>Do you even melt, bro?I did my first casting today, I'm totally a foundryman now. My first two melts earlier in the week I made some ingots, just melting soda cans. >>2783890Yesterday I made my first flask from a spare fencepost, and some greensand from sifted playsand and a mix of sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite. Yard marking calcium carbonate as parting powder, worked great. Designed a little ashtray in Fusion360 and turned it into a pattern. I did a pretty bad job but I was impatient and really wanted everything ready to do this casting today. Rammed up fine, might've been a little dry, but just barely. Worked out okay though, very happy with the result after a brief cleanup.Do you scrap? Stack? Do you sell signs on Etsy? Do you sand cast? Investment casting? Do you like huffing zinc fumes and snorting silica powder? Show me your furnace, show me your castings.Sand and jpeg compression don't get along.
hat my foundry covered all winter with a mortar tub. had a look last week and fucking mice nested in the fiber blanket layer, tore it all out into the burn chamber.its unironically ogre and i didnt test my 40kw syphon nozzle once
I'm not one of the nuts who cares about pushing garbage off of page 10, but I am autistic enough to wonder why you didn't continue in the thread you were already blogging in.
>>2785927I considered it, then I drank a few beers and made an aluminum ashtray, so here we are.
>>2785931your gate design is trash by the wayyou have a step down from the gate to the part bottom which is not bueno, especially for aluminum.locate the gate deeper than the cavity so it has to completely fill up before it can even fill the mold cavity, that gets rid of a lot of velocity. professional foundrys even use ceramic filter between gate and cavity. easiet way to achive that is put both gate and part at the split line, and have the funnel and ashtray both in the cope, casting it upside down so to speak
>>2785935>and have the funnel and ashtray both in the copefucked that one up, the funnel is in the cope obviously but the gate in the drag
>>2785935>your gate design is trash by the way>I did a pretty bad jobYeah when I first put the pattern in the flask I realized how fucking stupid that was, but it made it easy to fit into this shallow flask. I just rammed another, gonna go fire it up and pour one.
Oh no, the sprue collapsed as I went to pour. So I just poured through the fat feeder in the middle. Got the job done, but noticeably worse than the first one, way more porosity on the surface and plenty of sand stuck here and there. So instead of the file and sanding sponge, I just hit it with the bench grinder, wasn't going to try polishing the turd.
Just how difficult would it be to make a silicone wafer using eBay parts and stuff from the hardware store?
>>2785999Easy as fuck. You can just squirt some silicone onto a flat surface and smooth it out, wait for it to set, there's your silicone wafer.
>>2785935I decided to see how "big" I could go despite my shallow flask, while still filling entirely from the bottom. Shitloads more that could be done of course, but this was a fun and simple attempt. It's on the printer now, I'll cast it tomorrow morning. I don't know why I'm still making ashtrays.
man just wants to castdoesn't care whatjust castcastCASTCASTCASTis it possible to do something like the nasa chainmail you can 3d print or is that too defined?i've always wanted to do shit like this (yeah no excuses)
>>2786020>is it possible to do something like the nasa chainmailAbsolutely, but challenging. A resin printer and investment casting, maybe vacuum casting. It'd be some work to sprue it well and have it work, but yeah I think that could be done.
>>2786007careful anon. small flask might work for low density shit like aluminium, but if you ever move on to heavier stuff then you need a heavy and weighted flask, otherwise the weight of the liquid metal will push the sand up. bottom feeding is definitely the way to go, just make sure you calculated the gate cross section to match the funnel and feeder
>>2786007I said fuck it and made it a double. Went pretty good. A little small, feels like a hotel ashtray. Time to build a bigger flask.
>>2785924You are the guy burning motor oil with a leaf blower right? I think your project is neat and part of me says that I should try it but another part of me says 3rd degree burns
>>2786342Do it. Leather gloves, leather boots, leather spats, leather apron, respirator. It's a riot, highly recommended.
>>2786347>Leather gloves, leather boots, leather spats, leather apron,You joined a fetish club...
>>2786399It's hot, sweaty, fumes and gases abound, you handle everything with special tools, you are guaranteed to get dirty, fuck-ups can cause collateral damage, and you deeply regret the mistake of touching something with an ungloved hand. I can see the similarities.
Figured I should do a sand rammer, that's what the internet people do. I've been using an ice-cream scoop, just felt natural. I've never felt more prepared to pound sand.
>>2786342Here you go buddy, I burned myself today. I brushed up against my iron stirring rod after using it to mix salt into the aluminum when everything was about 1300°-1350°F. It just brushed away a layer of skin, doesn't even feel like a burn. Hurts less than a bee sting. Pepsi for scale.
>>2786658>pink dildo
The weather was terrible yesterday, worse today, no casting with 20mph+ winds and 50mph gusts. Hopefully nice enough tomorrow to try new pattern, this one should be fun.
I love burning oil.
Made more flasks, almost. The new ones don't have guides/pins or anything. Tomorrow I'm going to cast some, obviously. Made a Canadian ashtray for some fag I know who fucking loves maples leaves, turned out kind of shit but it'll get the job done. The grips panels turned out excellent, including the little undercut on the left hand grip. Doing whole patterns as plates is just so fucking nice, so much more convenient than dealing with loose patterns. Insert pattern, pound the drag, pound the cope, done, love it. Tomorrow, one pattern to cast, then back to melting more cans. I've thousands to get through.
This fascinates me but I’m far too afraid of getting burned to do it myself. Thanks for sharing OP.
Aw shit, here we go again.
>>2788590One bucket down, one to go.
>>27885911 dozen wittle ingots, each around 180-220g.
>>2788596Pretty shit, but 100% usable. I like 'em.
>>2788598This makes me happy though. I still have a shit load of cans to get through, probably another 8 buckets worth. Will I get another 48 ingots? Guess we'll see~
>>2788601based ingot autist
>>2788601nice ingots
how many times can you smelt aluminum before it becomes shit?or does it just shrink in quantity each time?
>>2789001As long as it's not contaminated by some other metals it's easy to scrape off the dross.
>>2786399https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uOBveFKdGs
>>2789001You lose a little bit every time, some gets scraped out with other impurities, some is lost to oxidation, but there is no limit to how many times you can melt it. It doesn't denature or degrade.
Today, I made a little pot, around 12oz/350ml.
>>2789093It didn't go well. Tomorrow I'll smash it with a hammer and re-melt it.
>>2788601What can these be used for? Easier storage of materials for future projects or something else?
>>2789165Just that. Melting cans is inconvenient as fuck, it takes a lot of time and a lot of dross scooping. So I do a lot in a big batch and make ingots, then I can use those as material for other projects. Everything I've posted in this thread was cast from ingots which were made from melting cans. There are people who actually like melting scrap and whatnot just to make ingots and collect them, that alone is a their whole hobby. The ingots really have no other value, scrap metal recyclers don't like mystery bricks, it's aluminum so they're very lightweight, and being mixed alloy from cans they're quite soft and weak, you could stick one in a vise and and tear it in half with a hammer.
>>2789095did you forget to vent
>>2789165brain see ingot happy chemical
>>2789172Why don't you get better alloy like scrap car parts? Any auto salvage yard would sell broken parts they're scrapping anyway.
>>2789284I already have a pile of aluminum bits and bobs like intake manifolds and control arms. I've been doing this for less than two weeks, I wasn't going to start with the good stuff. The cans are free, my fuel is free, and I enjoy the process, so melting down shitloads of cans for little projects is fun. I'll save the better alloys for when I'm making shit that actually matters and actually has to be good, but this is perfect for making trinkets, gifts, and simple tools.
