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| NormanV:
It is certainly worth bearing in mind the idea of casting it in two halves if I can't manage it in one piece. |
| NormanV:
I did my first firing yesterday using charcoal and was pleased to find that I had molten aluminium within 20 minutes and cast 2 ingots weighing a total of 1.75kg 30 minutes after lighting the fire. I did find that it was very smoky for the first few minutes, I need to hurry up with a propane burner. My next task it to cut up all my aluminium and cast ingots in order to produce some clean aluminium ready for casting parts for my milling machine. Norman |
| NormanV:
I did another firing today. I must get a propane burner made as soon as possible, when I switched on the air blast I had smoke pouring out of the furnace. God knows what they put on B & Q charcoal, it is supposed to make it easy to light! It's appalling! I lived in Kenya for 10 years and used charcoal a lot, the locally made stuff was easy enough to light and clean burning. In fact it was smoke free and the Masai people used it inside their houses (never mind the carbon monoxide). The smoke died down after about 10 minutes and then a huge flame burnt from the hole in the lid for another 10 minutes, after that it was fine, except that I had to recharge it twice and had to go through the whole business again. Anyway, I produced 2 large ingots that weigh a total of 7.5kg. Two loaf tins full, now I can't make any bread until I buy some new tins! Cutting up the big lumps of scrap is not too bad with an angle grinder, I read somewhere that I should use a stone cutting disc. I tried both stone and metal cutting, the metal cutting disc clogged immediately but the stone cutting disc worked well until it was worn down. Norman The smoke is leaking from under the lid as it is jammed up by aluminium in the crucible, it stopped once the aluminium melted a bit. |
| awemawson:
All very good :thumbup: But have you tried the beach sand yet! |
| NormanV:
Thanks Andrew, I haven't tried the sand yet. I can only do one thing at a time, money!!!! Norman |
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