Melting Pot

[Cowboy5780]

Ive built a bottom pour pot out of a 12 inch piece of steel pipe put a good steel bottom in it. My problem is i cant keep it hot enough on my turkey cooker with just a regular grill regulator. I've decided im going to have to buy an adjustable regulator but dont know what pressure i need to run it at anyone have any suggestions or better ideas. [smilie=b:
Thanks
Tony

[montana_charlie]

I have never used a turkey fryer, or an adjustable regulator.
And, your situation may require you to pay more attention to safety factors than I do, but...

Propane fired weed burners are a common tool out in the country, and they are just an orfice on the end of a pipe with a shield around it to channel air to the flame. The hose hooks directly to the propane tank, and there is a simple valve on the end of the pipe to adjust the flame by controlling how much fuel reaches the orfice. There may be some adjustment of the pressure, but that is just an incidental side effect.

Opened all the way up (which is very rarely done), the flame is like a jet engine on afterburner.

I seldom use my weed burner for burning weeds. Mostly, it is stuck in the end of a partially enclosed steel tube, which is a 'furnace' for heating branding irons. It can turn them cherry red.

If yours is a trustworthy rig, with no leaks or design weaknesses, I bet you could run it safely with no regulator in the fuel path.
But I recommend you never leave it unattended...ever.

CM

[Firebird]

A wind screen around the pot and a lid on the pot will make a huge difference in how much heat is needed to keep your lead melted. Safer, and probably easier than buying an adjustable regulator and finding out that you now need a bigger air port in your burner to go with the higher pressure gas.

[Dale53]

My fish fryer (Bass Pro identification) - it's really the same as a Turkey Fryer, has a common type regulator on it and I adjust the flame with the valve on the regulator and use a standard barbecue propane tank (20 or 25 lb tank). It easily heats my 12" 6 quart Dutch Oven from Harbor Freight. I believe it holds about 150 lbs. I also have a smaller steel pot made from a smaller pipe that works beautifully but only holds 80 lbs (60 lbs working capacity).

My brother and I smelted 650 lbs one afternoon a few weeks ago, using the Dutch Oven:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1768.jpg

Here's just part of the stash from that smelting;

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1780.jpg

Dale53

[Cowboy5780]

Dale looks like you have the same or close to the same cooker i have but im guessing by the picture youre regulator is adjustable my pot is alot larger than youres. I hooked my burner up straight to the burner per Montana Charlies post wow with the valve just barely cracked its a heck of a flame. Am not sure this is safe or not but im sure if i get the nerve to try it it will get hot enough to melt it is a heck of a bigger flame.

[Dale53]

I don't really believe it is safe to operate a propane tank without a regulator. Mine came with the Fish Fryer and works fine for me.

Incidentally, that is an 85 lb ingot in the pot in the picture:mrgreen:.

I would gently suggest you put the regulator back on. Having the ability to "fine tune" the burner works well when you are trying to keep the temperature around 650 degrees to avoid zinc wheel weight contamination (as well as the safety aspects involved).

FWIW
Dale53

[kelbro]

A regular grill regulator is low-pressure. Most turkey fryer regulators are high-pressure. You probably just need another regulator.

[jnovotny]

There is relatively low pressure in a propane tank to begin with, I also have a "weed burner" that runs striaght off the tank valve. It will throw a hell of a flame. You can get one from Harbor Frieght.

[kendall yates]

I built a 12x12x12 steel bottom pour pot that I have been tryin to get the bugs worked out of. I started with my turkey fryer burner but its too small. Check out the 2 ebay item numbers below. Its a place called Boyd's equipment in TX. Its a 150,000 BTU unit that is GREAT. I bought the burner and 5 foot hose/regulator for $49 shipped to my door step.

Item number: 120399536236
Item number: 120399538873

Kenny

[archmaker]

In my other hobby we talk about fish fryers a lot (making home made beer).

There is two type of fryers and regulators out there. There is the simple turkey fryer that has one orifice at the bottom and is similiar to the old stove top flame you are used to seeing. Know do not quote me but those are generally regulated to 10psi or fairly low. (just looked and it is about 54,000btu)

Then you have the banjo type turkey fryers. These are similar to the old in house ceramic (except made out of steel) heaters with a lot of small holes in them. The may have a regulator that goes up to 20psi. (according to the web this is 210,000btu)

Of the two the banjo style with the 20psi regulator will get 7 to 15 gallons of water boiling a lot quicker.

