You can put a saw nick across the bottom of the ingot and smack with a sledgehammer to break into pot size pieces. What was your per pound price delivered to your door?.
One of my local foundry friends hooked me up and I piggy backed onto their order. More of his order probably fell off the truck on the way than I took LoL. I have a couple critically stressed automotive parts in the works and needed a known starting point for alloy so I stood a decent chance of achieving the desired mechanical properties in post treatment. Also want to see how well I can do minimizing porosity on thin walled castings like my water necks that need to be hermetic. Most of my previous casting stock had a lot of sprue stock and had been re-melted so many times it had to be very gassy. I noticed a big difference after I built and used my degassing lance on that stock so I figured a virgin ingot melt with Argon gas cover is probably the best I can do. Best, Kelly
I'll play this game too.... 145lbs. cost about a grand. Where has kelly been hiding? Must still be slicing his monster ingots up into little chunks.
Man you guys are giving me ingot envy. I want more for my pile! Going to need more for the eagles. How big are those ingots anyway? They look 15-18 lbs each?
I sold a lot of Srontium and TiBor cut rods years ago on eBay when I was active on Alloy Avenue Still have a few pails left Here is the story I had posted on ebay What is a Modifier, What Does it Do, Why do I Need it? Typical foundry Aluminum casting alloys (engine blocks, heads, transmission cases, pistons, wheels, other cast scrap) contain 5 to 12% Silicon. Unmodified castings made from these alloys contain coarse, plate-like crystals of Silicon which forms during solidification (eutectic Silicon). These Silicon particles are in the form of brittle needles which reduce the strength and ductility of the casting. They also tend to create porosity by inhibiting the flow of molten metal (feeding) in to areas of the casting as it solidifies. With Strontium modification, a different and improved cast structure is developed in which the Silicon phase is “modified” by the action of Strontium to become fibrous and finely dispersed. The result is improved mechanical properties. In particular, both ductility and machinability are improved. Strontium also tends to reduce the size and shape of harmful iron compounds, resulting in improved ductility. It can reduce the embrittling effect of Iron contamination if you melt/pour with a steel ladle. Modification has been called “the poor mans heat treatment”, since it improves as cast strength without the need for heat treatment. Please note that if you are melting low Silicon alloys (Aluminum cans, siding, ladders or extrusions) this Strontium modifier will not make any improvement since there is little Silicon to modify. These materials are not designed to be cast, and you may want to consider changing to an alloy designed to be cast to improve your casting success. What is a Grain Refiner, What Does it Do, and Why do I Need It? When metals solidify they develop a grain structure. Slowly cooled metals (for example from sand casting) have a relatively large grain size. Faster cooled metals (for example from die casting) have a smaller grain size. Benefits from a smaller grain size include; better feeding for reduced shrink porosity and stronger castings. A grain refiner promotes a smaller grain size even in a slow cooled casting. Here is a good practical publication that explains this in a bit more detail. http://www.amg-al.com/_content/products/AMG Aluminum - Aluminum Strontium.pdf How to Use As per manufacturers recommendations add 3 rods per 100 pounds (or 1 rod per 33.3 pounds). With a few rare exceptions, it would be hard to overdo it, so just add 1 rod of each if you are melting less that 30 pounds per melt. With a small melt, add both the TiBor and Strontium rods as soon as all the metal has melted, and gently stir, skim and pour.
Here is a slideshow on Aluminum Metallurgy with more info on Strontium and Tibor https://www.slideshare.net/FoundryJoe/aluminum-alloys-for-hobby-foundry
Yeah, that's a hoard of bronze alright. You'd have been a rich rich man back in the day with that stash.
You should see me wheeling this stuff on a luggage cart out to the airplane! I got some pretty strange looks. The boss saw it loaded in the back, I said, Don't ask! Hope he doesn't think I'm overpaid! Art, yeah it ran me almost a grand with tax for that silicon bronze. Hey Kelly, ya didn't tell us what you paid for that. Let me guess, $1200bucks... ????
