Refractory coating

Greetings all! I just got my first melting furnace and I’m excited to start this cool new hobby.

The furnace I got is from a place called simond store. I mixed up the refractory coating according to the directions but it seemed like it lacked thickness. I applied it anyway yesterday. The insulation in the furnace is crispy but still kind of soft and have plenty of give to it.

How solid is the insulation supposed to be after applying the coating?

 

I see the sell refers to “rigidizer” in the ad on eBay. Most likely that is the applied coating. It can only be expected to make the surface a bit firm or crispy. If you read over various furnace build threads you will see reference to a coating called Satanite that imparts a firmer coating and is good for aluminum, brass, and bronze furnace interiors.

Denis

 

Have you fired it yet? The Heat Guard looks more like Satanite. You don't have to mix rigidizer. You do have to mix the other products. After firing it will become more rigid. Satanite goes on thin and fires to a very hard durable finish.

Ceramic fiber which has been fired becomes very brittle. The fine glass fibers which will float in the air if you touch a fired ceramic fiber coating are hazardous and are treated like asbestos in industry.

You need a coating to avoid releasing the fibers into the air. Also, avoid touching the ceramic fiber with a tool or crucible to avoid both damage to the coating and release of airborne fibers. Rigidizer and Satanite and products like Satanite do a great job of protecting the surface of the blanket from releasing fibers. Below that protected surface are millions of brittle dangerous glass fibers which are not protected if the protective layer is broken.

Should you decide to replace the blanket in the future do that outside wearing gloves and a respirator. If you do it inside you will contaminate the space with the fibers and will create a hazardous atmosphere. This includes later when you sweep the floor and stir them up. Doing it outside you can wash down the area to flush the fiber away. Once they are wet they will not longer pose a hazard to your lungs. Immediately double bag the used fiber and wash yourself and your clothing. Just like asbestos, don't smoke or eat while you may be contaminated. Blowing out a "clean" furnace with an air nozzle is also a very risky activity.

Ceramic fiber is a great product and makes a low mass, well insulated furnace which will heat quickly. Just recognize the dangers which are not so obvious.

 

Concerning the dangers associated with ceramic fiber. There has been a long-held "concern" that ceramic fibers may be cancer causing or may cause respiratory harm. I suspect much of this concern is a carry-over from the well established carcinogenic effects of high intensity exposure to some forms of asbestos. Perhaps by reading the abstracts of the following papers may give a background against which users can decide on their own level risk aversion.

The bottom line is that in industrial users there has been no link yet found in humans in real-world exposure to ceramic fiber as opposed to animal studies involving extremely high exposures. There has been a link in industrial users to chronic cough and decrease in lung function. There is suspicion that the fibers could be cancer causing in industrial exposures. And I think it is good to remember, for comparison, that alcohol which is widely used by the general population is a registered and confirmed carcinogen.

My take is that for home foundry folks there is minimal risk of adverse outcomes in the sort of exposure which we are likely to experience. Yes, avoid high level prolonged exposure in enclosed areas. But, otherwise just be reasonably careful. There are other things we do in everyday life that are far more risky.:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1128261/


https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2006...s who manufacture,wheezing, and chronic cough).
Studies of workers who manufacture RCFs have shown a positive association between increased exposure to RCFs and the development of pleural plaques, skin and eye irritation, and respiratory symptoms and conditions (including dyspnea, wheezing, and chronic cough). In addition, current and former RCF production workers have shown decrements in pulmonary function.

https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/ceramicfibers.pdf

Regarding alcohol:
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/diet-physical-activity/alcohol-use-and-cancer.html
"Alcohol use is one of the most important preventable risk factors for cancer, along with tobacco use and excess body weight. Alcohol use accounts for about 6% of all cancers and 4% of all cancer deaths in the United States. Yet many people don’t know about the link between alcohol use and cancer."

Denis

 

Here’s the furnace with the coating applied and the paperwork that came with it. Sorry it’s bit smudged. That’s how it came. Unfortunately I can’t find the bottle that the powder was in, I must have thrown it away. No, I haven’t fired it up yet. I wanted to make sure I don’t need to add some more coating.

 

Based on its composition, the coating is not Satanite.
Here is the MSDS on Satanite.

Added later (oopsies) file:///C:/Users/denis/Downloads/449C-SATANITE%20(E)_(UK).PDF

The coating you have has a lot of zirconium oxide—-that should be an effective hot face material. Will it be better or worse than Satanite. Who knows? If the coating were Satanite, I’d say what you have looks good to go.

Denis

 

I'm not seeing the attachments for the last two posts, not pic of the coated furnace or the MSDS for Satanite.

 

That MIGHT be because I neglected to paste in the link to the MSDS---classic mistake for me. I went back and fixed it. Sorry.

The images referred to are the ones in post 8 above.

Denis

 

I see the pictures in post #8.

Obviously a different coating. The thing I like best about Satanite is you can fire it as soon as it dries out, a half hour or so.

 

That's the one thing I dont like about satanite. There is still a lot of give to the walls of my glass furnace. The stuff isn't truly hard, but it works so I guess it's okay.
Given the choice, I still prefer mizzou.

 

In fact, I am not sure waiting for it to dry does much over immediate firing. Back when I was running a wool/Satanite furnace for iron I often made spot repairs to flaking areas, hit those areas with a weed burner to fuse the Satanite, and fired immediately. Those repairs seemed to do just as well as areas I more studiously dried out prior to firing. FWIW.

Denis

 

You get by with putting a thin layer of mizzou over blanket?

 

Of course not. Call it what it is, satanite is a cheap refractory coating good for locking in kaowool. It's not a hard coating which was the original question back at the top that wasn't answered by any of you.

"The insulation in the furnace is crispy but still kind of soft and have plenty of give to it. How solid is the insulation supposed to be after applying the coating?"

 

Since the nature of the coating and the brand name is unknown, I suppose most of us were unable to say how rigid the OP’s surface should be. It is not Satanite, that we know. How rigid should it be?

Denis

 

Does it really matter? It's covering soft kaowool and I bet it will need maintenance anyways. If you wanna do this once and never screw with it, you don't use any kind stuff you paint on.

 

https://simondstore.com/simond-stor...-for-melting-aluminum-gold-silver-copper.html

Here’s a link to the exact kit I bought.