I think a UK source for investment plaster that has been formulated for metal casting has been linked in your intro post. If you start with that and follow the manufacturer's mixing and burnout instructions, you still might have trouble getting the results you want using pure copper, maybe a lot of trouble... but I think you would be greatly reducing the number of reasons it might fail. There was a guy who posted on the alloyavenue forums about a really nice pure copper casting he made. Rasper's homemade plaster based investment recipe and processes are there too for that matter, but sadly the site is down. I made a video that is mostly about how I built one of my melting furnaces, but also showing the casting of a pure copper cylinder for reasons that sound like science fiction using a mold made by a fairly inexperienced foundryman partly out of greensand and partly out of a homemade investment mixture of plaster and sand. How's that for a relevant example? The plaster was baked completely "dry" in an ordinary oven... but still not successfully burned out enough to remove all of the chemically bound water, so the mold bubbled and boiled quite alarmingly for a long time. This does not make for a sound casting. The argon condenser from the video did somehow end up working in the end, which surprised me a little bit to hear, but it must have looked like swiss cheese on the inside, and it most certainly wasn't something anyone would ever describe as a successful attempt at avoiding having to get a part machined... Good luck, Jeff
£1000 per 1 item plus work is way out of anything I can afford to pay. You all say to get it machined. But I said already several times that none of the local machine shops would deal with me I will have a look if Ebay has that type of investment plaster on sale Thank you for your reply
Have you checked over at practialmachinist.com or hobby-machinist.com? Plenty of folks from all over the world (kinda like here) looking to make a dollar, but I think casting is probably a poor choice here. Edit: If you want it cheap, give some explanation of what you're trying to do and get someone interested in helping; having an interest in seeing the completed project can be a motivator for many.
The four main metals used for electrical work are silver, copper, gold and aluminium in order of conductivity. Obviously gold and silver are too expensive despite having desirable casting properties. Copper when melted will absorb air and the conductivity drops to 80% or so of oxygen free copper, which is why it get mentioned a lot in advertising of hi-fi cables. Aluminium is going to be the easiest to melt cast and would have the highest chance of success, that said it's also going to be the cheapest to buy a piece of 120mm pipe 5-6mm thick. Your best bet is to make friends with the nearest metal scrapyard as there will be all kinds of suitable pieces of pipe coming through their doors. It looks like the part is a low inductance, very high voltage capacitor which you could also make with some thick walled orange PVC pipe lined inside and out with several layers of aluminium foil. This is what the radio hobbyists use to make their high voltage capacitors for transmitters. Orange electrical PVC pipe is a very good insulator at radio frequencies and you can test plastics for high frequency use by microwaving a sample in an oven to see if it gets hot (with a cup of water too as a dummy load).
I will tell tell you what those things are needed for. Copper cylinders are to make a special resonator that resonates High-Voltage EMF from a high-voltage DC Spark gap. I did not embarked on this for no reason. My friend tested another version that uses 2 solid copper rods and a capacitor made Copper and glass. It have had the results. More then we could ever dream off. Exactly the same set-up, but using Steel rods instead gives absolutely nothing or next to nothing. Brass rods also give next to nothing. It seems that Copper is essential for this to work. Aluminum wasn't tried ========================================== Further more I need to at last try to make concave Aluminum dishes. Dishes must be specific angle. I have searched about making dishes using a Die, but it comes back to the same metal-working shops who don't want to even hear anything. ========================================== hobby-machinist.com this site I tried last year when I was searching for the metal-working shop. They asked me about my machining experience and size of my work shop. You know. The usual thinfs. I honestly said as it is. No experience and no workshop that I am looking for some paid help. So, I was told in not so many words where to go. That their site is only for serious people who don't fool around. The other site suggested I never seen before =================================== Aluminum scrap is not a problem. It is relatively cheap on eBay. Copper scrap more costly, but still no where near the prices I was quoted for finished items.
I research concepts called Free Energy, Over-Unity and also Anti-Gravity. For most people this goes against accepted rules of physics and majority don't want to hear or if they hear they just laught. From tests on solid Copper rods we have gotten a result that violates Law for preservation of energy. It is area of what people call Cold Charge or Cold Power. This also goes completely against law of physics which states any kind of power must only be ''hot'' Hot in a way that electricity is hot and dangerous. Result from that experiment is this. I will put it very simply. When you plug kettle into mains your water boils and you make tea If you plug your kettle into output of that capacitors, your water would most likely freeze solid and your kettle would be toast
Sirgei, I have personally built several spark gap resonators over the years and PVC/aluminium works perfectly fine for the capacitor of a parallel LC spark gap switched resonator circuit. Spark gap switched resonant RF oscillators form the basis of older TIG welder arc stabilizer circuits and are pretty rugged too. Cold power or "different electrons" is usually used by people to explain away the fact that they are getting faulty readings from cheap, non RMS reading multimeters and why their power device can't show any significant power when connected to a heating element based calorimeter. This is the sort of stuff used to wind up first year electrical engineering students: I once built a voltage converter circuit that would measure 140% efficiency with a digital meter, when the output was rectified and smoothed the efficiency went to a more reasonable 70%. Anyway I wish you well with your project but I won't be helping any further.
