What about

[Freightman]

natural gas for smelting? Is the house pressure natural gas enough to smelt lead?

[felix]

You would use twice as much natural gas than propane for the same heat. Figure local costs before deciding equipment flavor. ... felix

[quack1]

I use natural gas to smelt. I welded up a stand to hold a burner from an old hot water tank and set my smelting pot on it. Dont know what my house pressure is, but don't have any problems melting wheel weights.

[jonk]

I can melt lead on a house burner on high.

Ah being a bachelor.

[Steelshooter]

With the recent price increases for propane (around here anyways, 18.00 for 20 lbs.) it would be cheaper to use natural gas. And you won't have to mess around getting the tank filled.
Chuck

[DLCTEX]

Of course it works, look at gas water heaters. Plenty of BTU's there. And it's got to be cheaper than propane these days. DALE

[mooman76]

Are you talking smelting or melting for moulding bullets. The answer is yes, plenty of heat. I would not smelt inside, too much smoke and smell but I have been moulding bullets on the kitchen stove for years.

[MT Gianni]

You would use twice as much natural gas than propane for the same heat. Figure local costs before deciding equipment flavor. ... felix

If sold by volume yes. Most nat gas today is sold by btu content per cu ft aka Therms or Dekatherm. Propane has +- 92,000 btu per gallon, Nat gas 100,000 btu per Therm. Gianni.

[Bob Krack]

If sold by volume yes. Most nat gas today is sold by btu content per cu ft aka Therms or Dekatherm. Propane has +- 92,000 btu per gallon, Nat gas 100,000 btu per Therm. Gianni.

Hi John,
Did you really mean to say 100,000 per therm? It was my understanding that a "therm" is, in fact, - 100,000 btu.

Vic

[MT Gianni]

Hi John,
Did you really mean to say 100,000 per therm? It was my understanding that a "therm" is, in fact, - 100,000 btu.

Vic

Yea Vic, I was trying to explain that most Nat gas is sold by therm billing or cost per 100,000 btu. That is arrived at by altitude of the measure and delivery temperature as well as btu content per cubic foot. Thanks for helping define that a therm =100,000 btu's. Gianni

[Bob Krack]

Yea Vic, I was trying to explain that most Nat gas is sold by therm billing or cost per 100,000 btu. That is arrived at by altitude of the measure and delivery temperature as well as btu content per cubic foot. Thanks for helping define that a therm =100,000 btu's. Gianni
Now I understand....Your statement is that propane is sold by specific quantity and Natural Gas is sold by heat value.

I did some looking and it seems that NG is usually a mixture of Butane and Propane with the amount of propane a product of how low the temperature at time of use.

I"m told Butane does not evaporate below about 40 degrees F whereas Propane will evaporate down to as low as -47 F.

Do you know - does most natural gas contain Methane (as I was always led to believe)? If so, does that compromise my previous sentence?

Vic

[carpetman]

If you buy a propane stove it will be rated at so many BTU'S the same stove on NG will have a much higher BTU output rating. I had a car that would run on propane and it didnt have nearly the power it had on gasoline and the economy of propane was very bad. I had to buy a sticker for it each year to purchase propane and after one year I did not renew it and never used propane in it again. NG burner will easily melt lead. The plumbing requirements are different between the two---with propane they do allow copper tubing.

[felix]

Natural gas comes straight from the well, and contains a bunch of stuff. Depending on the value of what is in the "bunch of stuff" the good stuff might be stripped out before distribution. Louisiana gas has many wells having up to 20 percent propane. Yes, that will be stripped out, leaving what is left behind mostly methane. Wells in west Texas do not contain nearly as much goodies to be stripped. The C-Man should ask some of the folks around there what the average amount of goodies is in the natural stuff, and is it being stripped. Prolly not enough to warrant any separation. ... felix

[Firebird]

Pressure in house natural gas lines is very low, measured not in psi but in inches of water pressure. That big round housing on your gas meter is part of a pressure regulator that reduces from street pressure of several psi down to house pressure of 20 inches of water (less than 1 psi). I learned a lot about this subject when I changed from forced air furnace to radiant hot water heat. Had to get the lines in my house upgraded to 1" to handle the 165,000 BTU burner as the original lines (1" to 3/4" to 1/2") were just too small to flow enough gas for proper operation.
I think the low pressure is a safety measure to help reduce the amount of gas that would come out of any leaks in the pipes and fittings.