>>2789310>but this is perfect for making trinkets, gifts, and simple toolsthats where youre wrong, can alloy is made for cold forming and not casting.you are cucking yourself clinching to those and since a pour is a lot of prep work and success by far not guaranteed it is idiotic to refuse to use a proper casting alloy
>>2789316>thats where youre wrongYou're mistaken. I've already been happily and successfully using it for trinkets, gifts, and simple tools. Post your castings or enjoy your larp.
>>2789327now go fuck yourself>>2785925 but im done for now with the hobby>and successfully >>2789095 why you think that happend
>>2789333Wow, that looks almost as nice as some of my castings.
>>2789334those ridges are 0.1mm layer lines from the pattern
I love it when things fit perfectly the first time. These grips were done at a thicc 0.24mm so the layers are extremely obvious. Knocked it down with a file and 60 grit to give it a consistent and smooth texture, feels great in the hand.Jannies: It's obviously a plastic toy, not a gun, don't have an aneurysm.>>2789344Why is yours so porous? Is that a feature of the casting alloys you prefer? jk I'm just giving you shit nigga. Post more castings, that's what the thread is for and apparently you're the only other person on /diy/ who isn't afraid of "hot" things. (Apparently 1200F is hot to some people) I'd genuinely love to see more of what you've made.
>>2789345>Why is yours so porous?because the part is like 5 cm long? most of those pores are the diameter of a pin needlehere is me scavenging the material. the entire rim was turned into "ingots" (angle iron pour)hottest i ever went was 2200f because i wanted to make something certain, never was interested in aluminium, that was just the proof of concept so to say. Then mice ate my foundry over the winter. There are anons here with far more and greater achievements, i failed midway. will revisit once i have a new shop where i can make a permanent setup
>>2789359>because the part is like 5 cm long?Nigga I was just joking, I've got no criticism for the only other anon to share a casting.Aluminum is all I'm really interested in, but I have a few dozen pounds of junk brass, and even more of bronze, so eventually I'll bite the bullet. Probably just turn the brass into a handful of large drifts, I wouldn't mind a 3/4" - 2" set of foot long drifts. Don't hesitate to share when you get back to it, anon.
>>2789361right is what happens if you dont check tempsleft is what happens when you ram up your mold with a print and still warm sand...
>>2789367Oh damn, seeing the surface left from the overheated pattern is interesting. I've only ever seen it on actual prints before so seeing it reproduced in metal like that is a little surreal.
>>2789368also bent like a banana
>>2789172Interesting. Thanks anon.
>>2786667ah yes, I was unfamiliar with the typical size of a human arm so the pepsi can was very helpful
>>2789327I'm not >>2789316 but switching from wrought alloys to casting alloys will may a night and day difference. But I don't disagree with learning what you are doing with cheap scrap first. I pay about $3/lb for automotive scrap. In truth it's been quite a few months since I've cast anything though so some of the old /metallurgy/ lurkers will probably recognize the picture, been busy playing with the Bridgeport mostly lately.
>>2790220Here's a newer one I don't think I've posted before.
>>2790220I've enjoyed your posts before, I remember Basil's, but not the Madonna.
A couple ingots and couple sprues going in for the initial melt. This thing really gets hot in a hurry. Nice and sloppy, I never want to stop pouring.Here's a bonus, a little fire and noise going from fuel off and sputtering to full tilt and back down again. Turn up your speakers, hear the joy. >>>/wsg/5524187
>>2790942ingots ingots ingots ingots ingots
>>2790947As for the casting, I'll share when they've been cleaned up. Fun stuff.
Forgot the gore update. This would probably be healing faster if I hadn't used the wrong bandage and ripped off most of the scab, oops. Ingot for reference.
>>2790947>a fortune in graphite moldsyikes anon, the professional hillbillies use angle iron pansthe one i used wasn't even that fancy, just a piece with one side welded shut and placed at a slight angle. millscale and rust acts as anti stick
>>2791164>a fortune>$38yikes anon, I can't imagine being so poor
Hey anons, is there a good place to order tongs from? Everything I've seen is Chinesium. I'm looking specificially for tongs to safely lift a crucible and a pair with some sort of retainer for safer pouring.
>>2791654>Everything I've seen is Chinesium.That's why I made my own. They're shit, yet somehow still cheaper, more robust, and safer than the import crap.
>>2785972Are these air hockey paddles? I really don't know what I'm looking at.
>>2789996That's an arm?
>>2791795Ashtrays.>>2791796If you want it to be.
Fucking weather god dammit. I have 3 patterns ready and I want to melt. It's supposed to rain continuously today, and possibly more tomorrow. Guess I'll stay in and crush cans.
Nice day, shame I didn't have more time, only did one pour.
I really love this part, splitting the mold is very satisfying.Bonus Youtube ice block meme: >>>/wsg/5530216
Fresh cast compared to 2 minutes with a file and a sanding sponge.
I'm a pewtercel do I get to post hereHow do I get a smooth finish on casts in silicone?I know it's possible because some parts of my casts look pristine but other parts have a rough sandy finishis it a temperature thing?
>>2793087I've never cast pewter. Pictures, nigga, pictures.
Pick up a spin caster and cast like a real nigga
>>2793413?????
>>2791796it's his weenis
>>2785931why the fuck are you posting here. no one cares about your fucking blog posting boomer ass.
>>2793532>HE DOESN'T MELT
>>2793508https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-I0l5Rh0wg
I like these a lot, I'm very happy with them and will be making many more. Chinese Airshit gun for /diy/
Oh boy is it time to melt? Fuck no, it's been raining for a week, but I'm going to do it anyway like a retard.Mulling sand is fucking exhausting. I wish these cunts on Craigslist would stop asking full price for Harbor Freight cement mixers. "It takes 5 hours to assemble one of these so I'm saving you a lot of time!" Soon though. For now, I do it entirely by hand in a couple of buckets with a mesh strainer and a spray bottle. It's only ~50lbs saturated, it's not a lot, yet.
>>2789361The split-head style mallet which takes pucks (whatever material you like, mine are UHMW, copper, rawhide, and lead) is so useful I have several. https://www.thorhammer.com/product-category/hammers/split-head-hammers/You could cast the clamp halves from brass and some inserts for a very nice non-marring custom hammer (if you miss a strike the clamp portion won't do more damage than your insert).
That was a close one, emptied the whole crucible.
Be glad you can't smell this, I absolutely hate the smell when removing a casting from the sand. I think it's the wood getting steamed, not sure. This casting turned out great, dirty but aside from that I'm totally happy with it. Gotta clean it up and decide if I want to make any changes before I cast another one. It'll be a nice little aluminum flask for casting small junk.As an aside, I finally took some measurements and did some math. The Amazon peristaltic pump tops out at 385oz or ~3.01 gallons per hour, putting peak output in the neighborhood of 345,000-385,000 BTU/hr. At the setting I've been using to melt Aluminum, it's pushing 172oz (~1.34gallons) per hour, so around 154,000-170,000 BTU/hr. I was worried about getting enough heat out of this thing originally, but it looks like it could handle a furnace with almost twice the volume, or heating a 9001 square foot warehouse.
>>2795534This is a very fun idea and it's definitely going on the list.
Love what you do! I always been interested into melting silver coin and sell the ingots. I can get 1$ silver coin for around 5$ containing 90% silver and weight at 26grm, so potentially around 24gr of silver into each of them(i let you check the price of 1gr of silver), should i quit my current job and start melting silver coins instead? If yes where do i start in my new journey?
