Hi everyone, I just discovered this forum a few days ago and have been reading nonstop ever since. I'm in the process of slowly piecing together my own home foundry/fab shop/machine shop. My only problem is the only thing I'm usually interested in making is tools that I can use to make more tools lol. Any way, I am a millwright/ foundryman by trade in an iron foundry but I also am trying to get into it as a hobby. I picked up an electric jewlers furnace at an antique shop a while back and was wondering if any of you have used an electric melt furnace? It was a steal and I couldn't pass it up at $50 gotta love antique shops. Also thanks for all the entertaining threads you guys have posted, I've enjoyed reading them. Tony
Welcome Tony, I'm fully in the tools to make tools trench. There's a few of us like that here and I'm sure you'll feel at home. Your "new" furnace looks interesting. Can you post a pic of the inside, controls, etc? Power requirements? Inquiring minds want to know! Pete
Welcome aboard! That Looks like an antique. As long as it gets hot. If ya need idea for a PID, here's your animal. https://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=4 Somewhere around here, there is some build threads on them. Here is mine and it's from the late 80's
Thanks for the welcome everyone, I'll have to check out his thread. Here are some inside pictures. I believe it is from the 60's, it runs on 120v and I think it is supposed to get up to 2000 degrees. I've ran it up to a few hundred just to make sure it works, but haven't melted anything in it yet. I plan on eventually building a homemade furnace and melting iron but would like to start with some aluminum, and brass.
Also the controls are just the tapped knobs on the bottom, there are quite a few settings for different temperatures.
That thing looks really good inside. Nice score for 50bucks. I fixed the link for you above to a good ramp/soak controller. You can get cheapys, but they won't allow you to create profiles. Besides melting metal, if you decide to burn out investments, you be glad you went the extra mile. Some 3d print resins require some real head scratching burnout schedules. Plan on that kiln of yours using around 13-15amps of power if it's 110v. So keep an eye on your cords and crap so ya don't burn your place down. I spy with my little eye lots of wood.
Thanks Jason, that looks really useful. I'll have to read up on it. Eventually I would like to get a 3d printer, that's going to have to wait for a while though. I just bought a lathe and still need to buy a drive for it lol. Can't buy to many tools at once. Have to keep the wife happy.
I have a few small Electric heat treat oven‘s and a pottery kiln. As much as electricity is nice neat and tidy, I personally do not like it for melting But... I really like electric furnaces for heat treat. My small ones are 3.5×4×6 and can get up to about 1800°F on 120 V in 45 minutes not including any metal.
Thanks for posting the pictures Tony. That thing is in really great shape refractory-wise. Replacing the coils doesn't look like fun but hopefully you won't ever need to. Either it didn't get much use or it was treated right. No mice living in it either! Unless you've got to do a smaller quantity of lower temp metals I'm with Matt. It looks like a great heat treater. I have a pottery kiln that I've never even turned on and I don't have any aversion to electricity, but I think I see something with a burner tube and a blower in your future. Pete
Yeah I like fire and will undoubtedly build something that gets hot enough for iron eventually. I experimented with a venturi propane burner a while back it was fun and melted aluminum easily. I do think my future holds a oil/diesel burner and a blower. Another interesting thing would be a baby cupola, but I feel you would need to melt alot of metal for that to be worth it. As far as heat treatment in the electric furnace goes that was part of the reason I bought it. Now that 3d printers are getting more affordable it dose have me thinking lost pla may be in my future though. Working at a foundry since right out of high school it is a different perspective looking at things not from a mass production standpoint. I find it very interesting all of the neat ideas, and creative solutions you guys come up with.
It's usually from a lack of $$$$ Tony. My dad said, If you're not rich, you better get smart. Growing up I had a taste for expensive cars, but it's hard to take your German car to the dealership when you are in high school working in the shoe department at Kmart! So ya learn how to use a Haynes manual and find used parts. The guys around here are kings at thinking outside the box and doing things on the cheap.
Another from Wisconsin, Welcome to the forum. Lots of great info here.. I don't have a setup yet but I'm hoping to in the future.. Good luck.
We have a member here, ironsides , who built a cupola. He has video of it on youtube as luckygen. It looks like a lot of work and commitment to operate one! Way too much for me. Pete
Ive been talking to cast iron gypsy about cupolas and she says you need 4-5 people to run one. It also sounds like there is a bit of an art to running it as well. Im still hoping to build one sometime soon......
Been traveling for a week so just back and getting caught up. It's in my signature thread. David calls it Battle Star Galactica.....It's a 8.5kw 220v resistive electric furnace. It's great for aluminum and heat treating. It has Kanthal coils which is supposed to have a max temp of 2600F but I've never ran it that high. I have refractory inserts for conversion of the rig to fuel fired furnace. I'm sort of surprised it's 120v vs 240vac. How many amps at 120vac? It does look to be in very nice shape. There are two types of resistive electric heating wire; 80Ni/20Cr commonly referred to as Nichrome and 62Fe/22Cr/6Al aka Kanthal. Nichrome has been around since the turn of the last century and Kanthal since the 1930s so by no means new. The generally accepted operating temp of NiCr is about 2200F whereas Kanthal 2600F. Nichrome still has reasonable mechanical properties at 2200f but Kanthal will droop and stretch if not well supported. If you really have iron in your sights then you need to build a fuel fired furnace and a good burner. Best, Kelly
Hmmmm. I can see 2. Why 4-5 people? I've only done light reading on cupola pros/cons and also why there can be scaling (down sizing) issues......sounds like you should start a thread on the subject David....preferably a build thread!! Best, Kelly
David my cupola is 230mm inside dia. and I found that 3-4 people is the minimum needed to run it safely. It melts about 200kgs per hour and keeps 4 people very busy loading it up and pouring iron.