I use the smaller version and I just wrap tinfoil around the outside of the pot and down the side so all the heat goes up the side of my pot and the wind does not cool it off.

[grumman581]

At one time, I had one of the cast aluminum BBQ grills that use the 20 lb propane tanks. The type of grill that you see at Wal-mart or Home Depot -- the low end ones that run $150 or less. It worked well enough for my grilling needs, but at one point, it needed a new burner, so while I was doing it, I decided to do a major overhaul on it. Somewhere along the way, I misplaced the regulator, so I just decided to run it without a regulator and metered the gas flow just by how much I had the tank's valve open. It worked great -- if I wanted to, I could have a 6 ft wall of flame coming out of the grill. Great for searing the meat to keep the juices in it. Typically, the pressure in the propane tanks runs 175psi or less, although the tanks themselves must be rated for 300psi. I used an air hose like you use for your power tools and even had the quick-connects on the tank and the grill so that I did not have to leave everything hooked up all the time outside. Eventually, the stand got in bad shape, so I took the actual cast aluminum grill portion of it and mounted it inset into a custom built table that I made out of 2x6s for the tabletop, 4x4s for the legs, and 2x4s for other various supports. A very well built table. Even though I left an inch or so between the edges of the grill and the wood of the table, I had a problem with it slowly charring the wood, so my cooking technique was to keep a water hose handy and to periodically use a fine mist spray on the wood to keep it wet so that it wouldn't burn. After about a year of this, I had an interesting experience one evening while I was getting ready to grill some beef -- it turned out that I was producing enough heat that the cast aluminum on the bottom of the grill had melted and large pieces of it were dribbling on the concrete and then splashing on my legs. Of course, I was wearing shorts since it was in the summer.

So, the lessons learned were:

Unregulated propane makes a great heat source for a grill or burner
Air tool pressure hoses work great for unregulated propane
Unregulated propane is able to provide enough BTUs that you can melt cast aluminum
Outdoor kitchen tabletops should not be made out of wood unless you are willing to stand by constantly with a water hose

[Cowboy5780]

Thanks for everyone for there replies i have found an old argon regulator that im going to put inine and try if nothing else it will give me a number on how full the tank is then burner im using looks like the one kendall yates is showing on fleabay so i should have a pretty decent burner will try this out asap and post results here thanks fellow casters. please excuse my sorry grammer im still half asleep lol.
Tony

[grumman581]

Thanks for everyone for there replies i have found an old argon regulator that im going to put inine and try if nothing else it will give me a number on how full the tank is
Tony

Actually, it won't give you an idea of how much gas is left in the tank... Well, not to any real useful amount. Technically, these tanks are filled with LPG -- liquefied petroleum gas (typically a mixture of propane and butane). The term "liquefied" is key here. As long as there is some liquid in the tank, the pressure will continue registering the same amount... This amount is dependent upon the vapor pressure which is in turn dependent upon the temperature of the tank. For example, at 100F, the tank is going to register around 177 psi regardless of whether it is full or only has a couple of ounces of liquid propane in it. At 50F, you only register 78psi. In extremely cold environments, propane does not work well unless you install a heater on the tank. For example, if you get down to -30F, the pressure drops to 6.8 psi and at -44F, it drops all the way to 0 psi.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/1020/propane-vapor-pressure-diagram.png

If I remember correctly, the pressure relief valves on the tanks are set for around 250 psi which according to the above chart would equate to perhaps 120F or higher. As you can see from this, any good quality air hose for air tools would be rated high enough to handle unregulated LPG. For example this one is rated to 300 psi working pressure:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=6930

And if you don't let the temperature of the LPG get above 100F, you can use the traditional black rubber Goodyear hoses that are rated to 100 psi.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=2363

I usually use these... They're a bit cheaper and still rated for 200 psi:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=42185

The only way to know how full an LPG tank is is to weight it. A cheap bathroom scale works well for this. You need to know the empty weight of the tank though, so you should weigh it before you take it to the fill station for refilling.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/propane-vapor-pressure-d_1020.html

These days though, I have moved away from LPG except in cases where I'm away from home (i.e. picnic, camping, etc). I ran a 1" steel line from my natural gas supply meter to my outdoor kitchen area and use it for my grill. I also have a air hose quick connect fitting installed there so that I can run natural gas through an air hose for my stand alone type burner. I use this burner for boiling crawfish, deep frying, and now, smelting lead. Since the pressure is less than LPG, you need a larger orifice in the gas jet for your burner. If they don't make one explicitly for natural gas, just buy another one for LPG and drill it out with a 1/16" drill bit.

