| The Shop > Metal Stuff |
| finally going to build my furnace |
| (1/2) > >> |
| texta:
made a start on it 12 months ago . i did put some pics up but it may of been in another forum can't remember ( i seem to forget things lately , to many birthdays maybe ) anyway i have all the outside metal work part of the furnace built ,and made a lp gas burner and last year i bought a box of superwool blanket 1 inch thick stuff and thats as far as i got until now . last week i got 4 bags of play sand and some bentonite to make the green sand with and today my son delivered for me ( i ordered this stuff from up the coast near where he lives so he picked it up for me ) 2 bags of pyrocrete 145 and 5 kg of sodium silicate . only thing i have not been able to get yet is some zircon paint , i can only find it in 25kg buckets and it will be plus a fair bit of courier charges . but i think i could skip the zircon paint and make a hot face over the blanket with the pyrocrete maybe not as good but it would work , would'nt it ???? . need to build a muller too . johno |
| tom osselton:
You could try a ceramic shop for the zircon. |
| vtsteam:
Always exciting to build a furnace and begin casting! :thumbup: What will you be melting? |
| texta:
only be doing aluminium to start with then i may progress up to the hotter stuff . i do have a bit of a collection of old brass taps and a few other bits of brass that i could have a try with too .i also have a heap of old cast iron like a few tractors worth and a few old implements but i dont know enough about iron yet to even think about melting that lot . johno |
| vtsteam:
johno, for aluminum practically anything can serve as a furnace for melting. I've cast Tesla turbine parts using an open fire of fallen pine boughs from spring cleanup! Cast iron is quite a bit more demanding, and it took me nearly a full summer to learn enough to turn out a couple of unflawed castings. But the process is absolutely absorbing. Interestingly, I've never used propane for melting either -- though there are plenty of designs out there for it. For aluminum it was always charcoal or wood, and for iron, used motor oil and diesel fuel. And my furnaces, both kinds, were built from fire clay and sand, and for iron, used hard fire brick. Cost has always been a consideration, but never an inhibition. |
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