Hi guys, just thought i'd share something i've been working on, currently only in the planning stage though so please play nicely.
I've been doing a bit of reseach into making my own custom castings for table legs, solid bronze similar to the hudson table that beyonce bought for $70,000 (photos of their tables are attached)
the basis of my Foundry design is based around the artful bodger's waste oil furnace Home - The Artful Bodger's Home Foundry/ for which i take no credit, the guy's a genius.
anyway I was busy adapting the plans of his foundry to suit a much larger scale bronze melt, when the idea suddenly struck me - why not use this same design i'd come up with that could melt 80kg of bronze within an hour - using nothing but waste oil and a small amount of electricity - to dry timber?
I figured that my adapted foundry setup could heat a container sized kiln to just about any temperature i want to, with the temperature being controlled by some circuitry essentially reducing the output of the blower, and feeding less oil, this reducing the burn rate and temperature.
garages and the like have to pay to get rid of waste oil, and I've noticed as soon as you mention that you're interested in it, they'll force upon you as much as you can possibly hope for.
Now without going into the science of it, your average motor oil has 3 times the fuel density of the wood you're currently powering your kiln with, meaning you use a third of the fuel you're currently using, and this Doesnt accunt for the water content in that wood you're burning which would to let's say 50% of the overall mass of that wood, so in essense by burning oil you're saving six times as much timber to then put into the kiln to DRY, which can then be SOLD
Now like i said, this is still in it's infancy, i'm just looking for your input and experience as to whether you feel this sort of system would benefit you chaps that currently run a kiln on wood or gas.
Thanks for reading!