Tyler90

Hey Mr Nobody! thanks for the reply. So from what you are saying my best bet would be to focus on one at a time. I will start with my furnace for some aluminum casting. For the furnace I have a coffee tin and will use some refractory cement and see how that holds up. I did one previously with just the tin and no refractory and used a soup can for crucible. it was rather annoying because the crucible is small and annoying to remove slag. I am not doing a lot of Al at one time so I think for now I will use it again but I will think about upgrading and making my own steel crucible out of 1/4" wall 4" pipe and a 3/8" plate welded to the bottom as recommended by Dan Manders in his beginner casting thread. I haven't welded before so am waiting for a friend to teach me before getting into that. The local scrap yard will make it easy to find an old brake drum so ill keep that in mind when i decide to try working some rr spikes. Now reference your PPE comment my welder friend gave me coveralls gloves and a face shield. I didnt use the face shield it seemed like overkill I just wore some ballistic eyewear I have from work just in case something went wrong. Is this safe enough for aluminum work? I see lots of videos online of people in shorts and tshirt doing Al casting so i assume this is more then okay. My goal is to make my own tomahawks, i own about 5 now that i purchased from the store its a hobbie for me so i decided to make my own. I'm slowly working towards it trying to learn more about the different ways to work metal as I go along. Once again thanks for the advice Nobody!

I'm new to the art and am looking to make a new aluminum melting coffee tin. I just want to do it properly, the first time I didn't use any refractory. from reading I see kaowool, satinite and ITC are highly recommended. 1) for melting aluminum the temp is so low would just refractory cement be sufficient? 2) if I make one for doing railroad spike work, since the temp is so much higher would just kaowool and ITV-100HT be sufficient? Or is the satinite necessary? I can't seem to source satinite in my area or find an online dealer. Ps: as of now I'm planning to use BBQ charcoal I might change to gas later Any tips appreciated! Thanks!

Thanks for replies! Steve, thanks I just have the concrete slabs just as a floor basically! Thomas, I think you are correct! My mistake I am very new I have started reading on this forum and I have a lot to learn! I had no idea it could be set up for so cheap, I look online and see a single tong for double that, but also been reading about making your own tools which is really cool and I will continue to read about! I make myself sound pretty poor by saying a budget is restricting me when you spent that little ;) thanks again hope to learn more from you in future! I won't spam questions anytime soon I'm gonna use the resources available Cheers

Hi my name is tyler I am 23 and I live in eastern Ontario. This is a new hobbie for me and I am here to learn more about the art! Basically so far all I've done is forge some aluminum cans using a pretty much free coffee tin forge. I'm planning to sand cast the aluminum ingots into something just for fun. Budgeting is important for me so it will be a slow process to getting a fully operational shop going, but for now my backyard and concrete slabs will have to suffice! Budget is also why I haven't tried anything besides aluminum cans but it peaked my interest a lot so I am beginning to gather old trash metals(doorknobs, locks, bed frames, old tools, ect.) in hopes that some of it will be useful! I spend a lot of time throwing my tomahawks and can't wait to make my own! Looking forward to learning from some experienced guys! Thanks, Tyler