Foundry Project Page 25

Ahhh this is easy, now I'm getting the hang of it!

Finishing up my last few drops of my first ever "Molten Metal Pour"! -Am I a member of the club now? -heh

I'm just glad that it went smoothly and there were no accidents or problems.

I think that my pour was too cold. I had a bunch left in the bottom so I re-inserted the crucible and finished melting it all. During the melt, I removed the test piece from the sand. It looks good! Considering I did it all wrong, it was a very good replica of the original scrap piece of foam. That makes me very happy. It should prove a very easy way of doing some castings in the future.

I made 2 grooved in the sand so that I could pour the remaining metal off. I got 2 more ingots, so I will have to remember to let things get a bit hotter next time.

Now I'm starving so I'm going out to get some wings. -Breakfast of champions! It is 8:10pm and am finished -Enjoy the pictures!

9/20/2002 Tonight I finished up the last of my scrap pile. I poured another 6 huge ingots and a tiny little one in the sand. This evening I tried 10 lbs of pressure and it went a lot faster. I also think that the tiny bit of aluminum left in the crucible helps to liquefy things faster since that melts far before any scrap starts to melt. I believe that it helps to increase the surface area and aids greatly in heat transfer to the scrap items.

I am betting that I can get even faster melts by carefully choosing my starting pieces and laying them flat against the spots on the crucible that will heat up quickly. Once liquid, the metal is great at transferring heat to the remaining scrap so that your melt gets faster as it progresses.

Here I am scraping off the dross from my spoon. Yes I still have the damn thing Duct Taped to the rod. I will have to rectify that ASAP. It is going to be a mess getting that tape off.