Some readers opine that I should paint my workshop wood heater.
Well, I will probably not do that. Reasons~
1. I quite like that rusty brown look
2. I have a lazy streak
3. I dont have the stove paint, although a friend has offered some free.
4. With use it is changing colour to a darker brown. Interesting. Is it a chemical reaction of the rust to heat?
5. Would paint stand up to these temperatures?
Today I fired up the pipe heater which I have welded up over the past few days.
Fantastic!!
I was so keen to get warm on this 10 degree celcius day, that I deferred water proofing the flue.
And of course it rained!
I forgot to bring some newspaper or kindling, so I used a propane torch to get the wood burning.
Within 5 minutes the temperature of the burner was over 200c, and in an hour it was 350 degrees celcius/ 660 fahrenheit. Heaven.
The shape of the furnace accepts wood up to 1400mm long. The handle at the bottom is the ash tray. The hefty looking handle above is for the furnace door. The bit of RHS on the floor is so I can open the door when it is hot.
This is the external sheath of the flue. The strip of corrugated iron is to separate the hot internal flue from the cooler external layer.
And then it rained! And I had not installed the waterproofing fitting to the roof. So water poured down onto the heater, and filled my workshop with steam.!!
Despite today being only 10 deg celcius, I happily machined away until 6pm. 2 hours later than I usually stop due to the cold.
Then I had to go home to cook dinner. SWMBO was getting hungry.
It is the depths of winter here in southern Oz. I know that is difficult for you northern hemisphere types to realise, but here at present we have frosts when we get up, and the workshop is just too cold to do anything productive after about 4pm.
And the tooling surfaces rust up in front of my eyes.
So I decided to make a wood burning heater for my workshop.
The workshop is 7m x 13m. Not lined or insulated. Just a tin shed.
Electricity supply is dodgy and expensive. And I dont want to suck power away from my CNC machines. Bottled gas is very expensive… about $AUD20-25 per day.
But I have plenty of trees dropping dead branches.
So I decided to make a wood burning heater.
Parameters…..
Not occupying much floor space. No wall space available.
Able to be removed in warm-hot months (it gets up to 110 fahrenheit / 45celcius in summer.
So this is what I have come up with. I had some 220mm dia pipes left over from a building job. That would be the body of the heater.
The footprint is 300x400mm. It is 1600mm high. There is an ash pan under the grate. The air intake (hidden) and flue are placed to encourage swirling in the pipe, and maximise heat transfer to the body of the heater. The top is closed with a heavy plate. I plan to add a proximity rail.
The heater is now finished, and I will do a test burn tomorrow. If it works as hoped, I will post a video.
And totally unexpectedly, I have bought a model traction engine. It feels a bit strange to buy rather than build, but here it is.
1500mm long. Deceased estate, never run on steam. Beautifully made. based on a steam engine which was used to power a sawmill. ? 3″ scale. Needs boiler re-certified.
I will make a ride on driver’s trailer, and a kids ride on trailer. I really have caught the steam disease.
johnsmachines 