Hi all I'm new to this home foundry stuff but did work as a floor moulder in the 80s for a short time some 33 years ago at Goodridge castings in Aldridge in the uk. After watching some videos on youtube made my small foundry out of a gas bottle used vermiculite and sodium silicate which i found to be totally useless i could do with some advice on what refectory to use on ceramic insulation and what thickness to use the gas bottle is 300mm across would like to keep it down to 50mm all around and if possible the best place to get materials from thanks in advance
Hi Lee, welcome to the home foundry! Ceramic insulation as in ceramic fiber blanket? You could cast a thin (less than 1" if possible) hot face using a dense castable refractory and wrap it in 2" of ceramic fiber insulation inside your existing steel shell, or else there are refractory mortars that work well as a painted on coating that can be layered up thinner, say 1/4". Lots of examples here to get ideas from. I've done both (I have build threads here) and the latter was far cheaper and easier to build. It is much faster at melting when starting from cold as well, so it is the one I use most often by far. Satanite is the brand name of the mortar I used, but I had to have it sent up from the US when I could not find an equivalent here in Canada that could match Satanite's 3200F rating that is also known to work well as a coating over ceramic fiber. I'm not sure what brands are available in the UK, but we have members here who are closer to home for you who can hopefully suggest products and point out suppliers etc. Good luck! Jeff
Welcome Lee Harbison Walker makes satanite and they have offices in the UK. Maybe you could contact them to see if they have the same product under a different name.
I am in the UK and built this furnace 5 years ago. It's used at least once a week and is still going strong. The refractory materials came from artisanfoundry.co.uk Build is several parts staring here .
What you intend to melt may influence what design you use. I melt iron and built a castable thick face and wool furnace, a satanite,wool furnace, and now a thin-hot-face segmental plastic refractory and wool furnace. The latter is far more durable than the others particularly the satanite/wool furnace. I have detailed the builds on this forum. So far I have 25 hours on my segmental lid melting iron burning diesel and the lid shows no deterioration. I have about 15 hours on the segmental body and also show no deterioration. I was able to keep the satanite/wool furnace going for probably 50 to 100 hours, but it took frequent patching beginning after only a few hours use---not hard to do nor expensive, but tedious. So, there are many flavors of furnace as you are hearing. For my money for melting iron, segmental thin-hot-face Blu-Ram plastic refractory or equivalent would be my choice for its ease of construction, modular design allowing segmental repair if needed, and, most of all, durability. For melting aluminum anything will be fine. For bronze and brass furnace punishment is not very severe. Incidentally, this furnace is a 20% larger in volume than my prior furnaces, but burns only 5% more fuel per hour and is about 30% faster than my satanite/wool (larger combustion volume allows more complete combustion in the furnace of fuel and therefore higher temp) and saves about 25% on fuel burned. I do not have good numbers for comparison to the thick-walled dense refractory furnace, but it was very slow by comparison as you had to heat up so much refractory mass before reaching melting temps. Denis
Hi Denis thanks for the advice think i will go with the satanite and wool but its hard to get the satanite in the uk any other product i could use thanks lee
Gave them a call they only do runs of satanite for a company in italy and sell the rest to a distributor in the uk they gave me the number to call they have none left till they do the next run for italy nice girl at the distributor Nickie 07500792891 told me call back in a few weeks
Just a thought here Lee, Buy a few bags of Satanite. You could become the local distributor for the home foundry builder. You're not the first one looking for it in the UK or even EU if shipping isn't outrageous. It might put a few pounds in your pocket too.
I know that satanite is very popular with the forging crowd in the US. Many prefer it for coating their kaowool forges over ITC-100 for its performance and durability. I would think forging enthusiasts in UK would be making use of an equivalent product. If not then Lee might really be able to cash-in as Fishbonz suggested. lol! Pete
I like the idea of Lee becoming the regional distributor. I took a look at shipping company rates and it looked like rates are not horrible for medium size packages in the 30 pound range. But maybe what I think I saw does not represent reality. I have Satanite on hand as an indespinsable material and use it often even in my Blu-Ram furnace. It is great for "gluing" in place the wool gasket on the top of the furnace body to make a good seal with the lid for instance. And I used it where I expected some hot gas leaks through seams in the Blu-Ram to the wool insulation. It also is used in the chimney to protect the wool lining. That lining would quickly burn out in the first two feet of the chimney were it not for Satanite. Denis
