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| Henning:
I feel a need to be able to cast aluminium all of the sudden... :proj: Thank you very much for sharing! :nrocks: |
| Rob.Wilson:
Inspirational post VTsteam :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: One of the best threads I have read in a wile ,TRUE home shop engineering from foundry to machine :med: very impressive . Rob |
| NormanV:
I've started to build a Gingery lathe on two occasions. First time, when I lived in Kenya, I had a local foundry and had all the castings made in iron and then machined at a Don Bosco training school. I left Kenya before it was complete and gave the lathe to the Don Bosco school. Second attempt was when I lived in the Falkland Islands, there I had to be totally self reliant. I got hooked on casting and made all sorts of stuff. I used peat as fuel for the foundry, there were unlimited supplies of the stuff, free, other than the effort of digging it. Now I am back in UK, I brought the incomplete lathe with me and reading this thread has made me want to get started on it again. I am a bit concerned about the cost of fuel as it will need to be bought this time round. Unfortunately mine is no where near as good as vtstream's. |
| vtsteam:
Thank you all very kindly. It is a privilege to be here, for me. Great doings all around! Norman, you can use wood to melt aluminum. Believe it or not I made a lot of the turbine castings from a clean up fire of fallen pine boughs. If you do this, use long tongs and do it when the fire has built up some good glowing embers. Put the crucible right in amongst the embers, and it will certainly melt. Don't worry if embers or wood bits drop in. They will actually absorb oxygen, and cover and protect the melt. Just skim before pouring, and you will see shiny metal underneath. Or even better, you can use charcoal from such a fire in a foundry furnace if you make one. In this case Just rake out the glowing embers with a leaf rake and put them out. They will be charcoal. It's not hard to build up enough for several melts this way. This charcoal is very hot burning compared to store-bought charcoal briquets. In fact out of curiosity, I once stuck a 2 foot length of 1/2" dia concrete reinforcing rod down into the aluminum melting furnace -- using homemade charcoal, just to see what would happen. Well what happened was that rod pretty quickly started to slip down into the furnace, so I pulled it out rather hastily. looked like a fireworks sparkler on the end. After the furnace cooled there was a small puddle of iron at the bottom. Another way to make charcoal would be to put cut up wood scraps into your furnace and once it is going well, cover it over and block the tuyere. The wood will convert inside the furnace. It will only yield about half a furnace full, but it will probably be sufficient of a melt, since some of the room in a furnace is normally taken up by the crucible. Don't let the cost of fuel stop you! |
| doubleboost:
I have just read this post You are putting many of us to shame Very well done A great post with good pictures Thanks John |
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