The Shop > Metal Stuff

Foundry Furnace for the Tiny Shop

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vtsteam:
Matthew, I'm hoping the sand will give it toughness.

If I got ITC100, I'd be thinking kaowool blanket/iron melting -- it may come to that if this doesn't work.

mattinker:
It's only as tough as the binder. ITC gives a surface protection and reflects heat. It's uses are not limited to Ceramic fibres.

Regards, Matthew

vtsteam:
I don't agree about the toughness of a binder, Matt, but let's see what actually happens first before pre-judging the results of an experiment just starting out.

And Matt, I know what the ITC product is used for and what it is. My point is, if I'm going to spend more than five times what the plaster costs on a coating to protect it, that's kind of silly!

As I said if I wanted to plunk down serious money for a coating, I might as well go whole hog with a fiber blanket refractory under it -- a refractory itself which costs only about half of the price of that expensive coating. And hopefully gain the capability to melt iron.

And actually, if I were going to spend $100+ a pint for a coating specifically to melt iron, I'd prefer to use a zircon based coating, that ironman uses.

Which brings us back to the very reason for starting this thread....I can't source that zircon coating for the present here in the US. So I'm giving up on iron, and high tech solutions in this furnace and focusing on melting lower temp metals using low tech refractory. And plaster of Paris is what I 've wanted to try for a long time.

Now, preliminary impressions -- the sand and plaster are much tougher than plaster alone. It was obvious even molding it and cleaning off drips.

Current status of the furnace -- I shut it down after 9 hours of baking the lining, and put it away for the night. We'll do a post mortem in the morning.

Manxmodder:
Steve,very interesting thread I'll be following this experimental build closely as I have an old scrap propane cylinder that I took the top off a couple of months ago(pillar valve removed and filled with water and surgery performed with small angle grinder, just as you did :thumbup:)

I agree with you on the water vs inert gas option as a more certain safety measure when cutting the top off though I have seen a couple of other guys cut them open after filling with dry sand,which does the job of reducing the free internal volume.

Watching with interest,I hope this works out well.....OZ.

SwarfnStuff:
Thanks for posting Steve.
   For what it's worth, if you need to extend the set time of plaster of Paris a trick I have used often when patching up the dings on the plaster walls is to add a little repeat little, milk, you know, the white stuff from cows?
   Don't know the chemistry but it does work. Too much milk and you will wait hours. I got this tip from a plasterer friend many years back.
  Now I will watch along with the others to see how you furnace performs.
John B

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