Ok, Lead and Pewter seem obvious. Are there
other common or popular metals with low enough
melting temps that could be used for art etc?
---
-David dad...@cray.com
--
-David dad...@cray.com
Yes, you can melt just about Anything in a Gingery type furnace.
I built one a couple of years ago. I started out using a 1 pint cast iron pot
for a crucible. I was hard to handle--it settled into the burning charcoal
and was hard to fish out. I then went to a stanless steel can, tall and skinny.
I melted the side out of it and my charge of Al ran out the blower input hole
and all over my work table--wood coverd with a sheet of galvinized sheet metal.
Exciting.
I decided that charcoal was too messy. So I rigged up a propane conversion for
the Gingery 5 Gallon carcoal furnace as follows:
Keep the original 5 gal can and lining.
keep the original tube, that in the carcoal furnace, supplies air.
Blow in an air-propane mix.
Woooof, you have a propane furnace.
In my case I was using a blower fan where the fan impeller was isolated from
the blower motor, thus no danger of the air propane igniting in the blower.
If you don't have such a blower, you will have to build one like in Gingery's
book on gas furnaces.
This propane furnace will melt whatever you want also...
So I graduated to a propane furnace and 4 inch Diameter by about 9 inch steel
pipe curcible. I spend all morning carefuly packing my carefuly consturcted
Gingery lathe bed pattern in Petro-Bond type sand--I had previously cast the
lathe bed ends with the charcoal setup. I move the all the paraphnalia out
to my drive way--well away from the house. Fire up the new Propane furnace,
put in the crucible and start tossing in chunks of scrap Al. All is well--cars
are driving by slowly, strange expressions on peoples faces, this is great.
The crucible is about full now, so I get out my Stanless steell slotted spoon to
stur the liquid metal and remove the dross from the top. I pull the spoon out
and...It is gone.. I am left holding the handle. Too Hot, Quik, Shut off the
Propane, shutoff the fan. Too late. The level of liquid metal in the curcible is
dropping. The galvinized steel tube from the blower to furnace is drooping.
The smell Zinc vapor is in the air. Liquid metal pours into the fan, Out onto the
driveway. Snapping and popping sounds are heard as the water traped in the
pavement turns to steam. As this is happening a visitor drives up and asks me
and my helper, "What you guys doing ?"
I through the whole mess in the trash, furnace and all.
I bought 2 silicon carbide crucibles--Melt proof.
I am now working on the gas furnace as described in Gingery's
"how to build a gas curcible furnace" book.
I kept the Al filled blower as a souvenir.
Have Fun.
Be careful.
George Redinger
Campbell Scientific, Inc.
1800 North 815 West
Logan,Utah
84321
(801) 753-2342
geo...@cc.usu.edu
Q1: If you are melting down aluminum cans
do you keep opening up the furnace to
add more cans as they melt down?
Q2: How much charcol did it take to melt
your crucible full of aluminum? How
much time did it take?
Q3: (Just for general knowledge sake--looking
forward to the day I can graduate to
gas) How much propane was used to
melt a similar amount of aluminum?
Will a 20 lb cilinder do? For how
many runs or meltings will one 20
lb cilinder last?
Also since you have the book on building the gas furnace,
can you give any encouragement as to the difficulty or
ease of the project? Does it involve working with
asbestos? What special tools or materials are required?
OH, also, as you mention that you bought 2 silicon
carbide crucibles-- can you recomend a source for
these? When you get a chance to use them please
let us know how well they work and how easy they
are to handle.
Boy, I thought making my own haben~ero sauce was being hot headed!
>
> So I graduated to a propane furnace and 4 inch Diameter by about 9 inch steel
> pipe curcible. I spend all morning carefuly packing my carefuly consturcted
> Gingery lathe bed pattern in Petro-Bond type sand--I had previously cast the
> lathe bed ends with the charcoal setup. I move the all the paraphnalia out
> to my drive way--well away from the house. Fire up the new Propane furnace,
> put in the crucible and start tossing in chunks of scrap Al. All is well--cars
> are driving by slowly, strange expressions on peoples faces, this is great.
> The crucible is about full now, so I get out my Stanless steell slotted spoon to
> stur the liquid metal and remove the dross from the top. I pull the spoon out
> and...It is gone.. I am left holding the handle. Too Hot, Quik, Shut off the
> Propane, shutoff the fan. Too late. The level of liquid metal in the curcible is
> dropping. The galvinized steel tube from the blower to furnace is drooping.
> The smell Zinc vapor is in the air. Liquid metal pours into the fan, Out onto the
> driveway. Snapping and popping sounds are heard as the water traped in the
> pavement turns to steam. As this is happening a visitor drives up and asks me
> and my helper, "What you guys doing ?"
>
> I through the whole mess in the trash, furnace and all.
>
Sorry, but I was ROTFL. Thanks for the great story, and the
warnings about what not to do as well.
