"Diane" wrote in
message roups.com...
replying to Jim Wilkins , Diane wrote:
muratlanne wrote:

"Diane" wrote
in message
roups.com... Pure
aluminum melts at 660C, alloys have lower melting points.
http://www.calphalon.com/Pages/Simply-Ceramic.aspx -jsw


Thanks, I will just do some tests in with some glass firings, I
don't
quite understand what the other posts are talking about but as an
artist I
tend to just try things out, I just wondered if there were any fumes
or
gases given off that could cause problems. I have done some
enamelling
onto steel and it worked fine .

Some metals do emit fumes when hot, like lead, zinc and cadmium
(plating), but AFAIK there are no special precautions when welding
aluminum other than avoiding fluoride fumes from the flux on stick
electrodes.

Pure aluminum may be too soft and flexible for you. The commonly
available strong and stiff alloy 6061 begins to melt around 580C.
Aluminum expands and contracts about twice as much as steel with
temperature changes.

rec.crafts.metalworking may not be a good source for artistic
metalworking, we are more about machinery and politics. They may have
confused you with a political spammer.

Perhaps Calphalon or another company that bonds ceramics to aluminum
industrially could help with low-melting ceramics and surface
pretreatment requirements. I've never found any useful information on
tricky chemistries from artistic sources.

-jsw