A Ron Reil Type Burner by Gary Overman
Most people who start out metal casting, generally start with some type of metal like Aluminum and a charcoal foundry. Aluminum is considered a cooler metal by comaprison to Brass and Bronze and is easier to melt and pour. The charcoal foundry is easy to put together and build, but at some point the caster wants something more from his or her hobby. Sometimes, it is just the fact that charcoal is messy and a little clumsy if you want to do more than one melt at a time. As a result, some people want to investigate going to some other heat source. Now there are a few to choose from. For example, Natural Gas, Propane and Waste Oil. Of these three, propane seems to be the next logical step for the hobby caster.
The first step that needs to happen to use propane for a heat source is to build some type of burner that will use it. There are two varieties that I am aware of that you can use. The first is forced air, which uses a fan of some type with the gas to create a combustable mix. The next type is a natural draft burner, where air is mixed with the gas by the vacuum generated by the gas as it shoots down the burner. The project below is of the latter design. For an example of forced air see the Gingery Gas Fired Crucible Furnace located elsewhere on this site.
The burner project listed below from Gary Overman is based on the popular Ron Reil burners that you find all over the internet. This is Gary's take on the burner and aside from how it is made there is a photo of the burner in action and some video as well.
You can watch the video of this burner in action below.
{flv}book/chapter_02/reilburnervideo{/flv}