Hi everybody! I have zero casting experience but I'm hoping there is somebody nearby to me that can show me the ropes. Debating making my own furnace and trying a small pour, but I just want to make some copper ingots for now, and the heat requirement for copper makes me a little nervous for a 1st time homegrown setup. If anyone is near Las Cruces, hit me up!
Welcome Byrnie. Best off starting with something not so hot and working your way up as you get more experience and comfortable..
Welcome Byrnie. Copper can be a tough one to manage.....in addition to the melt temp it oxidizes like crazy, but I'm sure you can get there with a little perseverance. You'll have to tell us about the attraction to copper. Best, Kelly
One thing I have melted a bit of is copper! Look forward to seeing what you come up with for melting it but yes, there are some ''tricks'' to getting sound Cu castings. We were electrowinning the Cu so it never mattered about the O content but I have been to some of the smelters where the copper must be very low O due to electrical conductivity requirements. Everything there is bathed with a natural gas flame. That copper can be rolled very easily.
Welcome... and yes, start with aluminum. I cannot honestly think of one thing to cast with pure copper. Buss bars and that's about it. What is it you want to cast with copper??? If you just need something that looks like copper, cast bronze. it's 94% copper anyways and it behaves like a gentleman. When I started casting, i had buckets and buckets of scrap copper. I also wanted to turn it into ingots and either sell it off or leave it to collect dust in the shed. I learned it's a pain in the ass metal to deal with and the scrap yards do not buy ingot anyways.... They don't know what else you melted into it. So I scrapped my stash and bought Sil bronze ingot. The work is done and 6bucks a pound is cheap for quality metal.
Welcome, and good luck, whatever you need copper ingots for. I don't recall any of our members being down your way, doesn't mean they aren't too far off though. Run your furnace design ideas past us before you start building. The internet is full of homemade furnaces, some great and some terrible. Some might seem to work great for melting metal, but they could cause you terrible health problems down the road that could easily have been avoided. We've seen them all and can help you avoid those common pitfalls. Jeff
Welcome Byrnie, We have a great group here with a genuine willingness to help. Gearing up for this hobby from zero requires a lot of work and effort (and sometimes some cash) and failures are inevitable. A person can easily get frustrated and throw up their hands so the suggestions so far aren't meant to be discouraging, but to send you on the best course to succeed. We'd really like to see this bug bite you! We don't have a monopoly on casting. there is a ton of information on the web on other casting sites as well as on YouTube but there's some real shit info out there too. Some of it downright dangerous. Shorts and sneakers are your first clue. Anyway, there's a group of individuals here that really know how to do this effectively and safely and can point you to solid information. My first book was "The Charcoal Foundry" by Dave Gingery. It's cheap on kindle or paperback on Amazon and gives a great overview of the process. Stick with it. You'll be glad you did. Pete
Anyone have an online link to our foundry bible? Without AA hosting it, that's kind of a real problem for our new folks.
It can be accessed through the WayBack Machine link in the AA thread.....albeit slowly. I may have some semblance of a downloaded version. Best, kelly
THE HOBBYIST'S GUIDE TO CASTING METAL http://prometheus-foundry.com/The Hobbyist's Guide to Casting Metal--2nd Edition (print).pdf
