"Snag" wrote in message
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Existential Angst wrote:
"Snag" wrote in message
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Existential Angst wrote:
"Winston" wrote in message
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On 5/4/2010 6:52 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
Today I decided I needed a short piece of aluminum tube to modify
a prototype... I didn't have any so I made a piece. Geez.


Watch the criticism Bob.
We'll have you in the back yard digging for bauxite.

My junk-collecting dumpster-diving buddy wants me to hook up a
smelter in my shop.... goodgawd.....
--
EA

I've got a foundry furnace built in a 5 gallon steel bucket .
Wheels , radiators , extruded stock , cylinder heads , nothing is
safe from melting but cans . Too much work for too little material .

What do you then do with your melted/smelted stuff??? Forge it??

Well , some of it becomes tooling , like the adapter for my chucks to
mount onto the rotary table . Some becomes flask parts for sand molds .
Some will become decorative trays if I ever get the venting right .

And, couldn't you just crush the cans first (in an automated
hydraulic 80 ton press, of course), and drop them in with the heavier
stuff?

Problem is the coatings and contaminants also contribute to the dross .
Not very good stock for machining either , it's almost pure and is very
gummy to cut .

What happens if you melt, say, alum, brass, and steel together?

Aluminum and brass will melt together , forms an alloy (depending on the
base stock) that can be impossible to machine with the tooling I have .
Ain't gonna try to get to steel/iron heat until/unless I get a real
crucible .

Sound really neat. Mebbe I WILL get a little foundry thing going!!!

--
EA
I've got around a hundred bucks into the equipment . I've already
recouped that investment from stuff I've cast . The bucket furnace is a
modified Gingery design , the burner I'm using is a naturally aspirated
Reil type with minor mods for better gas flow . Biggest expense is an
adjustable regulator , I was lucky enough to receive one as a gift .
Good sand (crushed olivine , for example) is a little pricey , but
playground sand that's been sieved to get the bigger chunks out works
fairly well to get started .

When I took mickey-mouse metalworking shop eons ago, they had a little
18"x18"x18" bricklined gas-fired furnace, I think for heat treating or
sumpn.
It used a blower, which was deafening, even tho it wasn't that big -- mebbe
a 4-6" diam blower (tops) -- musta had hellified cfm's. With natural gas.

I seem to recall the instructor talking about how the air/gas mixture made
this thing blisteringly hot, much hotter than a regular gas oven.

How much hotter, I wonder?
Do you use a setup like this?

Would an oxyacetylene setup make sense, be at all economical for run of the
mill smelting? Or good only for special projects?
--
EA




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Snag
"90 FLHTCU "Strider"
'39 WLDD "PopCycle"
BS 132/SENS/DOF