The Shop > Our Shop
Working on a new tiny shop
vtsteam:
Guys, thanks! :beer:
I do know about sodium silicate, and in fact ironman's furnace uses it as an adhesive for the blankets to the case, so I was planning to buy that, too, but I wanted his design's extremely rapid propane fueled iron melting capability if I was going to spend big money on a very small furnace. I totally trust his experience, and don't want to make changes.
Giving up on iron, I didn't see any reason to use expensive blanket refractories. Aluminum melts in anything.
vtsteam:
The sand is very nice today after a couple hours of the heating cable -- the top is cool but the lower level is actually slightly warm. I suppose I could loosly fit a piece of 1" insulation foam to lay on top of the sand to warm it all the way through and reduce evaporation at the same time.
vtsteam:
I'm jonesing to start another engine project (actually several I have ideas for) but I'm in the typical Madmodder muddle:
My lathe is now apart and I'm building a furnace to cast some pulleys to accept a poly-vee belt and re-bore the headstock to accept bearings to change a spindle size to be able to accept collets and stiffn the 3 jaw and pass through-stock.
But I'm not building an engine. :doh:
vtsteam:
I located and brought into the shop most of my old aluminum casting gear. Though it's making things kind of cramped right now, it's getting me excited about casting again. I bought two bags of charcoal today -- hard to find here in winter, and a couple people made comments while I was carrying the bags out of the store. We might get record cold tonight, according to the weather service, and I suppose it does look nuts. :loco:
The other problem I have casting is finding a place to do it now. Everything outdoors is covered in feet of snow and ice. So today I started shoveling and chipping away in front of the shop to get down to dirt. I used a 5 foot chisel ended bar. The dirt when I reaached it was frozen, too. I'll get some sand to make a bed to cover it tomorrow. Then a tarp to keep any future snows off of it.
RobWilson:
Looks like you have a bad case of :proj: Steve :lol:
Rob :D
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