[MT Gianni]

Vic, Nat gas is a gas at the wellhead therfore it is called "natural" gas. It has a specific gravity of 0.60, propane has a sg of 1.5 and butane 2.0. Assuming dry gas [no wet hydocarbons that raise btu content] if you put all three in a tank and allowe them to settle, each would settle at it's own level. Butane being the heaviest would go to the bottom, Propane the next level and Nat gas the top being lighter than air.
Appliances try to have the same btu's per burner that the burner is designed to burn. To arrive there nat gas is pushed slower, generally at 3.5" water column through a large hole. Propane and butane are pushed faster, usually at 10"-11" water column through a larger hole. 7" water column is equal to 1/4 lb. Burner design allows each to mix with 10 times the air to gas with 1/2 coming into the burner through the venturi and 1/2 burning at the burner head.
The short answer is Nat gas works to smelt with assuming a correctly sized piping system and burner orifice.
Gianni

[MT Gianni]

Pressure in house natural gas lines is very low, measured not in psi but in inches of water pressure. That big round housing on your gas meter is part of a pressure regulator that reduces from street pressure of several psi down to house pressure of 20 inches of water (less than 1 psi). I learned a lot about this subject when I changed from forced air furnace to radiant hot water heat. Had to get the lines in my house upgraded to 1" to handle the 165,000 BTU burner as the original lines (1" to 3/4" to 1/2") were just too small to flow enough gas for proper operation.
I think the low pressure is a safety measure to help reduce the amount of gas that would come out of any leaks in the pipes and fittings.

Yep, though the regulators are made for a large amount of flow at that slight pressure.

[dominicfortune00]

I believe that they add methane to allow people to smell it, and figure out when they have a gas leak in their house.

[MT Gianni]

I believe that they add methane to allow people to smell it, and figure out when they have a gas leak in their house.

Gas is 98% -99% methane. The odorant is merco-captan. Captan is also present in some rose fertilizers. The adds for this stuff usually show a skunk pushig an egg. If you ever find some it is highly flamable but 2 drops would overodorize a tanker trailer full of gas at delivery pressures. Clorox or Purex are the best neutralizers. Get it on leather and it stays for a couple of weeks outside in full sun. Fill odorant tanks and you will puke up all you eat until you get used to it. Gianni

[hunter64]

MT Gianni has it right about the stink factor. About 20 years ago we had a guy filling up the odourant tank at a reg station and when he was putting away the hose about 1/4 of a cup was spilled outside by the truck. Instead of alerting the proper people to pick it up he wiped it up with a rag and just jumped in the truck and headed back to the shop and left for the long weekend. Well about 1/2 hour after he left the emergency dispatchers started getting calls about a huge NG leak and called me to go and be the site supervisor and coordinate the emergency response members to track it down. We had 4 fire stations responded and evacuated the sub-division. We had people looking everywhere for the source of the NG, couldn't pick up any readings on our machines and yet we could smell it as plain as day for about 1/2 a mile in any direction. I sent a guy to the reg station to stand by and turn the gas off to the sub division if need be, we were going to loose 400 homes but it was about the same time of year as it is now so no one was going to freeze. When he drove up to the reg station the smell was so bad that he started throwing up and asked for the fire dept. assistance because he thought for sure that the reg station had ruptured and was spewing NG. No one could get any readings on there gas detectors and we finally realized after calling the main distribution office that an odourant truck had visited the reg station 2 hours earlier. We finally got a hold of the truck driver and he admitted that a small amount had been spilled and he had tried to clean it up. Well needless to say he will never have hemorrhoids if you know what I mean.

Go to a local metal scrap yard and usually there is a drop off zone where people can bring in there old fridges/freezers/water heaters any scrap metal. Look for an older ng water heater with a cast iron burner and you are set. I have mine mounted in an old Coleman camp stove that was about 10 feet from the water heater at the scrap yard (talk about one stop shopping). I removed all the guts and mounted it in there. It works great and I never have to visit the propane shack again.

As they say a picture says a thousand words. You can see that I brazed 4 support legs on the burner grill to add stability and I also added a quick connect attachment. I added a secondary line off of my garage heater and when I want to melt I just attach the hose, open a window for ventilation and away I go.
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