>>2795730Jokes aside, fuck no. Bring down a silver ingot you've made yourself and see how much the silver and gold recyclers will give you. I'll save you the trouble: it'll be around $5 if they're willing to take it at all.
Anybody ever cast titanium with success? I have just dabbled with Bronze a couple of times.Titanium seems to be bretty complicated.It is just that I can get titanium medical implants that are otherwise thrown away and it just seems like a big waste.
>>2797006As I understand it, casting Titanium is a lot like casting Stainless, it's really not worth pursuing at a DIY level. The temperatures involved are extreme, and the material itself is unstable and highly reactive at those temperatures. The difference between a 2200F furnace and a 3200F furnace is massive. Commercially, it's melted in an arc-furnace under full vacuum when it's cast. At home, I think the most you could hope for is melting a teeny crucible under full argon shielding with MAPP gas, and even then I'd be fairly nervous to do so, it'd be very easy for it to turn into a smoke show.
Good day, but very long, and still not enough sunlight to do everything I wanted. Finally got my hands on a cement mixer, big fat 3-and-a-half cubic foot Harbor Freight import piece of shit. Good god it is loud and obnoxious, the neighbors are going to fucking hate this thing. It has no problem tossing around 100lbs+, the size is great, it's easy to move, I'm happy with it. So to get started I'm making better greensand, I'm graduating from the shitty 20 mesh (840 micron) kitchen sieve to an 80 mesh (177 micron) sifter, and no surprise it's a hell of a difference. I'm glad I get my sand for free because the yield through this finer screen is piss-poor. For comparison, commercial greensand is typically 240-120 mesh (60-125 microns). I'm starting with 20lbs, and a pound each of sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite. I need some heavy balls to toss in the cement mixer, I'm looking for some cheap used shotput and/or bowling balls. Maybe I'll try casting some solid 5lb aluminum balls? For now I'll just toss a box of ingots in there, that'll be good enough for the time being. Tomorrow should be fun!
New day, new furnace lid, new sand, new levels of disrespect for molten metal.
Damn this new sand really made a difference. I need to fuck with it a little more, I think it needs more sodium bentonite but we'll see after a few more rounds of mulling. Mostly I just need more, it's going to be fun digging up and sifting half a ton worth of sand just to sift out another ~100lbs of good fine stuff. Maybe I'll just buy some, but I can only purchase as fine as 90 mesh locally and for an unattractive price at that, not very appealing.
New sand on the left, old sand on the right.
>>2797673Quite the difference. Thanks for sharing anon.
>>2797299>I need some heavy ballsWell shit, I lucked out, a friend sourced me some actual iron balls from an antique ball mill, 140+ years old. We're figuring out delivery now, but I'm probably looking at 50-100lbs worth of iron at a steal of a price, I'm very excited. >>2798010More to come when the weather clears!
>>2797299Try molasses sand: https://simplifier.neocities.org/casting
>>2798954I've seen a bit about molasses sand, looks like an interesting and accessible option. There was an old paisan on Youtube who messed around with it some, and recently talked about his molasses sand mix which included calcium bentonite to improve the hot strength. Excluding the sodium bentonite of greensand prevents the balling/clumping, so supposedly this molasses and calcium bentonite sand mixes readily without mulling. I may try some at some point, could be fun.
i enjoyed reading your blog.
It's been raining for almost 24 hours and is supposed to continue for almost another 24 hours. Fuck you nature, I want to melt metal. I'm building up a pile of patterns just waiting on the rain. If I'm lucky I can squeeze in a melt later during the afternoon lull if it manages to clear up enough. Got a new resin printer, it's been years since the last one died. Resin printers are cool but I don't really enjoy the process. Doing this though I've no excuse, so I picked up a Saturn 3. Seems like all that's changed since I was using a resin printer in the past is that the software is even more cucked than before. Resin slicers leave a lot to be desired and all want to charge you for normal features, it's pretty fucking gay, especially the locking out and diminishing of features that existed previously. I wish PrusaSlicer's resin printing support wasn't such trash, it'd be nice to have a free and opensource option that isn't filled with buttons and features that take you to a pricing page. Between PrusaSlicer and UVTools it really seems like all the pieces are there to build a not-shit resin slicer.The iron mill balls are a game changer for the cement mixer, I can mull huge amounts of sand very quickly and easily, works a treat. Next I need to make a screen attachment for the face of the mixer so I can use it to help me sift fine sand. I'd like another ~150-200lbs, but that'll take far too long just sifting it by hand. >>2799091Glad to hear it, thanks anon.
Barely had enough time to rock out the one before the rain started back up and I had to scramble to put things away. This is the first with a pattern off the new resin printer, and it turned out just fabulous. New drilling rig worked great for the front face, but I fucked up and all the rear holes are off by a millimeter, oops. Weirdly, this is the first set of grips I've cast that distinctly warped due to shrinkage. Very slightly twisted, so slight I just corrected it with my bare hands, tiny adjustment. Next I'm going to grab a benchtop belt sander to make for easier cleanup, I really dislike using my grinder on this soft and gummy aluminum. Maybe I'll use it as an excuse to grab a buffer at the same time, not sure. I'd prefer it to polishing with a rotary tool, but I've not experience with a benchtop buffer, I don't know that it's really the tool for the job? So much more shit to cast. Hopefully it's not too wet of a summer.
>>2800546Wire wheels or even just a steel brush are good for shining up aluminum castings.If you use a bench grinder for aluminum, just be sure to dress your wheel often. There's a low but non-zero chance if you build up a bunch of aluminum in your wheel and the wheel will explode on you. And more importantly it will take longer to grind.
>>2795580This is good stuff anon. What pump do you use? And how do you get the furnace hot enough to burn the oil?
>>2800755I get it going with a little handful of charcoal. I use a propane torch in front of the blower outlet and the charcoal gets fully lit in only a few seconds. When I've got some good hot coals, I slowly start ramping in the fuel and stirring the coals a bit. Takes a couple minutes to get hot enough to turn the fuel up the rest of the way. Quick process, about 5 total minutes to get it going, about 15 minutes total to melt a significant load.The listing for the pump I bought is long dead, but it's just the generic 12v "100ml/min" peristaltic you can find all over Amazon/eBay/Ali in a variety of colors. They're impressive, these cheap little shits can produce over 20PSI, but their flow ratings are fucking nonsense. The pair I bought will happily push ~200ml/min of waste oil, close to 300 with water. Here are some examples of the ones I use:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BB7JXQSRhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/256373671485https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806278620257.htmlIf you want to try it yourself, I say either buy the cheapest one you can, or buy one that's actually rated to flow over 200ml/min. As I understand it I'm a little lucky with the ones I got, these little pumps are apparently not very consistent.
Ah shit, here we go again.
Camera overheated before the furnace started to really warm up, but this at least shows going from cold to burning oil.
I've wondered if I'm keeping my sand too wet, so I left it a little more dry for this mold, regrettably. It broke out pretty badly, and nearly just fell out of the flask when I went to demold the parts later, definitely a little too dry.
Just beginning to warm up a bit, ~25% throttle.
Mmmm that's nice.
That's some nastiness, but nothing a file won't solve in short order. Once the sides are smoothed out I'll jig it up on the drill press and get everything finished out.
I want to cast a titanium ring in my backyard. Something simple, with no intricate patterning or anything. But I understand it's incredibly difficult to get it to melt, let alone get any feedstock. What am I in for?
