Melting cast iron for the first time.

[airmodel]

This a video of someone melting cast iron for the first time. Mistakes were made but the important thing is he had a go at it and will improve each time he melts cast iron.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB2yN-h-1gM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB2yN-h-1gM</a>

[Casting Iron]

I am impressed with his attempt.
Getting in there and doing it is really the only way to learn it.

I would not recommend operating a furnace inside a shed though; one guy on a casting forum got carbon monoxide poisoning and almost died doing that, even with the shed door open, and good ventilation.  You can create a low oxygen situation too.

The IR tends to melt anything plastic in the vicinity, especially with the furnace lid open.

He will get things worked out; he has been casting other metals a long time.
Melting gray iron has a few oddities to it, but most folks can get it figured out after a few attempts.

Burner tuning it critical if you want the iron to reach a usable pour temperature.
And you need a reducing flame to avoid producing excessive slag.

His crucible prutrudes up a bit above the top of the open furnace, and so that will cause it to cool down quickly.

You only have perhaps 60 seconds to pour after you reach pour temperature, if you want very fluid and hot iron.
I do the final skim and add the ferrosilicon with the crucible in the furnace, and with the burner running.
Rather hot way to do it, but it works and produced a hot iron melt.

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[Casting Iron]

I would say he has picked it up how to melt and pour iron pretty much overnight.
One recent melt with seven back-to-back pours in one day, and four more back-to-back iron pours today totaling 72 lbs.

Hopefully he will post more videos.
Iron is not that difficult once you get the hang of it, and use appropriate heat shields in strategic places.

Edit:
When doing multiple pours, one has to decide on how large a crucible to use.
He is using a #12, which is good for about 30 (+ -) lbs of iron usable, not brim-full.

A larger crucible will hold more iron, but is more difficult to lift out and pour.
A full #20 is a very heavy pour, and not only do you have to lift 50 lbs or so of iron, but the crucible has significant weight, perhaps 12 lbs, and then the weight of the pouring shank.

A full #20 is about the most I would try to hand-lift and pour.
Using a #30 at its capacity pretty much requires a crane and pouring cart, unless you are a very hefty person.
Technically speaking though, he could have poured the entire 72 lbs in a single melt if he used a #30 crucible.

Also, something to consider, if you spill a #12, that is not that big of a deal.
If you spill a #30, that can be a pretty big deal, depending on which way it splashes.

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[Casting Iron]

Here is "Tobho Mott" back for another art-iron casting session.
This time he has gotten serious and brought out the large furnace and associated drip-style oil burner.

The beauty of a siphon nozzle burner is it is full-power from the start (if you want full power, which is what I do), and no adjustments are required at start or during the melt.
The drip-style oil burner is very waste oil tolerant, and does not clog easily.
Siphon nozzle burners require clean filtered oil (I use diesel) with no junk in it.

For a beginner at iron melting, he has mastered it very quickly.
He has been doing foundry work for a long time.

That sheet metal guard on the pouring shank is very necessary when pouring iron, due to the radiant heat.
He could actually move the heat shield much closer to the crucible, and it would still work fine.
If you can get your hand pretty close to the crucible, it removes the large moment that is otherwise on your hand, if you hand is away from the crucible, ie: with the hand close to the crucible, the hand mostly has a vertical force on it, but as you move your hand away from the crucible, you also develop a very large twisting (torque) force that is very uncomfortable when lifting the larger crucible sizes.

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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDZb12XYEq8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDZb12XYEq8</a>