You have given what people in my field of research call a ''classical example of common skepticism'' Which is perfectly fine. Don't get me wrong here I am perfectly fine with skepticism I was told almost exactly the same thing by the metal shop. Actually, he said he is helping me by refusing to make it to save me the bother and money as ''this doesn't work and never will'' Thank you for Your help so far. Result of the experiment is not in the power gain. The power gain wasn't even measured. The result that is visible is in the temperature difference on the surface of capacitor. It goes below zero. Far below zero and can be felt in the room. Cylinders are needed to upgrade it and make it compatct
I said you'd be looking at £1000 in materials to get a billet of a suitable size, most of which would end up as swarf. Can I suggest you get a plan together for a furnace capable of copper and work from there, then you will know what you are dealing with. Beyond that I'm out of any advice I can give you. Good luck
Funny you say that Peedee. I am in need of a 1.5" tube in bronze. The stuff is stupid money, so I'm just going to cast in lost wax something close and spin it on the lathe. Easy peasy and I can minimize the pile of money I'll leave in the tray.
You're venturing into the zero point energy field? Can you give more of an explanation or pictures of your experiment?
You said I was going to the zero point energy. When I explained it a bit, other user Mark's Castings said basically it is all crap. And he left the conversation. I am used to that and I am not surprised. He said he built spark gaps and that did this that. What we got had went far, far from anything he possibly could of build. I have friend in Russia who is running the experiment. He already spent a lot of his money on it. The next stage is up-to me. If I come up with the cylinders then it can continue if not it will stop where it is now. There is another option - spheres. Perhaps instead of cylinders I will try to cast spheres. Spheres are the size of football. 1 is the size of it exactly another by 30mm bigger or smaller. We started with Tesla Hair Pin Circuit. And now need to upgrade it to the level of Edwin Gray Blast Tube. If you know about zero point energy concept, then you should know about who edwin gray was. I can't give you picture without his permission. I will ask it tho when I see him. Here is an explanation: 2 solid copper rods. 10mm wide and 120cm long are set in the base of wood 60 to 90cm from each other. On the base of each rod, a high K capacitor is attached. Each capacitor has rating of 20kilovolts Spark gap is made from 2 copper rods 10mm wide. Those rods have silver contacts. Made from 99.99 pure Silver Spark gap is fired using car battery and car ignition coil. At first, neon transformer was used. Then it was converted to A DC input. Output is collected from the 2 rods. Output goes into a capacitor made of square glass sheets and copper disks. When it runs - it runs on very little power a few watss only. Magnet is also used to shunt the spark gap. But shunting is not complete yet. I need to cast a casing for better shunter from Brass. But that gona be far easier When output goes to the capacitor - it accumulates a charge. As charge accumulates - temperature drops. Temperature on the capacitors drops. Drop can be recorded visibly and physically felt. Capacitor has been placed into thermal shielding - like a fridge. Other wise the room the device is in can be come as gold as Norh Pole during winter. Or colder. Minimal temperature it can go to is -300c So far it dropped to as low as -60c and stays here until capacitor is discharged Copper cylinders or spheres would change it's design. Making it far far more powerful and also compact I was just refused yet again on the machine shop that another member had suggested. I am not rich myself. I don't have thousands to put into 2 copper chunks. Yes, I understand that chances of success are very low, but IF I stop now - 2 years of work down a drain. We got a chance to recover this technology and restart it where it was left of - I can't stop just yet.
Thank you very much for the site. If all else fails this gonna be the answer. However, I still to set up smelting for Aluminium things I can't just buy anywhere
Have question about melting wax out of mold. Would you please say how do you melt your wax out of the mold? I did a small test today using a pan and it had sort of exploded. Not damaged anything but wasn't pleasant. I set hot plate at Medium temperature and just placed a piece of candle into pan. It stared melting but then it sort of exploded. So if you would please suggest how to avoid that? Thank you in advance
You are using candle wax, paraffin wax with direct heat from a hot plate? Stop now before you burn down your council house. At best a bain marie is a solution.
don't worry, there will be lots of sceptics along the road you are travelling. The reason, most often it is not scalable, or cannot be reproduced in a vacuum chamber. I would love to see video of your results.
I don't have vacuum chamber Don't have video. I asked my friend whith whom we are collaborating and he declined I can't give it without his permission. We plan to publish results later this year on open source But he don't want to share unfinished one yet