>>2800976>What am I in for?Failure. Ti has a higher mp than iron, you'd either need to build an arc furnace or an induction furnace to reach the required temps
>>2800976>>2797063
>>2793532i care
Great videos OP..
Holy fuck I love the belt sander, I'll definitely be using this thing a lot.>>2801028>>2801479Thanks, fellas.
>>2800947use table salt as fluxi thought it was retarded too, but it turns almost all the slag back into aluminum
>>2801567I've been using lite salt, a mix of Potassium Chloride and Sodium Chloride. It makes a shocking difference, especially working with dirty cans.
>>2801612ah, if you're melting cans no wonder there's so much
>>2785924make him proud son
>>2800940Nice camera work there anon. Did you make that lid?
>>2801753(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)>>2802159Thanks, anon. Yes I did, 4 firebrick split, beveled, and strapped together. Should be easy to tighten up and keep it together as the firebricks shrink over time. I'm very happy with it, it feels solid and I'm not going to accidentally poke holes through it.
My persistent back problems made for a shit evening, I'm running on zero sleep and a fistful of pills today, so no casting today. I did however get the first set of these lugs on a flask. I like 'em, going to make the next ones a little thicker, and upgrade from 1/4" to 3/8" bolts. Need to make more flasks, soon I'll be doing some larger pours of several molds at once.
Amazing thread, OP. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
>>2803229Thanks anon, I appreciate it!Sadly, today went bad. I accidentally'd the mold I prepared, but only after things were hot and ready to pour. So I just had to slap down a couple extra ingot molds and just pour some ingots. Still, some cool footage!
>>2803304Nope, lost the melt timelapse and the pour video, I don't know what happened but clearly my phone fucked off hard. So I only got these pictures out of the whole thing, shame. Sure glad I don't pay for fuel. I'll try again tomorrow!
>>2789345Why not pour an oversized ingot then mill these to get a better finish You’ll still see some porosity because cast aluminum is ducking dog shit
Bumping for update.
>>2785924any of you ninjas try working with iron? i'd like to try casting iron at some point, wondering what the differences will be. never done aluminum but i don't really have a need for cast aluminum
>>2803879the temperature iron melts at makes it require actual thought into how you'd go about italuminum melts at ~660C and isnt a big issue at allcopper melts at ~1000Ciron melts upwards of 1200Cradiated heat scales with temperature^4 (stefan boltzman law) so at higher temperatures it starts getting insaneblackbody at 660C emits 4.2W / cm^2at 1000C it's 14.9W / cm^2at 1300C it's 34.7W / cm^2the crucible and potential spillage and shit will very quickly add up to thousands of watts which will burn you if you get close for more than a couple seconds
>>2803998a big mass of yellow glowing metal will give you sunburn, cook your eyes and might ignite pieces of clothing. i had half my face red for a week when a piece of steel ignited in my makeshift forge, despite keeping my distance
>>2786667You got lucky then it burned the top layer of skin right off.Prolonged contact would have cooked the skin and flesh beneath and thats what hurts the most.
I've been sick for a couple of days, didn't feel like melting with a fever going. Feeling better, so today I waited for dusk. Enjoy the light show.
>>2804382I was curious to see how these would shrink with the lack of feeders, but I really didn't expect a single one to take the brunt of it. All still 100% usable, great success. I'll cut them apart and clean them up tomorrow.
>>2804382You should fix your setup so it's not shooting fire out of the burner port.
>>2804391That takes effort, enjoying the ambient flames does not.
>>2804383The shit one pulled in from the sides more than I realized, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. I need more of these anyway, may not bother with it. Love how quick and easy it is to clean these up on the belt sander.
>>2789219>did you forget to ventyou're not an imposter are you, anon?AYO PEEPS, THIS NGGA SUS AF
>>2789093Throw some lump charcoal (not grill briquettes) in the aluminum pool. It will eat up the oxygen giving you those bubbles and burn away pretty cleanly. Bust up some small engine blocks with a sledge hammer and melt that instead of cans, you'll get a more dense product.
I barely kept up with this pour.
>>2804715Half pretty, half shitty, won't catch me complaining.
>>2804716Sorry if I missed it but what are these for?>>2804715Great video anon!
>>2804392Repairing the damage the flames cause to the furnace is more effort than stuffing ceramic wool around the pipe, and imagine all the work you'll have to do when the heat cracks your gas pipe.
>>2804738Thanks anon, I appreciate it. Those are lugs for flask alignment pins, you can see them in action here: >>2802835Helps align the two halves of the wooden flask consistently through the process of making the sand molds.>>2804761If there's ever any damage or cracked pipes, I'll be sure to share it here.
>>2804763>If there's ever any damage or cracked pipes, I'll be sure to share it here.Stop pretending that furnaces are magic and don't need to be maintained, you wouldn't be the first retarded nigger to kill himself by pretending he's too cool for safety.
>>2790220>>2790224Can you make robocop?
>>2804794If you feel like you're in danger of my setup, you best avoid it. What do you think is going to happen? You see a little fire out the side and you think somehow that's going to destroy it? You realize it's filled with fire, right? I've had the insides well past 2000°F. You think the burner is going to crack? Why would it? Better yet, so what if it does? What do you think would happen? I think you've just barely glanced at this, don't have a clue what's going on, and you're crying "safety" because you're a mollycoddled milquetoast anemic child who is terrified of fire and, can't stress this enough, doesn't melt.I'm not going to stick my head inside the way you're intent on doing, so how do you think this thing will kill me? Don't shy away now little buddy, tell us your fantasies so that you can be appropriately mocked for them.
>>2793532Meltlet Detected
for a casting such as this how should it be oriented, hollow side down? also feeding from the bottom or top?
>>2805452Hollow side down, whole part in the cope, filled from the bottom. That's how I'd do it, but I'm a retard so take it with a grain of salt.
is the aluminium of a hdd a good one to try to do some casting for a noob?
>>2806199I don't know how much work it'd be to strip all the other shit out, but I do know most 3.5" HDDs are in cast aluminum chassis, so I don't see why not.
>>2806201i have two with everything stripped, so why not?do i need to strip the paint? is kinda thick, i worry it may be some insulating shit
>>2806202Hard to say, coatings and paints usually burn off easily, but of course that means they contribute to dross and slag. I looked to see what scrappers say about it, and apparently HDDs are mostly extruded from 6061, few are cast. 6061 is shit for casting and not worth the effort. Much like with soda cans, you can do it, it can be fun to dick around with, but you'll get much better performance from other alloys more suited to casting. Shame, I thought they were mostly die-cast, but it seems that's not the case.
>>2804715did you scrape off the flux just before pouring? i think have way too little
Oh boy I finally did the thing and made some flasks. Tomorrow should be fun, hope the weather holds up.
>>2808153Pretty full today.
