Waste Oil Heater Forum - Your definitive source for burning waste oil for heat.

I have not done anything with my heater since early January. Now that we have had a break in the weather and out of the below 0 temps I did some more today.
I think I am getting closer to a workable heater. Today I took the pot, lid and cylinder to work to do some work. I made new brackets for the cylinder and lid. I noticed when I took them apart one of the brackets was holding the cylinder above the lid about 1/16 inch. I also obtained a large piece of sand paper that had an adhesive side and stuck it to a flat bench. I then took the pot and surfaced the top edge. That sucker is flat now. I took a light around the lid and pot from the inside, and could not see light from the out side of the pot. The biggest problem was actually my spring and hinge design. I noticed when I put the freshly surfaced pot into place I could pull the handle up and the front of the pot would lift about 1/16 inch before it would make contact to the lid. I placed a 1/2 inch spacer on the front of the hinge assembly under the pot and that did the trick. I will weld a proper spacer to the hinge later.
I lit the thing and brought it to temp. It made a couple of humming noises, this is what it did before it would throw flames out the secondary burner, and there were no flames this time. This may be because of the larger holes I made in the lid for the pot air intake. I will eliminate 2 of the holes until I have the time to weld them and re-drill to ¼ inch.
The hottest I could get the thing was 380 degrees at the top plate near the flue. The drums reached 300 and the pot was hanging around 800. All temps were taken at the top burn with a 1/4 inch pool of oil in the pot.
It was tough to light and this may be due to the amount of holes in the secondary burner, as per Spike. I plan on buying bolts to fill the 50% of the holes.
The exhaust was very clear, all I could see was heat waves, no smoke during all burn levels.
Over all I think things are moving in the right direction.

Yesterday I installed a 6 inch chimney. The thing continues to flame through the holes at high burn. I did open the pot during a low burn and noticed the flame would increase when this was done. This leads me to believe there is not enough air making it to the flame. One thing I will note, the chimney did give it a wider burning area before the flames come out of the holes in the cylinder. My next move is to drill more holes in the cylinder.
I also built a shelf for the bucket and plumbed in the oil line.

This morning I went out to a very cold garage and cut off the front of the stand. I built the front of the stand 2" wider than before. In the pic I put most of the heater together for a quick view of what the dimensions are going to be. To the right and about 15 feet behind is the Roger Sanders heater I built a couple of years ago. I ran it up to 500 degrees and could still see my breath after 2 hours. Nothing is fastened together in the pic.
The remainder to finish the project.
1. Build and fasten a couple of brackets to hold the pot lid to the cylinder.
2. Drill into the pot lid and build or assemble a connector for the oil line. I will use 3/8" copper or steel line.
3. Drill the vent holes in the cylinder.
4. Drill the pot to accept all thread for a handle.
5. Install a piece of angle iron in the pot to direct the oil to the center.
7. Test out side
8. Clean and paint then install.

I have been able to get 800 deg from my Roger Sanders heater and want it a bit warmer. So I am giving it a go with a different design. It has cast iron drums and a better air intake than the Roger Sanders design, in my mind.

The first thing I did was obtain a couple of 16.5" brake drums from a large semi type truck. I put them on the lathe at work and machined the drums so the open edge of the drums would mate with each other.

Here is a pic of the lathe I used; it took about 2 hours to do both drums. It is also available to me during off hours at work.



The drum edges, they are orange looking because of the fresh rust. I kept these in the back of my truck for a week while I gathered parts.

The outside cut on the bottom drum.



A close up of the inside cut on the top drum. Sorry for the pic quality.



The cylinder after sandblasting and removing the bottom 2 inches, I believe it came from a C-15 Cat engine. I cut the bottom flat and inside of the cylinder with the lathe. I cut the inside of the cylinder about .020" because that area seems as hard as diamonds and does not drill well. The air vent holes will be in the lower 3" of the cylinder.



I cut 2 round plates to fit on the lug side of the brake drums. Both plates have 5- 1/2" holes for bolting. There are more holes, two for the bottom plate to fasten the cylinder to.



This pic shows the top drum with the second plate on top.

 


I will post more as I go.

One thing I hated to do was to stand over the heater and look down the intake pipe to find out how fast the oil was flowing. During a search on waste oil heaters I found on YouTube a guy who built a Sanders design, he bought a needle valve with a window from Roger Sanders. He also posted he paid $50.00 for it. With a pic of the valve I began another search and found a valve made by Lube Devices and the part number was N102-02, It turns out that Grainger carries them under their number 1U795, they go for $34.95. This little guy makes setting the heater so much easier. I recommend highly.

   

There is should be a 4 inch pipe from the top center of the tank to about 8 inches from your burner. The flue should be off to the side. Air will be pulled on top of the flame causing it to flower and heat the sides of the tank.

Your unit looks great. From last year to now my Roger Sanders unit still works great. I started her up again a couple of weeks ago.