Four things inspired me to try an oil fired foundry.Detailed instructions on the net,gallons of oil in my garage from changing my own oil, hassles and cost of constantly filling my propane tank and my recent discovery of an endless source of free oil/gas mix removed from vehicles that are being crushed.
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I found This cast iron pipe fitting at the salvage yard. The blower was also salvaged and the intake and exhaust nipples are pipe nipples I had to buy. I drip the oil down from the top center and have the fan on bottom with the hot flame coming out the top. I preheat the double ended stainless steel cone shaped jigger with my torch for two minutes through the removeable-blower hole until it is glowing red hot ,start the oil dripping and quickly remove the torch and add the blower. A permanent built in Torch head for pre-heat might work better. The blower is controlled with a house lamp dimmer for varying degrees of hi-lo (not recommended for inductance motors). After I was sure the contraption would work I encased it in a can rammed full of refractory
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http://www.qualitysmith.com/request/articles/articles-heating/oil-furnace-cost/
1) What is preventing the flame from moving backwards up the fuel line to the reservoir? (Is it because there's no oxygen in the fuel line? Is there anything one could do to make this safer?)
2) Is there any advantage to this shot-glass "carburetor" method over the Brute's pseudo-fuel-injection method? I would think that the method you're using here wastes a lot of heat through the carburetor chamber itself, because the flame must move through the carburetor.
P.S. "The Brute" burner that I'm talking about is here: http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/oilburners09.html
Thanks for your advice!
I'm pretty sure it is that
also the fact that for oil/petrol to burn, it must be a vapor already would have a big effect here. adding it straight into a fire this doesn't mean much, because the oil vaporizes from the heat of the fire, then burns. But in the pipe, the liquid oil would be moving fast enough to push the vapor out the end of the pipe before it has a chance to heat the rest up to vapor.
If you wanted to, you could add a one-way valve somewhere in that so that the oil can go into the chamber, but not flow back up. Or another design feature is to create a "Pop" valve in the oil reservoir. Basically means cutting a small square out of the top, then taping a single layer of cling wrap, or thin tape over the top. So it's still air tight, but if any force builds up in the chamber i.e. explosion, it will go through that hole, instead of actually going boom.
Just add a tee to the oil line (with additional shutoff) to feed waste paint thinner or perhaps kerosene to warm up the chamber. I have read where this works quite well and usually only takes a few minutes.