C.Read

It's a 3M mask that is NIOSH approved: P100. It says it blocks zinc and lead dust and oil.

https://m.lowes.com/pd/3M-Reusable-Sanding-Valved-Safety-Mask/1000027149

Thank you! I will read up on it. I have already been using a respirator, goggles, gloves, and my leather welding apron.

On 7/26/2018 at 12:30 AM, Hans Richter said:

 quote removed

Thomas- I guess I'll need to look it up. So is the scale made from the metal melting in the foundry and then oxidizing?

Hand-held Definitely seen lots of the white power on the tools after my three burns of Brass. 

I will for sure have to look up ways to prevent it especially because I want to get into knife making.

Is that the metal flaking off? Is the wall thinning because of it?

Okay I was using the borax way wrong. I would get a punch with my gloves and sprinkle it in while the crucible was still in the foundry. 

As for brass, I melt outside with a respirator mask on. Plus I always try to stay up wind. I figure you can't be too safe. I need to get some fire bricks. The brick in the bottom of my foundry has broken in three different spots. 

My steel crucible sheds like a thin layer every time I fire it. It just has a a thin layer that is bubbled, looks like paint, but there is no pushing paint on the metal. I am going to make another steel crucible for the aluminum, so I can melt a lot. But the steel crucibles are heavy sands hard to pour so I'm going to weld up a pouring stand I saw in a YouTube video. For that crucible I'm going to drill holes at the top. Here is a drawing

Hans - I am using borax. I just got a good skimmer shoo that should help. I put a little borax in at the beginning and the end. One problem I'm having is that when I try to put it in at the end the fire burns most of it up before I get it in to the crucible. Also I'm running a 8kg crucible but my foundry sashes it can take a 10. But if I make a bigger steel crucible that's taller than the graphite ones, I can melt more than that. I can use my current clay graphite crucible for brass going forward.

Thomas- I'm not using a degasser 

9 hours ago, C.Read said:

Auto correct messed me up, I tried to say

So I'll shut up now and let y'all put your wisdom on me.

 

 

Looking good Hans.

I like my little foundry but I'm also looking to the future of getting a larger forge. I am wanting to make ash trays for a couple of my buddies cigar shops and I'm not sure if I can melt enough aluminum at one time to make them. 

I took a hiatus to try making some things and here are my results. My first try at casting was brass knuckles. They were not good but atleast it wasn't a total disaster. 

My second try was the ashtray is modeled after the red one ( I forgot to take pictures before I cut it up), I got the top 1/3 shaped perfectly but then I ran out of aluminum. So this is why I think I'm going to need a bigger foundry, or custom make a crucible like the one I use for brass (the steel one in the pictures I use for brass now). The clay graphite I got does not hold enough metal (you read that right, I used the new crucible and I cured it and it didn't break)

So I thought things were going better so I tried using Styrofoam to redo the brass knuckles, this time it was a disaster. The metal somehow went through the sand and created a mess. That is what the picture of a mangled mess was.

I seem to be able to pour ingots pretty good. So I have a buddy who has a cnc milling machine and is going to make me a negative of the ashtray for me and I can just melt and pour into steel like my steel muffin pan.

So I'll shut up now and let y'all put your Windom on me.

Thanks for all the advice! :). I got paid today so I'm going to order a crucible, casting sand and flux. Are any brands better than the next? Should I go with petrobond sand?

Thomas- very true

Buzz- I was thinking along the lines of buying something like in the picture. I've never done anything before, BUT I want to try hammering it out, getting my shape, and heat treating it my self. If I mess up, then hey it as a learning lesson. I would buy plain steel blanks to learn on before spending the money on demascus.

Oh one more thing I have been heating up rebar and hammering it. Not going to do anything with it, but I figured it might be good practice.

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

A good size stock for tong making is 5/8" sq. or 3/8" x 1/2" flat bar. However if you just have to use found steel I like coil spring with wire between 3/8" rd - 1/2" rd. Being spring steel you can forge thinner, lighter tongs that are plenty strong. It'll also give you some time working spring steel which makes decent knives as well.

Frosty The Lucky.

