Supporting > Casting
A melting pot
mzt:
During the past w.e. I had a bit of fun into melting some alu.
Here?s the crucible:
It had a factory made hole right in the middle of the bottom, I filled it using an handful of garden soil (many thanks to the mole
that did the digging works for me). I was pretty sure the seal would have leaked.
It didn?t.
I must state I definitely had NO PLANS AT ALL about lifting that ?crucible? from the furnace to pour the molten metal anywhere.
Not even a place to pour it into.
I left the pot into the furnace till it solidified, then grabbed an hammer. So much for the pot.
Got curious about machining that stuff. It barely goes into the lathe chuck (gotta borrow some smaller flowerpot if I?m gonna do that again).
It?s nowhere close to a nicely machinable metal: gummy, gives short chips, dust, and builds up on tools edges.
And there were a few hardened steel pins (I had not removed from the HDD frames before melting them) embedded into the smaller end.
Ended with hacksawing a slice about 15mm thick from the top.
It takes much less floor space than the ~200 soft drinks cans (+ a couple of HDD frames) it was a few hours before.
Made a second, parallel (side by side in the same furnace) attempt using a tin can crucible: I was pretty sure the tin can
would have worked better than the pot.
It didn?t.
I will wash them clean of the visible soil inclusions, let them dry and re-use the lot on another melt, someday.
Marcello
Arbalest:
Looks like you may need this:
http://www.budgetcastingsupply.com/Aluminum_Degas_Tablets-601.php
Groomengineering:
Hey Marcello, looks you did have some fun! :cartwheel: If you're going to use pop cans you may want to throw a few small pieces of copper pipe into the melt, 5-8% by weight if you want to bother weighing everything. Pure Alu (cans, extrusions, lawn chairs, etc) is very gummy, the alloyed copper makes it much easier to work with. Or use previously cast scrap (pistons, water pumps, etc) that are already alloys.
Be careful with this casting thing, it's very very addicting! :LittleDevil:
Cheers
Jeff
mzt:
Arbalest,
that BCS site has LOTS of items I would need before I would feel in need of degassing my melts. Thank You for ponting me there.
(Pity the shipping & customs costs from the States would kill).
Jeff,
sure I'm having fun!
I've finally given a start to yet another addiction after years of books reading about the subject: that's scary stuff when read on printed paper, It took a while for me to get around to it.
And, I do not have yet the right equipment I should use (and wear) to play safely with molten metals.
I'm getting to it in very small steps: by now I've fully melted some alu & successfully handled my first (and second) crucible failure.
Next step will probably ask for a more robust crucible, maybe an ingot mold. The furnace itself could do with some improvements, some type of forced ventilation to say one.
As for improving the pop alloy... ..I've filed the advice, but will save the few copper scraps I have for the day I will have a pattern set into a flask.
At the moment I'm happy with reducing the size of my crushed cans pile to limits I can handle: that poor material I get will be eventually re-melted, alloyed, de-gassed...
..or just used as is to make one off fixtures when machining something else or
Well, I can do with a few alu paperweights. ;D
Marcello
mzt:
1st pour!
yesterday morning the shop was cold. While waiting for the stove to bring the room temperature above the freezing point,
I had the idea of putting a beans can stuffed with alu swarfs into the fire. Some time later the can was red hot and the
swarfs had compacted into pure dross. I don?t think I will bother with saving alu. swarfs anymore.
I had a few alu. clips taken from soft drinks: when they melted I poured them into a cut off beans can to make an ingot.
Then, I realized I had some use for that ingot, if it were not the only one I had.
Hence the second beans can already set into the sand.
While waiting for the second ingot to cool down, I came across a few scraps worth being set into the fire.
Bean cans molds are single use: You?ve to rip them to get the ingot, and I had no more at hand.
I put a layer of (very dry) sand on the already solidified ingot, flattened the cover, placed it over the sand and poured again
Here?s the two ingots.
Aint much fond of canned foods :disappointed:, still, if I could spot something coming into a square metal box at the supermarket,
You bet that would do for my lunch! ;D ;D
Marcello
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