[JimKirk]

We used to cook Syrup with a 1/2" galv. pipe nipple beat flat, it was hooked straight to a 500 gal. propane tank. just a valve in between. Hot Hot blue flame.... would boil 60 gals. cane juice real fast! Gap was about the thickness of a hacksaw blade.

""
i___pipe_____valve____pipe__________Tank

Jimmy K

[grumman581]

We used to cook Syrup with a 1/2" galv. pipe nipple beat flat, it was hooked straight to a 500 gal. propane tank. just a valve in between. Hot Hot blue flame.... would boil 60 gals. cane juice real fast! Gap was about the thickness of a hacksaw blade.

""
i___pipe_____valve____pipe__________Tank


If this was a typical home propane tank, it probably had a regulator on the tank before it went to the line going into the house. Are you positive you were bypassing that regulator?

[Cowboy5780]

Nods head at Grumman i screwed the fitting out of the regulator that goes in the tank and went to the hardware store and bought a gas shutoff ballcock and rand it straight to the burner from that. It works good at least so far smelte down enough WW the other night to make 62 lbs of ingots in a little less than an hr.
Thanks again for everyones comments and help

[grumman581]

Nods head at Grumman i screwed the fitting out of the regulator that goes in the tank and went to the hardware store and bought a gas shutoff ballcock and rand it straight to the burner from that. It works good at least so far smelte down enough WW the other night to make 62 lbs of ingots in a little less than an hr.
Thanks again for everyones comments and help

It's been probably close to 30 years since I've lived in a house that relied on LPG, so I was more than willing to leave the option that my memory might have been a bit off... The way that I remember it though was that the LPG tank had a regulator that reduced the pressure to a point that was still quite a bit higher than natural gas pressure and then each appliance had an additional small regulator that reduced it to whatever that appliance needed. I never put a pressure gauge on it, so I'm not sure what the intermediate pressure might have been. The nice thing about LPG is that you have the option of plumbing it for full pressure if you have a need for it. With natural gas (like what I'm using), you are stuck with the very mediocre pressure that comes out of the gas meter. If you want more BTUs to your device, you have to increase the size of the line going from the meter to the device. That is why I ran a 1" steel line from my meter to my outdoor kitchen / grill area. Of course, I'm defeating most of that with just using an air hose for gas supply between the grill area and the burner I set up behind my garage. Still, it seems to work well enough. It's not getting hot enough to melt the zinz wheel weights which if probably a good thing.

[JimKirk]

Grumman
There was no regulator inline, just a line from the tank(rubber ..like the line the propane truck delivers gas into your tank) ...the valve is same. The 1/2" galv pipe(about 6' long) was screwed into the valve and at the end a elbow(1/2") then the flatten nipple was screwed into the elbow. The pipe with the nipple was placed under a 60 gal cast iron kettle. The nipple was placed about 6" below the bottom of the kettle. When lit, the blue flame would surround the bottom of the kettle, the fumes went out a flue. It (the flame) would roar like a jet engine(small). the burner would bring that kettle to a boil in less than 30 minutes. It did burn lots of propane, but it was cheap back then...we got it at farm prices ..around 20 cent a gal.

Jimmy K

[grumman581]

One of the problems that I see with using the LPG weed burners for supplemental heat for your smelting is the fact that your putting a flame that is way above the melting point of zinc directly on the wheel weights. If you have any zinc wheel weights, you're going to get zinc in your alloy. Putting a heavy well fitting lid on the melting pot is definitely a good idea though since it will reduce a lot of the convection heat loss from the pot. Of course, when you open the top, it would probably be a good idea to tilt the pot's top such that if any flame is produced from the gasses or any splatters occur, it would be aimed away from you. When I'm smelting and the first time I remove the lid, I usually get a pretty good flare up from the petrochemical based gases that have been trapped in the pot.

[JimKirk]

Links for burners for some of you Pot builders.

http://mower-blades.agrisupply.com/search?w=burners&searchType=keyword&view=grid&x=34&y=8

Jimmy K

[Storydude]

I'd lose the Argon regulator if you don't like massive propane leaks after a month or so. Argon=Inert. Propane=Volatile. Seals and diaphragms are made differently.

Find an Acetylene regulator or a dedicated propane regulator. Welding shops are your friends.