propane burner

[krallstar]

Quick question, is a burner of 38000 btu good enough to use for a cut down 20lb propane tank smelter.

[LeroyvdH]

Ours is 45000.. On a cool windy day it'll only handle about 60lbs without a wind sheild.. Guess it depends on how many pounds you want to do at a time..
Leroy

[jsizemore]

I'd look for 3-5 times that.

[bangerjim]

38K is not very much. Even with a warm day and a good wind shield, you will still be using a lot of gas and taking a lot of time to heat things to were you to be....if you even ever get there at all.

My plumber's furnace sounds like a jet afterburner and will melt 120 or so pounds of lead in just a few short minutes in it's big cast iron lead pot. It does NOT use a regulator! Just a needle valve to control the heat...from pilot to full flame-on.

Tons of concentrated heat is what you want. 38K may heat oil to eventually cook a turkey, but not enough to really melt lead fast. Look for one a lot hotter.

banger

[krallstar]

Thanks. I asked cause i got one for free but was going to have to buy a new hi flow reg anyway. lowes has 1 Bayou Classic Bayou Cooker 12.5-in 20-lb Cylinder $50.00 and 60000 btu. Would this work

[bangerjim]

Bingo!

[rda72927]

This is a model that has REALY worked well for me...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00433EMI6/ref=s9_dcacsd_bhz_bw_c_x_1

[too many things]

20lb is not much it will last about 45 min on a good heat . High heat about 20 min
I melted 1700 lb and used 1 and half 100lb tanks

[dverna]

20lb is not much it will last about 45 min on a good heat . High heat about 20 min
I melted 1700 lb and used 1 and half 100lb tanks

I was considering getting a smelting set up. Is this rate of propane consumption typical? 150 lb of propane to process 1700 lb of alloy.

I may may need to rethink this.

[fecmech]

20lb is not much it will last about 45 min on a good heat .
I have an old plumbers pot which is simply a burner mounted on a 20 lb. propane tank. I have a cast iron pot that will hold about 40-45 lbs of lead that sits on top. I have done 2, 5 gal buckets of WW's (over 200 lbs of clean metal) and not used the whole tank. I doubt I used much more than half of my 20 lb. tank. If someones using 150 lbs of propane to do 1700 lbs of lead that sounds like an awful lot to me.

[Chris C]

This is what I bought: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002913MI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My last rendering was 170# in the pot at one time............and I'm sure I could go more. Burner did just fine. I put the COWW in the pot, fired it up and then went about my business of gathering ingot molds, and all the skimmers, ladles, trash removers, safety personal equipment. By the time all that was done, the pot was almost ready to give me it's steel clips. I have no record of fuel consumption, but I've rendered about 500# of lead and tin at this point and have yet to deplete the 20# propane tank I pulled off my trailer that I've been using this last year for my cook-top and heating when camping.

[runfiverun]

I done some math at one time and figured 35-K was the minimum btu's needed to melt down a dutch oven full of ww's.
if your wasting the btu's or losing them in the wind or whatever your gonna be waiting a long time.

a 5 gallon propane tank will easily melt down 450-500 pounds of finished ww ingots.
using a Dutch oven [I use 2] and a burner set up is pretty good as far as cost and effectiveness.
plus... if I melt down more than 500 lbs in that type set-up at a time I'm toast for 2 days.

using a bigger set up allows more speed but a bigger burner burns more gas.

I figure [roughly] about 3 cents a lb [of lead] for propane at @20 bucks for an exchange tank.

[bangerjim]

OP......Now you know the "rest of the story" as to why I quit re-melting dirty old COWW's. The cost of the propane!

Reasons:
1) growing unavailability of Pb weights (mostly Zn and Fe now)
2) total mess doing it
3) too much time involved (gathering, sorting, fluxing, melting)
4) high cost of gasoline just to chase them down
5) high cost of propane to process them

I am now able to find good clean Pb and Alloys that melt rapidly in my re-melting pot that yield good clean ingots fast and with little to no mess at all. Some of the metals goes right in my casting pot because it is that clean! I leave it in the as-found form.

When Pb COWW's were free for the hauling, I had plenty of time to waste, and propane was much cheaper I re-melted bunches of them.

Do what you feel necessary for your needs.

banger

[DukeInFlorida]

Please remember what a "BTU" is.....

BTU is an acronym for British Thermal Unit. Although its name seems to suggest otherwise, it is no longer commonly used in the United Kingdom. BTU is a unit of measurement for energy. One BTU is equal to the amount of energy used to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.

Lead is extremely dense. So, a pot with 150 pounds of lead, to get it from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to 750 degrees, F, requires a LOT of BTU's. You do the math.

The burner, when operating, should roar like a jet engine. You're not simmering steamed clams, you're trying to get lead hot enough to melt as quickly as possible. It takes a LOT of btu's.

Oh, and a standard 20 pound propane tank contains enough fuel to develop approximately 430,270 BTU. Divide that by whatever your burner is rated for, per hour (burners are rated at X many btu's per hour), and you'll know how long a tank will last for, using your burner.

[jsizemore]

My cost per lb of lead for propane is 3 cents. I use a wind shield and lid to confine the heat and don't run it wide open. Takes about 40 minutes to have 150lbs go from cold to pouring ingots and not melt any zinc WW. I sort but sometimes miss 1 or 2.

[randyrat]

I don't know how many BTUs my burner puts out, but I have a 10 PSI or high output regulator and it will melt a good size pot of lead in 10-15 minutes. Dump em in and turn it up and don't walk away or you could melt zinc turds if your not careful.

Oh yeah, mine roars like a jet engine when it is high

[SeabeeMan]

That would be on the very low end, as others have said. Guys on here have talked about doing it on 2-burner Coleman stoves, but I bet it takes a while. I used to just do it on my turkey fryer with a dutch oven and that had a 135k BTU burner. I have a bottom pour rig made out of a 20lb propane tank now and it has a 185k burner on it.

https://www.amazon.com/Cajun-Injector-Propane-Turkey-Seafood/dp/B003BRE758/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1470427185&sr=8-9&keywords=turkey+fryer

This is almost identical to my fryer and I used a very similar replacement burner for my bottom pourer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009JXYSW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A burner like this with an appropriate regulator would work MUCH better for you. Especially if you have a heat shield around it. Don't forget the proper orifice, either. I made the mistake once of just using a 1/8NPT to 3/8 flare plumbing fitting and had an 1/8" layer of soot on my shiny aluminum fry pot before I figured out the problem.

[SeabeeMan]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?280873-Smelting-pot-threads-on-20lb-propane-tank

Here's the link to my build. I wouldn't change a thing about it after melting down several hundred pounds with it.

[brassrat]

My burner roars with such force that my cast iron pot is blown off, if not holding at least a 1/4 pot of lead











:razz:

[lightman]

I was considering getting a smelting set up. Is this rate of propane consumption typical? 150 lb of propane to process 1700 lb of alloy.

I may may need to rethink this.

My homemade burner will melt 400# of wheelwrights in about 20 minutes or so and I can melt 2 and sometimes 2-1/2 pots from a 20# bottle. It depends on the air temp and whether the propane tank was an exchange or filled at a propane place. My burner works off of tank pressure and sounds like a jet engine.

[MrWolf]

My cost per lb for propane is 3 cents. I use a wind shield and lid to confine the heat and don't run it wide open. Takes about 40 minutes to have 150lbs go from cold to pouring ingots.

I have about the same results. I use a welding blanket as a heat shield on my converted Weber grill and the cover lid really helps.