Hi YouTube, my name's Geoff and today I'm going to be talking about using waste vegetable oil - not in my car as usual, but in a waste oil burner
I'm using this one to run a small home furnace to melt and recycle metals for use in other projects.
If you want to know how to build a SIMPLE and effective waste oil burner then keep watching.
There's lots of videos on this subject but I found most of these too complex or lacking detail.
This oil burner is very simple. There's no exact dimenions
and it's built from spare parts. It works very well.
It burns a waste product and generates high temperatures.
It can be used for a variety of purposes.
I've been using this one recently to melt soda cans recycling the aluminum
for use on other projects. There's no moving parts
and no specific dimensions. So it's an easy DIY construction for
anyone out there with a few spare plumbing parts. So let's have a quick look.
It doesn't look particularly complex and that's because it isn't. It's basically
just a few pieces of pipe put together. I have put some dimensions
and materials here but these are approximate. These are
just what I had to hand. You can use whatever you've got. The most important
thing is the steel pipe. This goes inside the furnace and gets
very hot. Whilst pipe copper might cope, steel pipe is better.
The steel pipe needs to be wide. One and a half to two inche diameter is perfect. What is
important is what's going on inside that steel pipe. As you can see
there's an internal cooper pipe and this narrows to one end it - tapers inwards.
It narrows the form a smaller aperture.
The upper pipe introduces the oil which trickles in quite slowly. It's not a fast process. Trickling oil drops
down in front of the narrow aperture. This narrowing pipe
actually introduces air. Thicker / wider on end, it tapers down narrowing the airway
which jets the air out, basically speeding the airflow. This speeding air
then hits the dripping oil and creates a misting effect. Blasting through the oil
it create a fine spray - at least the best we can achieve with this level of technology.
Certainly it's good enough for this process as you've seen
from the earlier footage. So let's get on with building the oil burner.
We need a blower to create airflow. This is a simple air pump the sort that's
used to inflate blow-up mattresses, children's swimming pools, etc.
The problem with these kind of blowers is
the fact that we can't control the airflow and we need to be able to.
We need to be able to fine tune the amount of air that hits our burner.
We can do this with a T junction and a quarter-turn shut-off valve.
Air wants to travel in a straight line. The the shut off valve
can actually prevent this, making it more difficult for the
for the air to go in one direction and it will take the easier path, change direction and
allows us to control the airflow. The amount we turn the valve determines how much
air passes through this outlet. It's a very simple way of controlling air flow.
Here you can actually see this in operation the air of course is
flowing through these pipe and jetting out in the one direction as you
would expect. But if we turn this handle
we change the direction. It no longer wants to come out that way but will come
out the other direction which is exactly what we want and by controlling the
lever valve we control the air flow. So what else is needed...?
Here's the steel pipe. It's rusty but good for this purpose.
This is 22mm (3/4 inch) copper pipe and here's a plumbing part for a hose I think.
This narrows down the air flow nicely as you'll see.
The air is coming out at that point but it's not very powerful.
But watch...
The narrow aperture suddenly makes much more air pressure
It jets that little bit of aluminium and pushes it away.
Here I've attached the nozzle to the 22mm pipe.
What we really need to think
about is centralizing this copper pipe within the steel pipe - to float
somewhere in the middle there. We can achieve this very simply using
a bit of MDF, simple bit of wood to plug this one end. I took a circular hole saw
and cut a little MDF disk. In the centre of this I cut a hole that's the
same diameter as the copper pipe. It fits nice and snug.
It will support it and we can actually bond place in the moment using
using a two-part epoxy adhesive.
That alone probably won't be enough but we'll come back to that in a moment.
This smaller 15mm (1/2 inch) pipe fits nicely
into that hole at the top, and this is where we're going to
introduce oil. A few simple copper fittings make a bendy pipe.
Why bendy? To keep most of the pipe away from the heat of the furnace.
Put a simple pipe clip on to support this.
We now need to support the internal you saw earlier.
Cover the nozzle with cellophane.
To support the pipe in addition to the
little bit of MDF is a mix of my own creation - one part finishing
plaster and one part ready-mixed mortar.
It's very resistant to heat. I blasted this with a blowtorch and it
didn't even get warm. Great stuff! Add water then pack this inside the steel tube
around the nozzle to help support the whole thing. Obviously we don't want
to fill the nozzle. Hence the cellophane.
Here we go... magic of television...
overnight it's set. Fantastic. And that's a a finished product.
If you want any more advice
on building an oil burner, look up "Oil Burner" on YouTube.
You'll see videos by a mad Aussie bloke. He knows his stuff.
Plenty of contractions and funny safety tips.
If you want to build a furnace try
Grant Thompson on YouTube. He's the "king of random" and has a great
video on how to build a mini metal foundry. Excellent.
I'll actually light our oil burner now...
Temporary feeder tank made from a plastic bottle.
Use something a bit more substantial normally.
The lid needs a hole to prevent a vaccuum forming.
Here's my furnace. The oil is gravity fed.
Open the tap and trickle the oil... Here's the air pump in the
Here's the oil burner in place.
It's not a self igniting so we need a small fire.
We need to achieve a temperature of 300 degrees Celsius
roughly speaking. We do this to you using charcoal and little bits of
... light the fire...
... and turn on the blower.
There's not much charcoal and wood, only about an inch layer.
Increase the airflow gradually over 20 minutes or so.
Gradually the insides get hotter - like this.
That's white-hot. Roughly 300 degrees. We can now SLOWLY introduce
the oil again... a trickle is all we need.
After a few more minutes that's the result. Waste oil burns beautifully.
We can use this to power our furnace.
as simple as that