Making lard liquid.

[mespilus]

I've copied Frotter's ideas before, and there's nothing to stop me doing so again!

A brisk fanning down of the forum legal team, Bill, Bankit, Fiddle and Run, was required at this point.

Imagine a matchbox stood on one of its smallest faces.
It then falls over onto one of its medium size faces.
Lower potential energy, but not minimum energy.
Then it falls onto one of its largest faces: minimum energy.

Used veg 'oil' can be imagined as a multi-sided 3-d shape
where the energy states are much closer together,
virtually a continuum.

There's an early candidate for metaphor of the year!  

.....   and I'll always treasure my fifth smite.

[Ivan]

My plan is to go electric to start with, and then convert to water later if it works. Electric is easier and quicker to get started. In fact, I have a 32litre plastic WVO fuel tank which I've started using - it has water connections on it, so I can use electric to get the stuff melted, and once the rayburn is up to temperature, I can use rayburn heat (probably a coil of copper pipe around the heatexchanger outlet, or perhaps the flue). One advantage of separating the wvo-heater water circuit from the household circuit, is that I only need to add antifreeze to a relatively small amount of water.

[Ivan]

Frotter,

I have one of those heaters already (attached to my Lister CS). Could you dangle them directly into the lard, or would the lard cause any kind of aging to the insulator?

I also have some u-shaped heaters from wind turbine controllers which might be quite good inside the tank (and can be operated at low voltage). But I still need to keep the pipes heated. What did you use on your fuel pipes (sorry, forgotten again). Can you use Trace heaters on small diameter pipe (I'm currently using 8mm for my fuel)?

[frotter]

I have tried the dangling in Lard scenario for you, many moons ago. I am able to report that corrosion destroys the element. Not straight away, but it will die. Also tried sitting one in the bottom of a copper tube heated lance affair. Lasted better, but any moisture/condensation runs down inside the tube and...... well - you know.

This stuff is good.

http://www.elementshop.co.uk/product.php?pid=458&cat=101&nm=

Cant remember now if its the exact one i used - there are loads of different spec ones....






Would probably be even better if i could be @rsed to lag it!