Skimmer type and material

I've tried several different things for skimmers but nothing has stood out as superior yet. What do y'all use and what's it made of?

 

1/4 inch steel plate and a piece of rebar for a handle


V/r HT1

 

And if welding isn't among your skill set?

 

It's not a big job especially you do all of the prep, canvas your friends, chances are at least one of them welds or at the very least know someone that can.

 

You could always rivet it. No special material for riveting needed. Just a piece of, say, 1/4” soft steel round bar, a 1/4 drill bit and a hammer. Clamp the rebar and flat bar together. Drill two holes. Cut two pieces of 1/4 round about 1/4” longer than the hole length. Place one piece in a hole and back up the rivet with a heavy piece of steel and start tapping around the rim of the pin. (I often use a sledge head held in a vise for backup) Turn the assembly over and do the same. Now alternately start tapping more firmly around the pin to mushroom it nicely on both sides. Maybe a couple firm finishing strikes and you are done. A well-peeled rivet is mighty strong—-countless skyscrapers, bridges and airplanes are assembled with them. Peening them is pretty easy. The rivet body swells some to completely fill the hole and the heads clamp the pieces together. Not bad! And, in my opinion, they are also visually attractive if done in a workman-like fashion.

Bolts would also work but are not as clean in that the head and nut tend to protrude a lot and snag on things etc.

Denis

Here’s a video of a guy taking a long time( three times longer than necessary) but doing it pretty much right. Skip the hand drilling and hacksaw stuff. About midway he starts heading the rivet. He strikes it countless times 10 or 20 strikes on each side should do it. To each their own I guess.

 

A dollar store stainless steel spoon that is quickly replaceable inside a thin walled SS pipe. It’s around 3 feet long and I just grind the handle to fit and then squeeze it again in the vise.

 

Skimmers are for skimming the surface of the melt, correct? I think I've seen this done, but am getting this particular tool confused with what's used to clean out the crucible after a casting session.

A skimmer is shaped a bit like a (garden) hoe, correct? It's somewhat proportionate to the size of the crucible, i.e. big A20 pot wants a larger one, and an A4 a small(er) one?

 

Hose clamps (screw type). Large stainless spoon, clamp the handle to a long rod/tube, bend the spoon to suit, hammer the dishing flatter if you prefer but it works for me.

Rough but it works and only takes a few minutes to put together.

 

Miles, you would find welding is a skill that you can take with you for a lifetime. I'd be broke if I sent everything I've welded out to a shop.
You can learn to do decent mig welds in about an hour on a cheap harbor fart machine.

If ya need to make passable metal connections like this one... a cheap bottle of map gas from the HD and some brazing rod will get you really far.
If you've never brazed something, it's kinda like gluing metal together. Great for thin stuff.

 

That’s about how I’d imagine my wife would have riveted.

 

Dennis, I have a sorta rounded piece of flat steel stuck on some rebar at an angle. It allows me to remove any floaty stuff off the top of the melt and scrape the crucible clean after the pour. You always melt more metal than you need and pig out the rest into an ingot. Crucibles like to be run 3/4 full. A pooper scooper doesnt have to be fancy, sometimes you'll scoop while the crucible is still in the furnace, so stick it on a 3ft long stick with a handle. lol.

 

Thanks. At this time, I'm leaning toward either getting a piece of hot-rolled square or round 1018/a36 steel and forging it out into a paddle at one end, and then bending it over a roughly a 45 /_ angle - or, failing the availability of a forge, ordering a few heavy stainless fender washers (1/8 inch thick!) and a suitable stainless rod. The washers will need to be milled to permit a roughly 45 /_ degree insertion of the rod. 30 seconds of Tig will give a dross-scraper - oh, and a hang-loop for the other end, too.

Could investigate Clackamas Steel's stainless area, too. Need to go down there soon anyway. They have aluminum and copper alloys too...

 

No need for fancy here, this tool is a throw away. My rebar stick gets a little shorter every year as I tig on a new piece of steel from time to time.

 

I would need to buy Rebar if I used it, same as most other supplies - and if I must pay the going rate, I'd prefer something that will function well.

Perhaps put kiln-wash on the scraper? As long as I must do foundry elsewhere, I'm going to do well to have a session a month!

 

Soot works well, is cheap, and available.
A 3/16” blade will last for maybe 50 sessions.
Often you will have to strike the blade with a 2-pound hammer to flake off residual slag.

Denis

 

Here are a few skimmers I use. It’s nice to have a variety. The goose-necked one is nice for initial heavy slag removal. It’s bent neck allows you to your hands down and out of direct radiant heat and also lift big globs of slag. The little moon-shaped one is for final skimming The heat shielding is a nice add-on to slip over a handle and protect your hand from radiant heat.



And sort of related o have made two tongs from repurposed plies. They work well.



Denis

 

I might have learned of the idea from you.

Denis

 

How thick, and of what material, is that heat shield?

Secondly - the "backwards pliers" - any make preferred, beyond "cheaper is likely to be less problematic for welding?"

Come to think of it, I think I once did some bullet-casting tongs in a vaguely-similar fashion. I will need tongs. I do recall that.

 

The heat shield (not suitable for re-entry!) is made of 1/8" aluminum pop-riveted to a 1/8x1 steel bar. On hand grabs both the shield bar and the skimmer shank. Makes for a lot less rock-hard smoking gloves!

For the tongs I used a beat up pair of vintage Channel-Locks that were made from pretty good steel. They were massive enough and got heated to a bright cherry near the welds. So they cooled moderately slowly. Brittleness has not been an issue. A better welder might have gotten out his O/A torch and post-weld heated more of the plier portion to reduce further HAZ worries. I was pretty careful to deeply grind the junction so that I started adding filler from the center of the bars and plier jaws. Not usually so careful on a simple join, but I did not want this one to fail.

Denis