right. He may have also installer a second valve to turn the oil fully off and left the drip valve set.
He was the smartest macanial cookie I have every know to think and design some thing and build it.

He had contracts for most of the bussinesses in town and many home owner contracts also to remove snow from parking lots and drive ways with his artuclted home built snow blower.

:D Al
 
Trying to visualize why? I guess I’m just used to air fed Waiste oil burners. Does anyone have a picture of a drip burner?

Drip oil onto the preheated metal. The chain acted as a heat sink. It would spatter as it hit and flow over the hot chain and vaporize. Once in a blue moon take it out and shake off the chain and clean out the brake drum.

As mentioned, getting the drip rate right for the heat is tricky especially with used oil, crud and viscosity.

Not sure if wrapping copper drip tube around the flue helps or hurts. Straight line cleans out easier if it gets curded up.
 
In my younger days I worked in a garage that had 1-commercially made waste oil burner and 1-DIY as described. The factory made burned more efficient but was a PITA to clean weekly, start and keep going on cruddy used out. The DIY had to be watched to make sure you didn't melt out the back. It turned cherry red a time or two. You also don't want to swamp out the bottom with excess oil.
 
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