BTW, Plese keep us (well me anyway) updated on how well
the new gas furnace works. I suspect at least somebody
else will want to know how things work out.
Dave Gingery suggests strongly that one learn to use the
charcol foundry to melt aluminum before graduating to
the gas furnace and hot metals like brass and cast iron,
so that is where I think I will start.
I suppose Dave Gingery is suggesting that I cannot melt
brass in the simple furnace because he is assuming I
do not have a fancy blower like you did.
-Kurt
George, I'm a part time tinsmith and just started reading this topic a
couple of days ago to see if there was anything of interest to me. I
gotta say your post had me ROFL!! I've had numerous failures at
various things but nothing quite so spectacular as yours!<G>
Holland McPeake
North Carolina
Using a Gingery-sized furnace, a shop vac exhaust for the blast, and a
approx 6" dia x 4" deep plumber's pot as a crucible, it takes about 30
minutes to reach pouring temp for aluminum (around 1350-1400 F by my pyrometer).Subsequent melts go faster since the furnace is already hot. A 5 lb bag of
charcoal lasts about 3 melts. The plumber's pot is cast iron, is used in the
trade to melt lead, and was found in a local hardware store (Orchard Supply,
for any SF Bay-area folk who are reading).
I could not melt silicon bronze using the shop vac for draft and substituting
a #6 carbide crucible for the plumber's pot. I think the draft was somewhat
anemic. Also, the crucible took up more slace than the pot, so the fuel charge
was less.
Regarding cans as a source of metal - I don't do this because I'm afraid that
residual liquid in the cans will cause a steam explosion when heated suddenly,
eg if dropped in a crucible with already melted metal. I also heard a rumor -
reliability unknown - that the metal used for cans is close to pure Al and
does make the best castings. My favorite Al scrap is cylinder heads and pistons.
Someone with a Mt. View, CA address (Kurt?) mentioned Petrobond. This is
great stuff - it is a very fine sand with a petroleum binder. It comes
ready to use so that novice foundrymen like me don't have to worry about
tempering sand properly. It also produces very fine detail in the castings -
all the scratches, gouges, and other boo-boos in the pattern will be preserved
for eternity in the castings. Main drawback is cost - I think I paid around
$40 or $50 for a 100 lb barrel a couple years back. A Bay-area source is
Industrial and Foundry Supply in San Leandro, CA.
I just re-read the paragraph I wrote about cans as scrap - I meant to say
that cans do NOT make the best castings. Can't figure out how to make
this $%#@&* editor back up.
I just purchased a blower unit from Pyramid Supply - it is much more
potent than the shop vac. I plan to use it in a propane furnace which is
under design now, so I paying close attention to this thread.
Regards - Tom
Industrial and Foundry Supply in San Leandro, CA.
>Not sure what a Gingery project is, ...
<story deleted>
If I understand correctly, Dave Gingery has published a series of
plans/articles/books on making your own <you-name-it> from scratch.
He starts out showing how to make your own forge, then use it to
melt aluminum then use the castings to make a lathe. From there
I believe he goes on to things like milling machines and accessories.
This is a lot of work. It makes a nice set of projects for those
who have lots of time, and either no money or intense curiosity as
to how much you can do starting with heat and scrap metal.
Jim
Do they have a catalog or phone #?
Dave Gingery has another book about building an electrical
cooker.
I wondered about how much juice it would require and whether
I would be able to handle the requirements? How many
amps would it take? Is it 220v?
>---
> -David dad...@cray.com
>--
> -David dad...@cray.com
Lead, Pewter, the whole range of aluminum alloys, zinc, and given
enough time with a small enough load, brass. Normally my melts
test at 1650F. I can probably get it higher with a bigger blower and
more charcoal or going to coke to stoke the furnace. I don't know
enough about brass and bronze to want to cast anything large yet. I
can do a lot of little things lost wax with a good torch.
--
- Barry Workman
>---
> -David dad...@cray.com
>--
> -David dad...@cray.com
*chuckle*
The Gingery charcoal furnace can be built in a day and you can
start pouring on a week-end. It is quick and easy to do. The way
to cast metal on Sunday is to start Friday evening. Mix up your
refractory lining mix to about the consistancy of peanut butter. Never
mind what Dave says about quarts of water to pounds of sand -- it's
all regonal. Pack your lid and put it in the oven and go to bed. In
the morning take the refractory mix that you have stored overnight with
a plastic covering outside and pack up the furnace. Let it stand for a few
hours. It should feel dryish to the touch and not deform much when you press
it with your finger. Build a small charcoal fire in the bottom. When you
have good coals there, add more. When they're going well, add more until
the whole furnace is full. Cover the furnace with your cured lid, add your
air and let the thing blast until all the charcoal is gone. (This part can
be spectacular at night, I had the local police 'copter checking things out
for a while.) remove your air supply and block the holes with bricks and go
to bed. In the morning clean everything out and melt metal.
