I pushed on with the furnace project this morning with the aim of designing and producing the method of securing the burner to the furnace body.  I decided to make a clamp out of aluminium and bolt this to two pieces of steel angle iron which in turn would be welded to the furnace frame.

After measuring up I marked out the piece of aluminium and went over to the milling machine.  The first task was to mill out the gap required to let the burners delivery tube. Then the main diameter hole was finished to size by using a milling cutter (after removing as much material as possible using the slot drill). After those two tasks were completed the overall size of the bracket was brought to finished size by milling.

There were 6 holes to drill, 4 for mounting the clamp to the angle iron and 2 tapped 6mm for grub screws which holds the burner head in position (please see photo's) before going to the scrap box to find some angle iron to which the clamp is bolted.

One adjustment had to be made however to get the burner in the right place by means of milling a step on the furnace face side of the clamp. After that its was a quick clean up before starting on the two angle iron brackets. These were brought to shape by measuring against the now nearly finished aluminium bracket. Once they were finished the holes were transferred from the aluminium to the angle iron by steel punches, the first time I used them and was impressed with the results. The set of punches were bought cheaply on eBay and I must say they really made easy work of marking the holes in the correct places.

Once the mounting holes were drilled and tapped into the angle iron the clamp was bolted to them and the bolts trimmed to length by means of the Proxxon and the Dremel cut off discs which performed well. Running out of puff I decided to position the assembly in place and when it all seemed secure thought "why not!" and decided to fire up the burner albeit briefly (I want to bring the temperature up in the furnace gently and for a prolonged period when the lid has cured a little) to see if the burner I am using would work.

After trying to get an old set of matches to work the burner lit and I am confident it will deliver the goods. This may be wishful thinking when its running for a long time but I am still hopeful.

All that remains now is to trim the grub screws that hold the head in place and get the welder out to weld the angle iron brackets in their final resting place and weld the lid hinge in place before making a steel stand to sit the crucible on but it has had a flame in it! Can't wait for the first melt!

Follow its progress on my main website and here are a few explanation photo's......

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