Calling photoman, and his WMO burner.

[greasemonkey]

Fine Sir.

           I would like to make some enquires about the design of your WMO burner.
           I remember you mentioned a name of the designer, which I can no longer recall.
           One of the points I would be interested in, is the position of the oil feed, and the vaporising                       bar.
           Is the bar in the pot below, or the flue, and does the oil drip close to the bar, or down from the
           top of the flue, into the area where it burns?
     
           Thanking you for your reply in advance.

                                                 Yours most oily
                                                    Greasemonkey.

[photoman290]

oh oily one read on and you will become enlightened.

the original design was by someone called spike.

http://spicrosoft.com/Heater/Heater1.htm

the drip bar goes inside the pot at an angle of 45 degrees so it ends up in line with the centre of the burner tube about 25mm from the bottom of the pot the oil feed goes though a hole in the lid and drips onto the drip bar. since you saw it at the BBB i have tried it with a shorter flue. it works fine with a 6 foot flue. i do get some blowback in serious wind which i didnt get before but apart from that it has worked fine all winter.
i have had problems with my oil blocking the needle valve though. because i haven't yet sorted out a regular supply of oil i have been running it on kero. hopefully i should have a buffer of oil by next winter so i will have time to filter it properly. just got a centrifuge to help with that.

will post some pics and a description sometime. the most expensive part is the needle valve. you do need a good quality one. gate valve types arn't precise enough. be warned it will get out of control fast if you let too much oil in the pot. takes a good 10 minutes to go out if that happens. by which time the whole thing is red hot.

[greasemonkey]

Many blessings of gratitude bestowed upon you, I foresee a future of flame and glowing metal...........

...........But not just yet.

I hadn't got quite the right idea by the looks of it. Good job really that I didn't go cutting and welding, because I was a fair bit off the mark.

Basically, I got a pot, folded a plate for the oil to drip on, and used a jam jar lid full of methelated spirits to start it, slipped under the plate.
I cut a disk for the top of the pot, and fitted a 4 inch piece of flue pipe into a hole in the middle of the disk, then let the oil drip down from half way up the flue.

Drilled some holes in the flue, and the plate, and lit it. Obviously not getting enough air, so drilled some more. By the third round of drilling, the thing was going remarkably well. It would stay in by its self, no fear of it going out. It could be turned right down, and gently turning the oil up would have it roaring again. Stayed in consistently for an hour. Only trouble was, it smoked like a train.

I have a valve, no idea what it is for. Just found it somewhere, it seems to work pretty well.

I'm not sure what direction to take now. I really wanted something to slip under a 45 gallon drum, to heat oil with, but I'm not sure about that now either.

I know there is some ductile pipe here somewhere, so that would probably do as a flue, if I can drill it, and the spike bloke reckons he uses six mill plate for the lid now, so I can find enough of that.

I also have some gas cylinders, so something for me to ponder.

[photoman290]

if you got a piece of 4 inch heavy duty pipe and welded it though an oil drum that might work. only problem is if it gets too hot. i have one of those m67 army heaters. people seem to be ok using them to heat oil and they work in a similar way. a better  way may be to put the tube sideways thought the drum and  make a couple of bends with flexible stainless flue liner. you could have 2 or ever 3 in the drum which would work even better by making the flue longer. that way you don't have to worry about it leaking at the bottom and setting the whole thing alight. plus you could have the burner further away from the drum if you used flexible pipe.

may all your noble  flames and glowing metal  be where you want them to be.

[greasemonkey]

Well, after a good days tinkering, I have achieved, sweet nothing.
Nice little WMO burner, fan assisted, with a gravity feed, and I can't get a squeak out of it.
The fan just is not vaporising the oil, but I can think of a few things to try and improve the situation.
I'm aiming for the type of burner they use on a metal melting forge now.
there is a link to it on the spike site.

[photoman290]

mine gets hot enough to get the whole pot dull red and the flexy pipe flue orange at the bottom and dull red 5 foot with a 2 foot flame out the top. that is if you let the pot get around 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom before you light it.

[photoman290]

mine gets hot enough to get the whole pot dull red and the flexy pipe flue orange at the bottom and dull red 5 foot with a 2 foot flame out the top. that is if you let the pot get around 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom before you light it. if you have power i would go for a turk. no good for me as i don't have reliable power. i can sit in the dark with my head torch but don't fancy relying on leccy for my heating.

[greasemonkey]

A turks great, but what I'm aiming for is something to do Pyrolysis.
This fella is getting way above the temps needed for pyrolysis, and I was trying to make something like the burner he has on this page. The system lends itself well to what I want.
http://backyardmetalcasting.com/oilburners10.html

Reading it again, I can see a few places where I am going wrong. Also, WMO isn't very runny at 3C, so I guess that had a big effect on the way it vaporises.

I've used a blower from a central heating boiler. I'm sure I have plenty of blow. I think I have the oil inlet in the wrong place.