Author Topic: A melting pot  (Read 10786 times)

Offline Groomengineering

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 33
  • Kansas US
Re: A melting pot
« Reply #15 on: December 17, 2012, 04:52:37 PM »
Jeff,

I will get around making a few someday. Do they work for brass/bronze too?
Marcello

Hmmm, never tried but I don't see why they wouldn't.

Cheers

Jeff
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Offline mzt

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 226
Re: A melting pot
« Reply #16 on: December 24, 2012, 09:47:50 AM »
Some cored ingots

Coke cans, here, come into two different flavors: either alu. canned, and I had already found a use for them, or steel, which I used to
send for recycling. I?m still sending them to the recycle, but not before having given them a fair amount of heat: they?re not bad at
all to make ingots.

After making some, I decided I could do with some hollow ingots: as simple as punching  a hole into the base of a coke can, another hole
into the base of a petroil can, a screw & nut to keep them in place and pouring between the two of them.
Being the cheapskate I am, I poured a second ingot into the coke can itself, too.  Why waste the inside of that can?



 

There are reasons, that was not a good idea.
250bar under the press were not enough to separate them. They?re not perfect cylinders, obviously.
 
I had to give the thinghy a few  turns in the lathe to bring the ?core ingot? to reason. Some oil helped, too.
Here they are, before tearing apart the coke can from the tubing.



 

Now, I have some material I can use to make flywheel rims, but that?s nowhere close to perfection: there are obvious voids in it, due
to the portion stuck in the sand cooling last. The exact contrary of what I should aim for.

Another, much shorter, cored ingot.



 
This one came out without too many protests, the needle never reached the 150bar figure on the dial.



 

I had poured definitely cold, on this occasion.




Marcello


This is a fitting job,
not a production job that can be measured in.

Offline mzt

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 226
Re: A melting pot
« Reply #17 on: January 07, 2013, 02:14:51 PM »
More ingots

There?s still plenty of alu. scraps to recycle under the shop stairs, but I had to quit at this point due to the lack of crucibles.
Gotta put myself on a canned beans diet if I want to get to the end of it.



 
 
Molding bench

I decided I needed a place to store my greensand, before starting the hunt for clay.
Here the result of a couple of hours work in a woodworking friend?s shop, including the already cut material to make a
couple of flasks into 8?x8? and 10?x12? sizes (I had planned for 12x12, but failed into bringing enough material to make
them, just a matter of a few inches).

In hindsight, I should have jointed the bottom to the sides instead of fastening it in place from below.
I will eventually add a strip of wood to each side, with screws going both in the sides and in the bottom planks,
or some angle metal, for better support.



Marcello

This is a fitting job,
not a production job that can be measured in.

Offline dsquire

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 277
  • Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Re: A melting pot
« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2013, 05:14:04 PM »
Marcello

I just found this thread today and can see that you are having fun. Several years ago I had a wood stove in our work shop. I also had about a 100 pounds of lead wheel weights (used for balancing wheels). I used tin bean cans to melt the lead in. I then poured it into salmon or tuna fish cans. I would only pour them 1/2 to 3/4 full.

These cans were tapered so when they cooled they could be turned upside down and the ingot would drop out without to much trouble.

These cans could be reused over and over again. This will save you from having to go on a strictly bean diet.  :lolb: :lolb:

Since lead can be harmful to your health I don't recommend you try this with lead but it should work just as well with aluminum.

Have fun and be safe.

Cheers  :cheers:

Don
Good, better, best.
Never let it rest,
'til your good is better,
and your better best

 

SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal