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How To
See other How To Articles Title: Backyard aluminum foundry
Source:
Jims Page
URL Source: http://www.visi.com/~darus/foundry2/
Published: Mar 6, 2006
Author: Jim
Post Date: 2006-03-06 15:31:42 by A K A Stone
Keywords: Backyard, aluminum, foundry
Views: 793
In the fall of 1998 I built my Coffee Can Foundry. It worked much better than expected and served as a proof of concept test. After the success with the CCF MkI I decided to move up to bigger and better and embarked on the CCF MkII project. Procedure The MkII isn't really a coffee can foundry. The shell is a festive holiday popcorn tin about 10 inches in diameter and 11 inches tall. This was lined with a layer of castable refractory insulation approximately 2" thick. I used a recipe found here to make my own refractory insulation. The Raw Materials The first layer of refractory in the bottom of the foundry body. My crucible It is a 6" length of 3" diameter steel pipe with a steel plate welded on one end. The foundry fired with charcoal with the cricuble in place and loaded with chunks of scrap aluminum. Even with the fire inside hot enough to melt aluminum (1200 to 1400 degrees F) the insulation is effective enough to keep the paint on the outside of the can intact. In fact, I can touch the outside of the foundry BRIEFLY with my bare hand without injury. Results The first melt poured into simple troughs in the sand. The resulting ingots were about 8" long
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