>>2808155
>>2808156These are going to clean up beautifully.
is there any good way of doing this for cheap with electricity? i dont care if its slow, sometimes i have lots of solar to spare
>>2808639>Cheap>ElectricityThere are plenty of options for electric furnaces you can build or buy. Small ones are inexpensive (~$200-$300) and do work very well. They top out around 3kg of capacity, whereas a similarly priced Chinese propane foundry furnace would have more like a 10-12kg capacity. They're all typically in the 1200-1500W range, some claim to be rated for 1800W or even over 2000W but they're almost universally lying unless there's a fat price tag and a 240V requirement. Electric furnaces are slow as fuck, you're looking at ~5000BTUs, compare that to common propane or diesel burners which usually run in the 100,000-300,000BTU range. They're also expensive to run, there's no getting around it. If you look at the energy content, $3.75/gallon diesel gets you around 40kWh, or about 9.3cents per kWh. Propane at $4/gal, that's 15cent per kWh, matching the national average price for electricity. If you're running off solar, that may not matter at all to you, but for many electricity is the most expensive option for fuel. Electric furnaces are great for sensitive shit, you're not burning fuel in contact with the material, no concern about reducing or oxidizing flames, everything is cleaner, so it's definitely the preferred way to melt small quantities of precious metals for things like jewelry. If you want to go electric, I totally recommend a cheap Chinese kit. $220 gets you a Vevor furnace with gloves, tongs, and a couple of crucibles, it'll work just fine and has 90% of what you need to get started. All furnaces are consumables, in an electric furnace the coils degrade over time and will need replaced. Insulation too, but that can be expected to last a long time in an electric furnace. The crucibles are also consumables, but cheapshit ones will last a lot longer in an electric furnace compared to a burner. Watch these if you need a little encouragement:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xDivnwerQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aegxF-SKOnY
>>2808157Do you have a ig you post on, or anywhere else besides here? Your oc is too good to lose
>>2808767Naw, this is the closest I get to Social Media. I've been told to start a Youtube channel or similar, but as an old fat cripple I find the idea exhausting.
Thought it'd be fun to share how I make match plates. With so many people 3D printing to make casting patterns, I hardly ever see people making match plates. 3D printers make what would be complex and time-consuming match plates easy and inexpensive! If you want to make more than one of just about anything, or you're dealing with small detailed shit that would require overly complex and fiddly loose patterns, match plates are the answer. I want to make some Ruger MkIV grips for a friend. I don't own a MkIV, so I borrowed some unfinished wood grips. Step 1, a 2D scan, cheap and easy way to get accurate dimensions and high-quality reference pics for anything FLAT. Step 2, the rest of the design work.
>>2808846Here's the finished design with all the details needed. I make a solid version lacking the rear features, and I make solids derived from those features to represent negative volumes (blue). Slap it all onto a flat plate, cut the negative volumes from the rear of the plate, add some holes for alignment and the sprue and whatnot. The gate (green) will be printed with the plate, it's not a separate piece.
>>2808850Here I used the model to make a "simulated" sand mold. Helps visualize what's going on, helps me spot mistakes. The nubs highlighted in red won't be present in the real mold.
>>2808855Here's the plate fresh off the printer. The other side is just flat. This is a very easy print, doesn't need to be particularly good either.
>>2808856Here are the grip solids, resin printed. You can see how the alignment pins are used to glue them onto the plate. The pins are removed when the glue is set, and the holes are filled lazily with some gel superglue.
>>2808861All done, ready to use.
>>2808862>>2808153>>2800458>>2800546>>2793557>>2792945>>2790949Fun stuff, highly recommended.
>>2808863what do you design on? anything that have into account molding angles or just eyeball it?
>>2808863Great thread! I'm getting the parts together to make a furnace and this is inspiring.
>>2808894I use Fusion360. It's pretty easy to add draft to most designs, how much you need depends more on your sand than anything else. Some epoxy sands and apparently molasses sand can get away with 0°, no draft at all. I tend to go overboard, 5-10° wherever I can get away with it, just to make things easier. I'm pretty sure you can get away with very mild angles with good greensand, 2-3°, maybe even less with petrobond/k-bond/delft clay.>>2808911Thanks, anon. Be sure to share when you get things going.
more forging than foundry but hear me out:can i use a power hammer as a drop hammer (i.e. a hammer that falls along a linear vertical rail and has good alignment for bringing a top die down on a bottom die for drop forging)?my instinct says mechanical power hammers, like the 25 and 50 pound Little Giant hammers, have too much side to side wobble and tilt from the spring/cam mechanism to be able to consistently line up dies.If so, what kind of setup do i need to mimic one of those ceco drop hammers that forge crankshafts? jokes aside, what kind of weight of drop hammer and subsequently size of work is reasonable to build in a hobby shop? Just wondering what the bottlenecks are in building my own drop hammer
I've been thinking that eventually I'll get one of these new cheap desktop cnc vertical mills and cut aluminum, and I'll want to reuse the shavings and scrap by melting it into 4x6x12 bricks for prototyping parts so I'm not spending loads on fresh stock. Am I correct in thinking I'll need a massive furnace to do this, since you can't do several small pours? Make my own electric furnace with nichrome, and use the rectangle steel tube as both crucible and mould?
>>2800924I think I'm start to comprehend how your furnace works. I wonder if you fuck off the pump and gravity feed the oil to the output of the blower?
>>2809571>I wonder it it would be worthwhile to fuck off the pump and gravity feed?
>>2800924>>2809571the lid hole should be the same diameter as the inlet pipe, else you're wasting a ton of fuel
>>28096133-5mm lid hole?
>>2809615your tuyere looks like 1 1/2 inch thou
>>2809616I'm not the op, I'm asking about gravity feeding/ using a venturi for the oil rather than a pump
>>2809617lots of anons use a syphon nozzle but that requires a powerful compressor or high pressure air pump and a proper air drier for efficiencythere are a million better forums for building a foundry than this circle jerk thread
>>2809523Sure that's doable, but it would be a pretty big setup. That's doing 30lb pours. Don't waste your time with electricity. >>2808754>>2809575Sure you could, lots of people do. I prefer the pump because I want consistent control. Gravity is easy, and venturi nozzles are nice but >>2809619>>2809613That's not a good rule of thumb. The size of your tuyere isn't proportional to the amount of air you're pushing into it or the volume of combustion gases produced, so the size of your exhaust isn't determined by the tuyere at all. For at least a decent "rule of thumb" set of guidelines, Kelly over at thehomefoundry has much better recommendations.>The vent hole diameter should be from 1/3 to 1/4 the inside diameter of your furnace, or 2 to 3 times the inside diameter of the tuyere.This lid has a 13.25 square inch exhaust opening, that's equal to a circle of 4.1" in diameter, 2.73x the diameter of the tuyere. The internal diameter of the furnace is 9.5", making the exhaust just under 1/2 the diameter of the furnace. This gives me a nice range of adjustment, just a firebrick on top and I can constrict the hole if needed. I haven't needed to yet though, it runs very well. If I choke it down to 1.5" like you're suggesting, it just loads up the blower fan and slows my air speed, have to turn the fuel and air down significantly to get a decent burn going because that blower fan is now fighting the pressure created by combustion. A blower like this has good flow, but can't handle back pressure at all. I played around with exhaust diameter a lot, it's how I ended up with such a big exhaust hole. The original was smaller, and with lots of experimenting I found that restricting it at all only made things worse, which is why I decided to make it this size on the new lid. I still find no benefit to restricting the exhaust further, it doesn't improve doesn't improve efficiency, doesn't make things faster. Why don't you share your furnace and some of your castings?
I need more sand, and I'm feeling lazy. So I bought 50lbs of 90 mesh locally. Another 2.5lbs each of my sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite gives me 9%, should be good. I just added it all to the existing sand. This is going to take a long while to mull.
>>2809778It's hard work watching it spin.
The Smithsonian website got a library of 3d scanned artifacts free for download. Here's the Maco cat.
A chink lucky cat in brass
>>2809906>>2809907All this with a ghetto setup. Melting brass was a real long shot that doesn't work reliably. I've since acquired an electric furnace but have yet to cast again.