--
- Barry Workman
>>In article 941229...@sailing.ftp.com, j...@ftp.com (Jay Stryker) writes:
>>> My first foundry work was before his series; I build up a similar
>>> furnace, but tried to use cannel coal which turns out is mostly ash.
>>> Then I tried charcoal and but later went to soft coal. I got my
>>> crucibles, flux, etc., from Malcom Stevens in Arlington, Mass.
>> ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>>
>>Do they have a catalog or phone #?
Yes 617-648-4112. Ask for a line card. They have crucilbes from 0000
through the usual 2,4,6,8, etc up to "huge". Lots of other supplies.
Cheers
A friend of mine used to commercially cast bullets, something in the
range of 3-4 tons of lead per month. He once had an ingot of wet lead
hit the pot and the resulting steam explosion spattered about 300 pounds
of lead over the room.
He's a gunsmith now.
--
Russ Kepler posting from home ru...@bbxrbk.basis.com
Please don't feed the Engineers
>Oh, a couple of more questions, since you built the
>Al foundry:
>Q1: If you are melting down aluminum cans
> do you keep opening up the furnace to
> add more cans as they melt down?
Aluminum cans are plastic coated inside and out and the things
put noxious black smoke out. Yes, you can fill the crucible with
some, open the furnace and add more. Decent aluminum scrap is
fairly easy to get, though. Ever seen a crushed ladder on the freeway?
Why didn't you stop and pick it up? That's good melting stuff! Old
screen doors, beach chairs, pato furnature, hard disk and floppy drives.
These are all good sources of better aluminum scrap than old cans.
>Q2: How much charcol did it take to melt
> your crucible full of aluminum? How
> much time did it take?
I used about 80 lbs of charcoal to cast the parts for two lathes.
This includes several bad pours and various other castings, too.
I use a 1 quart cast iron pot for a crucible. From start to pour
it takes me about 20 min. There were times when I had to recharge
the charcoal in the furnace because the molding wasn't going as
quickly as I anticipated.
>Q3: (Just for general knowledge sake--looking
> forward to the day I can graduate to
> gas) How much propane was used to
> melt a similar amount of aluminum?
> Will a 20 lb cilinder do? For how
> many runs or meltings will one 20
> lb cilinder last?
>Also since you have the book on building the gas furnace,
>can you give any encouragement as to the difficulty or
>ease of the project? Does it involve working with
>asbestos? What special tools or materials are required?
>OH, also, as you mention that you bought 2 silicon
>carbide crucibles-- can you recomend a source for
>these? When you get a chance to use them please
>let us know how well they work and how easy they
>are to handle.
Most foundry supply houses carry silicon carbide crucibles.
These things are costly and break if improperly handled. You want
to get both the lifting tongs and the pouring tongs for each crucible
size you buy. The lifting tongs are curved to fit the top of the
crucible without crushing it. The pouring ring is a ring with a handle
designed to hold the crucible.
With my old cast iron pot, I had a steel bale that I could hook out of
the furnace and then the pot had three legs so I could grab them with
pliars to pour the metal.
>Boy, I thought making my own haben~ero sauce was being hot headed!
But you can't eat the aluminum as easily. <^-^>
>---
> -David dad...@cray.com
>--
> -David dad...@cray.com
--
- Barry Workman
Commercial foundries use pneumatic hammers -- like jackhammers -- to pack
their molds. They can set these things to accomodate the sand mix they are
using. Petrobond claims 20 lbs is not too much.
--
- Barry Workman
>Jack Schmidling states/asks:
>Jim
The Gingery books now total about 10
1 The Charcoal Foundry
2 Building a Lathe from scrap
3 Building a Shaper
4 Building a Drillpress
5 Building a Horizontal Mill
6 Building the Delux Accessories
7 Building the Sheetmetal Brake
also
The Gas Fired Foundry
The Electric Foundry
Working Sheetmetal
By his son Vince:
Building the Power Hacksaw
Building the Slip Roller.
All of the books are good basic techniques on how to build very
precise and useful machines. The limitation is that all of the
machine tools are designed around the charcoal foundry with a
1 quart capacity crucible.
--
- Barry Workman
> I picked up on this thread last week - having never heard of Dave Gingery.
> I can't wait to melt some stuff.
> Lets see, I think the wife's car has aluminum wheels...
If you think the explosion described by an earlier poster
was bad, just wait... :-)
-- Alan E. Frisbie Fri...@Flying-Disk.Com
-- Flying Disk Systems, Inc.
-- 4759 Round Top Drive (213) 256-2575 (voice)
-- Los Angeles, CA 90065 (213) 258-3585 (FAX)
>Hi all,
>I picked up on this thread last week - having never heard of Dave Gingery. I
>ordered the Charcoal Foundery book last week. It came in the mail yesterday,
>and I read it cover-to-cover.
>I can't wait to melt some stuff. Lets see, I think the wife's car has aluminum
>wheels...
The engine! Don't forget the engine and the pistons and the ladders and
the screen doors and...
--
- Barry Workman