New member from the UK Hi to all – hoping you are all safe and well. I am a 63 year old guy based in West Yorkshire, UK. I enjoy woodworking, metal working and just recently I have developed an interest in metal melting and casting. I have just completed building my first furnace and propane burner and only yesterday melted my first piece of aluminium. By pure luck I seem to have got things almost right. I built the furnace from a 13kg propane tank and took my burner design from Daniel Moss on YouTube. I will try to upload some images and all comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome. Furnace was lined with Vitcas ceramic fibre then finished with 25kgs of castable refractory. Steve
Hi Steven, looks like you're off to good start with that furnace, there's people here with a wealth of experience with various metal casting methods. Have you worked out which one you plan to use: sand, lost foam, investment etc.?.
I was thinking of trying sand casting I was thinking of giving sand casting a go - my first project will be a simple face plate for my wood turning lathe.
Welcome Stephen and congratulations on your first melt. As Mark said there is a group of helpful and knowledgeable folks here, including him. I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of your kit. Pete
Sandcasting is my preferred method and reasonably simple to set up for it and then expand as needed, even into lost foam. It should be possible to make a beefy aluminium face plate casting that will be up to the task and then there's heat treating it later to increase strength.
Welcome aboard and thanks for not showing up with a homer bucket furnace! Sure wish I still had a photo of the flaming pile of shit!
We don't have Home Depository over here Jason! Although I'm sure I could construct something similar in the B&Q car park. Welcome
I made a very servicable furnace out of 'quick-crete' (high allumina) with a lot of grog and packing chips for insulation 'voids'. With charcoal it went to good brass temps. I don't recommend it though, why struggle. As for KOR and POP...... we all know the answer to that
If the lids to those plastic buckets seal decently, they might work well for keeping water-based green-sand in a ready-to-use state.
I keep my greensand in a couple of them and it does seem to work pretty well for that, but moreso it keeps all the other random crap out of my sand (and vice versa). They make do when you have too many things to do in too small of a space. If I get any more greesand though I'll probably get a larger container.
