Thread: Show us your.... Arken Flarken.

Originally Posted by Homestar

Sort of defeats the purpose of building something cheap from scraps though, but would look brilliant and last forever...

Exactly mate, love the look of something built from scraps, on the cheap, rustic.

I fired up the brake drum aarken faarken yesterday out of curiosity. Burnt a few slips of the yellow pages (what else is it good for?!) and some small <1" dia branches and bark from the gum tree out back.
Total burn time approx 15min.
Extinguished fire risk with the hose, drums were evaporating water on contact... ie quite hot as you'd expect. A great candidate for a heat applied oil coating.

I think I'll go the used engine oil treatment. I've really got nothing to lose- keeping in the spirit of a cheap build.
I just want to get some protective film on it, and IMO the more carbon content the coating has, the better it'll fill the metal pores with a protective carbon layer.
Going back to my chemistry days, IIRC carbon chains around 20 atoms long tend to form solids in normal temperatures, whereas the shorter chains (ie octane, C₈) is volatile - a prominent component of petrol. Engine oil would be somewhere between this molecule length, and these molecules would be well and truly smaller than the metal pores in the casting. Old oil is also used for blade quenching by backyard bladesmiths, with some indication of metal blackening on the finished product, so I'm happy to employ it on this occasion.

BRB. Servicing the missus' diesel i30 Hyundai (which I call the dirty 30). Gotta get me some oil.

Originally Posted by Homestar

Or whatever you call your portable camp fire. Finally got around to making one up after seeing a couple in action at Glenreagh last year. It is an old 9Kg gas bottle with the top lopped off and a few holes drilled in it. The top is then used as a base.

I've already thought of a few mods and accessories that would improve it - like a grill plate and a handle for moving it when hot.

So, what have you made and what have you done to it to make it better?

Splendid. All is good in the world again.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

I fired up the brake drum aarken faarken yesterday out of curiosity. Burnt a few slips of the yellow pages (what else is it good for?!) and some small <1" dia branches and bark from the gum tree out back.
Total burn time approx 15min.
Extinguished fire risk with the hose, drums were evaporating water on contact... ie quite hot as you'd expect. A great candidate for a heat applied oil coating.

I think I'll go the used engine oil treatment. I've really got nothing to lose- keeping in the spirit of a cheap build.
I just want to get some protective film on it, and IMO the more carbon content the coating has, the better it'll fill the metal pores with a protective carbon layer.
Going back to my chemistry days, IIRC carbon chains around 20 atoms long tend to form solids in normal temperatures, whereas the shorter chains (ie octane, C₈) is volatile - a prominent component of petrol. Engine oil would be somewhere between this molecule length, and these molecules would be well and truly smaller than the metal pores in the casting. Old oil is also used for blade quenching by backyard bladesmiths, with some indication of metal blackening on the finished product, so I'm happy to employ it on this occasion.

BRB. Servicing the missus' diesel i30 Hyundai (which I call the dirty 30). Gotta get me some oil.

Wouldn't old engine oil contain chemicals which could be released when burnt?
What about something like canola oil?

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Wouldn't old engine oil contain chemicals which could be released when burnt?
What about something like canola oil?

Canola oil won't have any carbon in it which is the aim of the exersize. Carbon ends up in the pores of the cast iron to assist in rust resistance and the rest would burn off pretty quickly. Chemicals released would be small, he'll only be using a small amount. Nothing in the grand scheme of owning an old Land Rover or older diesel. 😉

Speaking of which - have you had time to do this yet Mitch?

Darn tootin' I have Gav!

Spent the morning swinging off the grinder. Started with the 5" and a wire cup brush, and whizzed it up real good.
Did a good job on the rusty bits, I didn't spend enough time on the painted portions.
Even copped a few wire bits in the leg- gotta love the wire cup brushes!



I think the red paint adds to the feng shui / ambience of the whole thing. It's almost a bit rat-rod ish. I like it.

Also spent some time cutting another 3-legged drum base- the 5" wheels were only just big enough to get the penetration needed on the 25ish mm of steel depth. I think I used about 8 wheels to make the required cuts. Plasma or gas axe are the way to go... or use your 9". I've got enough parts for another aarken.



Once the parts were prepped, I had to coat it with oil.
So I did a quick oil change on the missus' i30 diesel hyundai (I call it the dirty 30). Got about 5L of oily goodness. For those playing along at home, you can just snitch some waste oil from a supercheap auto waste oil collection point, if you don't tend to hang onto your old waste oils.

Just with a small amount on a rag, I lightly coated the surface of the drums, inside and out, as best I could. Gave it a nice sheen.


Fire was lit within, and drums heated to absorb as much of the oil as possible.


When lit, there was the obligatory white/blue oil smoke for a short time, which soon subsided.

I let the fire die down, then hosed off the grass and ashes (fire risk!), then gave it another light coat.

Came out nice.


I think you can even see the oil smoke in this pic...

That worked....looks great!

It's still a bit 'wet' but will soak in as the metal casting cools.
The metal was still hot 45 minutes after the small fire I had in it was extinguished. Great thermal mass that you won't find in an old gas cylinder or the like.

The idea is tio give it a quick wipe over before and after firing it up. That way it will burn off any nasties, and be able to soak into the metal pores when hot and opened up.