I don't have to use found steel. I guess I was getting ahead of my self. I want to learn this art the right way. I guess watching forged in fire isn't vey realistic for a beginner. I guess one day I would like to have the skills to pick up scrap metal and turn out beautiful demascus blades. Is using blanks considered cheating (lol)?  The reason I ask about cheating is because I have heard people in the past say stuff like he can't really make a knife he is just using a file blah blah. I want to be able to proudly say I made this.

I did see those. But I have a lot of standard size rebar. So I'll probably just weld a rebar to the blank.

That makes since. well since I'm mainly wanting to get blocks of steel to hammer out to knife blanks, What did you suggest? For the two pieces of rebar I have I'll just weld them on a longer piece of steel to work with.

My buddy hooked me up with 4 swing arms, and some other pieces of aluminum.

I was just hoping to use the rebar as a handle for a old hatchet I have. It's not for use, just a show piece.

I was going tongs would be like channel locks and be able to change the size.

I am asking myself the same question right now. I just ordered my crucible tongs, now I need done black smithing tongs. I have a couple of pieces of 1 inch rebar that I want to make into handles for a couple of hatchet heads I have. But for the most part I'll be using 3/8 inch rebar and also making knives. Is there a size that fits that. I called black Smith depot and they said to buy 1 inch chainmaker v bit. Will the one inch actually grip a knife black or the 3/8 rebar?

So I've been researching the different crucibles. From what I've read it seems pure graphite is less likely to get thermal shock. What are yalls thoughts on that? I just don't want to keep going  through crucibles, and maybe there is a little reluctance with clay graphite because of the last one.

Put some dry wood a fire resistant blanket or brick layer under your furnace and ingot mould- I guess that is what the extra wool was for with the foundry. I've been pouring into my ingot over sand. I can get due bricks if that's better.

-re-adjust your burner and let swirl/circle the burner flare around the crucible instead to ‘aim’ right on the body- will do!

 -Your insulation interior of the furnace is made of mineral fibre, do you rigidize- No, because pmc's website set it was ready to fire. If that's not true I will rigidize it. No one wants cancer.

I weighed all my ingots and a bag and a half of soda cans gave me 1 lb 11 oz. 

As for finding scrap aluminum, I might go talk to my buddy who owns a car mechanic shop.

My tongs should be here tomorrow, and my gloves will get here today. Another valuable lesson I lessened this batch was how to control my fire. I have been going full blast with air open. But this time I limited the air and built the temps up slower. Hopefully that will help prevent shattering another crucible. I've read about putting flux in the crucible when hardening it, is that good to do? After you harden it, will I have to slowly raise the heat every time still? Or will it be good to go?

I'm not using any flux (head hangs low). I will have to find some places to get scrap aluminum. I just melted down about 2 months worth of soda cans, so I'm fresh out. But when I poured the aluminum it looked like the picture attached.

So I guess on payday I need to get a thermometer, crucible, skimmer (been using a make shift one with flat iron) and flux ( need to figure out the different types)

Oops lol

So I got the crucible cleaned out with a mini crow bar. Man that stunk horrible. Back in my last post I asked is it worth remelting dross if there is aluminum in it. Here are the pieces I’m talking about. I hit them with the bench grinder and it took a lot of the dross off. The pieces in the picture feels ( to a layman) like it mostly aluminum. It feels more like aluminum that the can I melted lol.

Thank y'all!

My first name is Colton. Han I'm not trying to steal your thread and I'll delete this if you want me to. But here is my set up. I ran a batch today and I left a lot of aluminum in my dross, but I had much better quality ingots. I prefer to have no dross in my aluminum. In one picture you will see how much dross I had compared to my aluminum. That was a trash bag of soda cans. My steel crucible ( I know I need a clay, I'll buy one on payday Friday) has a weird spot now. I think it's where the burner was hitting it. So the next question is how do you get the stuck on dross out of the crucible? Is it worth running dross a second time if I see a big chunk of Aluminium? 

Then just a note, I’ve been using my welding gloves and pliers to take my crucible in and out. I learned that I can get a nice little burn blister through those gloves. So I ordered a more heat resistant gloves and some proper tongs.

How to you make your moulds? Do you have to make a wooden version to form the sand in the mould?

Wow. I am so glad I joined here. Y'all are so knowledgeable.