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Quote from Jacob Christian on August 7, 2023, 6:55 am

The burner block was mocked up in CAD software and then 3D printed to make a form.

Quote from Jacob Christian on August 7, 2023, 6:58 am

The outside was wrapped in ceramic blanket and then covered with galvanized steel flashing. The wool was then pushed below the top of the furnace and sealed with more kastolite 30.

Quote from Jacob Christian on August 7, 2023, 7:01 am

When the kastolite was first poured, it was wrapped in a trash bag for a day and then taken out and left to sit for a week. The furnace was slowly taken to 1550C over the course of a day with increasing temps and intensity every hour.

 

In the final 1550C burn picture my camera picked up IR radiation coming from the furnace. Pretty cool picture!!

Quote from Jacob Christian on August 7, 2023, 7:54 am

Link to a PDF with tons of information about metal casting, furnace builds, and mold making.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10mC9FsBKQVgQl_XXLIxIXXQ3XAni-I-Y/view?usp=sharing

 

Quote from Jerry Martin on May 30, 2024, 5:11 pm

Wow, Ben's book is making the rounds. I have a copy of this. I think he started writing this at the end of Backyard metalcasting. It switched to Alloy Avenue and then died off when the founder kind of disappeared. Never heard what happened to him, his site is still open. Melting metal in a home foundry, backyard metalcasting, metal casting  but he hasn't posted anything since 2018.

Well, My name is Jerry and I've been around metal and hot stuff most of my life. I've retired from a Steel Mill where I was a Chem Lab Tech. Basically I tested all the steel we produced during my shift. Ran the chemistry on a spectrometer and did the tensile testing of the finished product. I learned a lot about the low alloy steels we produced. Mostly less than .25 Carbon and .95 Manganese. The highest Carbon we produced was .70 C and .80 Mn. This is the alloy used for train rails but we rolled it into signposts for along the road. I started melting metals in 2007 and melt mostly Bronze and Aluminum. I have cast some Iron and hope to do some this summer. I was in on a couple Iron smelts, they were fun, but I didn't get to work with any of the metal. I have almost a hundred pounds of Iron Ore and hope to smelt some someday. I've also been a welder and hydraulic tech and done some Blacksmithing for about 10 years. I have only made 1 knife but, hope to make a wrought iron and file insert tomahawk this year.