>>2809906I like this quite a lot.>>2809907>>2809910Love it, but I don't know how you haven't died though, because apparently that's a possibility. Thanks for sharing, anon.
>>2809963I fail to see how I could get killed... Sure there's Boeing planes flying over my head.
>>2809976I haven't figured it out either, but I've been terrified since being told I could kill myself doing this. I think it's the mystery that's most terrifying, like, just how could it happen? Very spooky.
>>2809906looks like a cocknballs
whats the easiest way to melt copper scrap into otzis axe? i can file it down if there's something simpler than a sand mold.
>>2810219
I was excited to finally dip into the real scrap today and cast something with good aluminum, but nature bitch-slapped that idea. The world is made greater for every 3VZ-E removed from it.
There's everything that I was able to break up easily. The remainder will have to sliced up on the bandsaw. For now though, I'm going to turn all of this into ingots.
Oh god I'm gonna melt
>>2811574Seriously, this place is a fucking swamp right now. Triple digit heat and high humidity, just awful.
>>2811575For my gallons of sweat I've received these 13 little Toyota ingots. I need a Toyota stamp for my Toyota ingots, that'd be fun. Not that they're gonna last, these will be turned into other shit over the coming days.
>>2810956>>2811466>>2811574>>2811575>>2811577A child in Africa could of eaten that intake manifold
>>2811654Now it's in 13 separate loaves and can feed a whole village.
>>2811656heh
Aw shiiit
>>2813206I can't pretend to be that surprised the 1mm thick section didn't fill. Maybe I'll try again with a lot of extra venting to see if I can get lucky. This Toyota™ Aluminum is definitely nice stuff.
>>2813208There, enjoy this grip and ignore the failure in the background.
>>2813208>>2813210Enjoy the bonus cross. At least my grandma would've chuckled about it.
>>2813210Sure cleaned up nice. I'll be happier to clean up a set that actually pours completely.
I want to try making some cast iron things can i start with random steel scrap?
>>2814042Steel will melt at a higher temperature than cast iron.Every extra 100 degrees become harder and harder at high temps.Everyone likes to talk smack on grey cast iron for being crap, but it's magic stuff that expands when it cools. They don't tell you that in physical metallurgy though.
This triple digit heat is exhausting.
>>2814809I've got a bunch of "wet" transmission oil, should i boil the water out first?
>>2814821I don't know about boiling it, not the way I'd go, especially with something as aromatic as transmission fluid. I'd add isopropyl alcohol. ISO-HEET can be found at any auto parts store and it's 99% isopropyl. You add it to your oil, give it a good mix, it'll mix with the water and settle into a layer of water and isopropyl in solution. So long as that's still >50% isopropyl, it'll burn no problem. You just need to add more alcohol than there is water to begin with. You may be able to get away with using 91% rubbing alcohol from the grocery store, it's cheap as fuck like $2-$3/qt, way cheaper than ISO-HEET, but only 91% to begin with.
Tried a handful of slightly different things today, did several pours and even had a little spill.
>>2814892I do enjoy the furnace.
>>2814893The photos really don't do them justice, these things are gorgeous right out of the sand. Unfortunately, I've still had no luck filling that thin section. I've changed up my gating, feeding, venting, and I've made that section as thick as the design allows for. Oh well, more troubleshooting, more to learn.
I found an old cast iron pot bellied bbq but the legs that were bolted on have cracked off.can I just make steel legs and bolt those on instead? Or will there be some problem like different thermal expansion por something? I've got it propped up on three bricks for now
Thanks for the update OP. I’ve been enjoying your thread. Also your pictures and videos are awesome. Please have my upvote.
>>2814956Thanks, anon, I appreciate it.
Oh that's nice.
An oil leak, devastating. Thank goodness there was a pan of catching nearby.
Holy fuck the focus was off on this one, the quality really suffered. Still a nice slow-mo pour.
It was late and too dark to be taking photos, but I was excited. It worked, filled out the thin section completely on both pours, both are totally usable.
>>2815527Excellent thread. Do continue.
>>2786006kek>>2785999I've a bunch of silicon wafers laying around that I found in a container at uni. What do you need silicon wafers for? How many, what size/thickness?
>>2786687>the cervix splitter>>2785924damn, progress is fast. all that shit in less than two weeks. I need to get in on this, thankfully I've been collecting small pieces of aluminum foil and candlelight cups for several years now.maybe I have to grow leather first though.it really is important to have heatproof garb off the bat, huh? what's a kiln made of, can I start with making that?>>2789310>cans are freecans are €0.10 rebate here lolz>>2797666... is that stand burried in the ground or. ok don't want to know.feels like reading through a Vintage Story thread lol
>>2816650Thanks, anon, I will do so.>>2816660Safety is important from day 1. The stand is sitting on a steel plate that is concealed in that photo, but can be seen here >>2814809Today, I felt like filming. Need more 1911 grips to help refine my cleanup process. I'm still not happy with the drilling, sometimes it's perfect and sometimes it's heinous, but I'll worry about that tomorrow.
This one really should be watched with audio and slightly better quality over here instead: >>>/wsg/5598588
There we go, isn't that nice? I'll clean them up and drill them out tomorrow.
>>2817115>>2817130>>2817137Very interesting videos OP. Perhaps I’m easily amused but interesting watching the molten metal start the wood on fire. Which brings me to my dumb questions. What temp would you estimate the aluminum is at when you pour and how long do you wait to pull the pieces out of the sand?
>>2817140Most aluminum alloys melt around 1200°F, when casting like this I'm pouring in the 1300°F-1400°F range more than likely. I don't have a way of getting good temperature measurements unfortunately. I usually leave things in the sand for a good half hour or so while I go inside and cool down, the heat is in the triple digits outside so after a pour I am drenched in sweat. Could pull them much sooner, just a few minutes, because these castings are fairly thin and cool down quickly.
Today OP wasn't a faggot
quality thread
>>2817137very nice result anon. any recommended books for alu/iron/steel casting?when i have some more space i'm gonna get into casting. i bought a cheap used pneumatic sand tamper in the meantime so it sits on the shelf and reminds me that i want to do thiswith the limited space i have and the humidity outside i'm stuck doing only forging for now
How hard would it be to build a kiln/forge fuelled by wood gas instead of directly from charcoal?
>>2817836curious on why?
>>2817840Just a matter of curiosity.How well might it function or what sort of temperatures could you realistically achieve.the process seems fairly simple to produce the syn gas so I assume some will have investigated it before
>>2817845is probably same as any other gas/air furnace i guess, most of the diy ones you adjust the mix manually
>>2817846I just found an ancient forum post with someone extolling the wonders of chicken shit as a forge fuel which started out about a gassifier forge...https://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?/topic/4925-gasifier-forge-works-great/
So I bought a small 6” foundry because I’m an impulsive consooomer and I thought it would be a neat way to get rid of a bunch of scrap metal I have.The question I’m trying to figure out while I wait for it to arrive is how the hell do you separate the different metals? Just leave em in liquid form and let density/gravity do its thing? Any resources for this I could check out?
>>2817115>>2817130>>2817137Very nice, thanks
>>2817896Depends on the metals really.If you're just melting """aluminum""" then it's going to be a crap alloy of stuff anyways
>>2789345>made in china
looked some stuff up and apparently water vapor coming close to molten aluminum makes hydrogenwhich then dissolves in the metal and you get bubbles in your castswild shit
I see a lot of people using propane furnaces and I wonder why you dont see induction furnaces that are ultra efficient?
