ravenhome777

I'm not going to be pouring the metal. The metal will stay in the concrete form which is the correct shape for the bending iron. The metal will melt inside the form, and I will never touch it or interact with it until it is cold. I do not see a high level of danger here. To summarize, I will put the scrap copper and brass into the concrete mold. Then I will build a beehive shaped forge of bricks around the concrete mold. The bricks will then be covered by a layer of concrete. There will be two air inlets in the bottom of the forge to blow air into from two leaf blowers. I will pack the inside cavity of the beehive forge with coal or charcoal. Ignite the coal or charcoal. Turn on the two leaf blowers for air intake. Let it burn for 5-6 hours. Once the burn is done. I'll leave it be for an entire day for it to cool off. Disassemble the forge the following day when everything is cooled down. See if the metal within the concrete form has melted. Seems pretty safe to me. I'm not planning on taking the form out of the forge while it is molten metal and then try to pour it into something. I agree. That would be dangerous.

Hello, I am trying to cast a very large piece of copper into a cello bending iron. (Well, in the end it will be a large piece of copper. Currently it's just scrap.) I have made a form out of refractory cement for the bending iron. Now what I'm planning to do is make a forge out of old bricks, and coat the bricks with cement to keep the heat in. I think it will look a little bit like an igloo when I'm done. The base of the forge is a very large piece of granite. I'm hoping granite will not crack under the heat. I'm planning on leaving two small entrances at the bottom of the forge to blow air into from a leaf blower. I was also thinking about making two additional openings for propane torches. Originally, I was thinking that I would feed in charcoal through the top, and then put a metal car hood on top of the forge to keep in the heat. The car hood would have a hole in it to let the heat out, but I'm not sure if this will melt. Maybe I should make a cover out of refractory cement? I was originally thinking that I would heat the forge with charcoal, but I began to become concerned that it would not get hot enough to melt the copper and tin. This is a LARGE amount of copper to melt. So then I began thinking that I might need to use coal to heat the forge. I think coal might be the only material hot enough to get the copper to melt. Then I began to worry that the refractory cement form might crack. I double reinforced it with cement and it's within a large steel pot, so it should have a fighting chance at least. I'll post some pictures tomorrow because I think my description may be lacking clarity. Anyway, I was hoping to get this done right the first time around, because I may only have one shot at this due to the cost of the materials (and time). I was hoping to get some advice from the experts. :-) All help/advice is much appreciated. Thank you kindly!