>>2817896One way I can think of this is with various chemicals (acids and other things) and electrolysis.
>>2817718I've no recommendations myself, though people often speak highly of the Gingery books. gingerybookstore.com>>2817896It's easy, you separate them before you melt them.>>2818387The one that still gets me is how molten metals can dissolve other materials. Molten aluminum will dissolve iron despite iron having more than double the melting point. Molten copper can incorporate itself into the grain structure of iron and nickel. Crazy shit.>>2818887Because you won't find one for $150 on Amazon that'll melt 10lbs of aluminum. Induction furnaces aren't actually that much more efficient for this purpose, their real advantage is speed, but that comes with high power requirements. Even a small and relatively inexpensive one is going to be pushing 2-3kW, which will require either a 30A/50A hookup or 240V, they start around $400, and it'll hold a teeny weeny tiny little crucible. For a jewelry caster, awesome shit, melts VERY rapidly, but a poor choice for anyone considering a large and inexpensive gas furnace.
>>2817836I've seen vids of it being done with wood.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6FaD4e5Z0QAlso good thread OP. This is real /diy/.
>>2817836Just burn the whole lothttps://youtu.be/zTaZgTcRlcE?skip to 8 minutes to watch it work (or at least find the first problem
How do we get women and POC into smelting?
>>2797063>casting StainlessGod I would love me some cast stainless grates for my grill. Napoleon makes them for some of their high end phantom grills, but they wont fit my grill, and even if they did, they still want $720 for a set.
>>2817143>I don't have a way of getting good temperature measurements unfortunately.you can find fluke 572s temp guns with adjustable emissivity and 1650 degree ranges on ebay for $200
Is smelting brass easy? I want to smelt red brass for some fixtures that I think I can DIY
>>2819409Oh, I like that guy, I check his stuff when I remember him.nice space heater tea kettle boiler combo
>>2819409Why the hell is he using a J type rocket with such a high feed tube instead of an L?
>>2819536nobrass is high temperature, high thermal capacity and it constantly burns off part of its alloy changing the composition
>>2819556I'm aware that the zinc will evaporate, I figured that would be easy enough to compensate for. But I'm pretty green to smelting so I'm not sure if jumping straight to brass is going to be a big hurdle. I'm going to buy the equipment anyway because I need a hobby
>>2819631just be aware that it is an entire different beast than aluminium. you deal with 2000°f, 3x the mass by Volume and higher heat capacity (+ thermal conductivity) by Volume. It will put a lot more stress on gear and catastrophic failure is more likely. For the love of god, dont do this in a steel crucible with a pair of channel locks.And do a cold dry run, nothing worse than not being able to pour when its all molten or getting surprised by the weight>t. the retard who did his first bronze pour with pipe pliers and a heavily used, tall, welded steel crucibleat least i live to tell the tale
>>2819637Thanks a lot anon. I'll have to research what equipment to get thenI look forward to doing my first pour
>>2819546Did you miss the lower blower port?
>>2785924I havent gotten set up yet but i have a 1st edition copy of the foundreyman's handbook if anyone is interested in seeing more. It's nice because it's old enough that the tech used is not so out reach of the average home builder. Got designs for foundries, casting and recipes for different alloys.
>>2819098Thanks, anon.>>2819493I don't think I can afford a furnace/crucible large enough to fit women and POC inside.>>2820460Very nice, would love to see this scanned. I keep PDF copies of the Foseco Ferrous Foundrymans Handbook and the Navy Foundry Manual, both are quite nice references.
How practical would it be to diy some of those modern high strength low temp bainitic steels?
>>2820997Not at all. You can move a lot of metal at home, you can beat steel all day, but smelting, alloying, or casting? Not something that happens at a home or hobby level. The energy involved, the temperatures, and careful environmental controls make it very prohibitive.
>>2821084So what types of metal would work at a temperature where you could experiment with simple alloys at a backyard crucible scale?
>>2821144ntamostly aluminium alloys. the funny part is that you dont need the other metals to melt to be dissolved in molted aluminiumyou can also try with tin, lead, or some other low temp metals
>>2821144There are plenty, especially aluminum, copper, and zinc alloys. There are even some fairly common DIY alloys, like Aluminum Bronze. Remarkable stuff and one of the many alloys that's been called "gunmetal" at one time or another, it's pretty typical for folks to make their own as you're not likely to find a chunk at the scrapyard. It's also not uncommon to modify aluminum alloys by adding adding silicon to improve casting characteristics. I also see people mix alloys, usually adding good cast aluminum or pure aluminum to other alloys to dilute them, like mixing a load of shitty soda can aluminum with good cast aluminum and extra silicon to make it more usable.
>>2821146nta but what about plain iron, assuming safety is handled adequately? is temp really that big a bottleneck, you'd need gas heating or to heat under pressure despite adequate insulation?it appears to me that insulating cement-like substances are very, very easy to get a hold of and I can just dig everything into the ground to keep safety a bit cheaper, build a little manual crane to handle the cauldron.I'm really not sure what the issue would be with getting enough heat in one place.
>>2821155I'm only interested in going scrap -> ingot -> forge, so not into general casting btw..Nice if I can cast various things but idc if I have alternatives for working the metal, being able to produce roughly correctly portioned metal and remove some of its most gross impurities is the real bottleneck.
Is it worth getting books on the topic or is trial and error the best way to go?
>>2822023The internet. You're already there, it's free, there are countless forum posts and videos to pack your brain with.
The weather has been horrendous these past couple of weeks. Alternating between triple digit heat and day-long thunderstorms, the humidity hasn't dropped below 60% (25% is typical this time of year), and I had a little shower take me off guard and rain on my furnace a few days ago. Fuck nature, I need a nice roomy steel workshop I can set all this up in a little more permanently, with serious ventilation to manage the exhaust, and a huge overpowered air conditioner, and blackjack, and hookers.
Progress has been good nonetheless. With how hot and dry it is here greensand can be a bitch at times, it dries out so rapidly working outside at 105F°. I read a paper, a study into using glycerin in greensand, and they got some great results with it. I keep large quantities of vegetable glycerin on hand, so I decided to give it a try. I've been using a 2:1:1 mix of glycerin, water, and isopropyl alcohol. The water and isopropyl are there to thin the glycerin and make it easy to squeeze out of a spray bottle, the isopropyl evaporates quickly while mulling and it takes a lot of the water with it. So far it's been absolutely awesome, I'm able to keep the sand much more dry and it still packs together beautifully, and it doesn't dry out as I work. I've also been getting better surface finish from it, pictures will never do it justice, it's very satisfying. I've finalized my 1911 grip base pattern, probably, I'm at a point where they're consistently easy to ram up, cast beautifully, and clean up quickly. I'm still only 90% happy with the drilling process, about 1 in 5 pairs comes out a little funny, but I'm fighting myself not wanting to overcomplicate it.
>>2786006is that like a christ sex doll?
>>2809978just don't sell your sister to a foreign warlord in hopes of political advantages>>2815527most exciting thing I've seen on 4chan since that one time. Great work anon>>2822432I read this whole thread on a bus. thank you OP
This thread is the closest one to metallurgy general that I could find so I'll ask here.I have an aluminium bronze rod that I cut in half along its length and both pieces bowed by quite a lot. So to save myself from pain when machining them later I want to heat treat them to relieve internal stresses. From what I could find 700°C (1300 F) for 1.5 hours sounds like a good number. Is that right?Also I'll be doing it in electric furnace and I want to flush it with inert gas to reduce oxidation. Is CO2 ok for this? I don't have much nitrogen left for now and I want to save it for when I need to do some carbon steel parts. There doesn't seem to be any issue with bronze, but I couldn't find anything on whether it would do something to nichrome heating elements or not. I vaguely remember hearing something about it a long time ago but I can't remember what exactly and can't find it again either.
Now for something completely different. I'm going to grill some chicken and wait for the sun to get lower, then all this shitbrass is going to put on a lightshow.
>>2824677
This was stupid, but I thought it'd look neat for the camera. I give it a 5 out of 10, one for each shell casing that didn't make it in the crucible.None of the metal I drop down into the furnace actually ends up melting, it gets buried in the charcoal ash and retrieved later.
It's hot. It was already hot. It's hotter now.
It's so fucking hot. I need to figure out what I need to really film this. You can see the color shift dramatically when I first go to scoop some dross, that's because I'm exposing zinc to the air, and it's oxidizing rapidly in a bright green flash of light. This is what the good respirator is for. It really is incredibly bright, I was wearing welding glasses for this.
Neat.
Well that was fun. I'm going to drink 6 gallons of Gatorade and start getting ready for tomorrow. If this weather keeps up, there's plenty of casting to do.
Cool anon, would you also do pistol parts?take care of zink alloys, doesnt that shit evaporate a ton?
>>2824781I have already had good success casting parts for one of my old cheapo saturday-night-special revolvers, but I don't post the real gun stuff here with the aggressively autistic jannies. Yes, zinc is constantly burning off when working with it, which is what makes for this light show with the puffs of smoke and flashes of color. >>2824702
>>2824702Try a welding lens to flip over your camera or auto darken
>>2824857It's just so gross looking when I do that. I need something with intense UV and IR filtering that doesn't fuck with visible colors too much. Thanks for reminding me though, I actually want to look into what kind of options exist, I'm no photographer/cinematographer.
>>2824856my point was more in line of would that alloy be still decent after all the zinc you are losing?
It's 103°F today. What the fuck am I doing.
>>2825260Higher Quality + Audio: >>>/wsg/5620021
This brass sure has quite a look to it. Looking forward to making a set of drifts, but I need to get quite a bit more together before I can start on those.
Since this is the de facto metallurgy general>working on an invention on my own time and resources>just about to file a provisional patent application>better review employment agreement before hitting send>there's a clause that the company can assert ownership if IP has overlapping "business interests">company added no value, did not use any company IP develop, but they are now trying to assert they will have ownership rights when I told them the broad business areaTime to lawyer up, we live in an absolute fucking society.
>>2825260Trying to die of heat stroke?
>>2825617It's certainly interesting jumping between the 72° house, the 100°+ outside, and getting up close and personal with the furnace pushing 1800°F melting brass. The crucible emanates a huge amount of heat, it's really something. The huge welding goggles make a massive difference, they block so much IR, those and the respirator actually keep my face relatively cool while working with the furnace. I still sweat buckets though.
>>2825619at least get something to make shade man
>>2825946I work under an awning, the furnace is just beyond its extent to keep the exhaust from damaging anything. In the afternoon the shade just extends further and further from the porch, giving me more cool space to work in. You can see the shadow clearly here >>2817130If I were standing out in the sun the whole time I'm quite confident I'd die horribly. It's only supposed to hit 97 today, downright balmy weather.
>>2785925>>2785924Make a new thread when this archives, I'm getting into this myself. Been hoarding cans and starting to look into forge designsThe city is bitching about my cans, threatening to fine me lol
>>2825949>awningmaybe put a water spray in it? you see it a ton in music festivals lately to cool people off
>>2825950Good luck, anon. Don't skimp on the safety gear, and be sure to share when you get things going!>>2825951While an AWESOME idea for staying cool, it would need to be far away from anything to do with the furnace. Water and molten metal are not friends, even tiny amounts of trapped moisture can be very dangerous. I take a torch to my graphite molds before every use and put a thick beanie or sweatband on when fluxing/scraping/pouring to keep the sweat from dripping into the crucible. Having something like that sprayer anywhere near the furnace or my molding bench and shelves would be genuinely dangerous. I'd actually really love a cool suit like they use for athletes, racing, spacesuits, etc. I could put it on underneath the safety gear, which would hopefully save me from having to remove it all and put it back on repeatedly like I do now to help keep cool.
>>2825955>Good luck, anonThanks, I will do. Right now I've gone like 5-10 30 gallon bags of can. I'm going to melt them down into ingots and try refining then or doing subverting to make it higher quality metal.I'm the meantime I'm saving up for a bill and lathe so I can machine these ingots and castings.I'll have ac welding to assemble the machined pieces by the time I have the mill>Water and molten metal are not friendsThat's why you never melt or cast on concrete, if you spill it the concrete can explode from all of its water content flash boiling so then you have concrete, steam, molten metal, and really hot metal shot all exploding in your face, not a good thing
>>2785924Ah
>>2788249>Canadian ashtray>maples leaves
>>2825260You sure love to sook about the weather huh.Quality posts though.
>>2827579I'm old and I love to bitch. Growing up here the summers were about 15 degrees cooler than they are now, didn't see a 100° day until I was almost 30, now it exceeds that 60 days out of the year. I blame man-made climate change so I have an excuse to disparage others for their neglect of the environment while I burn used motor oil and continually produce plastic for the landfill and microplastics for our waterways.
>>2827590Too bad you.werent just a little bit older and remember the fucking killer heat waves of the 80s or how they told us we'd all be dead by 2005
>>2827608You may underestimate my oldness, first time I saw Al Gore on TV he was fat and in black and white. That said I'm not inclined to photograph my varicose veins or film my dystonic tremors.
What a massive mistake buying cheap charcoal was. No big hot coals made for a bitch starting it, ended up flooding it and had to wait with the fuel switched off while it went on dieseling for ~10 minutes. Lots of smoke, far more than usual. I got worried that fuel would overflow out of the furnace but it never did, there's a sump to prevent exactly that but hey I was paranoid, hence the pan. Had to restart it with some chunks of poplar.
I am loving this glycerin sand. >>2822432 I'm now using no water, just vegetable glycerin, I mix it 1:1 with isopropyl in order to spray it and the iso evaporates off while it's mulling. I've changed the greensand mix, before it was about 9-10% bentonite (1:1 sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite), now I'm running 13-13.5% bentonite at a 2:1 calcium bentonite to sodium bentonite ratio. It feels bone dry, it flows like dry sand, but a little pressure and it clumps perfectly, I'm very impressed with it and surprised I haven't seen others online experimenting with it. Best of all for me, I can leave it out and open overnight and it's still perfect, whereas with water I'd only get an hour or so uncovered before it was too dry to use. I forgot to link to this last time: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/LC/nbslettercircular230.pdf
>>2829249There is a big downside, being acrolein, a chemical so pleasant it's been used as an irritant in chemical weapons to burn eyes and blister skin. Tiny amounts are fine, you get tiny amounts from the majority of cooked foods. This isn't a tiny amount, this is clouds, you can feel it on your skin from several feet away. After pouring I have to let things cool down a LOT before demolding otherwise the fumes are just too much, even with the respirator on that visible cloud of nastiness is incredibly acrid, biting, suffocating, just incredibly unpleasant.
A little gift for a friend, just for fun.
>>2829249could you do another comparison of >>2797673 with the new sand?it's very cool seeing the progress overtime
