Discordicus

Hi there, thanks for the welcome. I know full well he doesn't mean to offer insult, however harsh his words are, and I've already apologized in my previous reply to him as well, and will gladly accept any advice if he's still willing to give it. I'll try to make sure i'm as safe as possible.

Mmm. I seem to have struck a nerve. I apologize for upsetting you. I will continue reading up on this and hopefully if it comes out OK i'll post updates on it. Funny enough, I thought the same thing looking at my charcoal bag, but then thought "nahh, ill just let it air dry."

I appreciate the safety concern, and perhaps I should have been more specific. When you mentioned bringing it up to red hot, my question is the following: Should I bring it up to a low, dull red (~800-900 F), or up to bright/cherry red (~1500-1600 F)? I figured it would be towards the lower temps, but wanted to be sure. Thank you for the suggestion to take classes/courses before I start casting, however I regret to inform you its a little too late. I've made aluminum bronze and have melted copper before in an older, more jury-rigged foundry. I do understand however there's no way to make it completely safe. I do try and be as careful as possible. I don't pour over cement, make sure my tools are dry by heating it prior to grabbing the crucible, I don't cast large amounts of metals either (much less than 4 lbs total). I only have poured into simple ingot shapes (round or rectangular). Now, to get the xxxxxxxx off my chest, the "Darwin award" comment I felt was unnecessary, even if it did come from a safety standpoint. I've been reading these forums and reading your advice to other users for several months before I started trying this for myself, and I figured I was asking someone knowledgeable and respected on the subject, not a stranger. But yes, it's not something for beginners, so I understand the risks I am taking in doing this. Thank you for the tips on the wool, good to know it can still be slightly damp before firing. I doubt i'd ever be able to get less than 20% humidity with this weather. Yea I ended up calling the supplier of the wool and asking them directly, plus, it didn't end up raining much in the end so I am just letting it dry normally.

So new question. A dumb question, for sure. If i apply the colloidal silica onto the ceramic wool, could I dry it in the oven at the lowest setting? It being florida and all, there was no rain forecasted today and it suddenly went grey now so I had to bring my wool out of the rain. I could potentially dry it out a bit inside my oven, but I'm concerned that the fibers will still cause issues inside the oven or worse the silica will screw up my oven somehow. The lowest my oven will go to is 170 F so it could potentially be used to dehydrate (and i've made jerky in it before as well) but whats the consensus here. Before i put myself in danger. Thank you.

So probably the highest thing I'll melt is copper. Mainly to alloy it with Al. And I'm currently in cocoa FL, but I'll be moving to KY sometime in Oct. I read some of your posts before to cure the ceramic wool up to red temp but not quite sure what that means. I do have a IR thermometer a friend gifted me so I can check the temp of the wool surface directly. I also recall the butter thing so I'll be sure to do that. Anyway this is what it currently looks like.

Hi all, I'm in the process of building a new foundry from a propane tank. I've already gotten the mechanical stuff out of the way, but now in the process of insulating it is where I'm trying to see if this will work. So I've purchased some 1" ceramic wool from a local pottery supply, and cut out the pieces I need. I made a mixture of Fumed silica and water in a 3:7 ratio. Dunked the pieces in the mixture and squeezed out any excess and let it air dry for 24 hours. I then fit it in my foundry and heated it up to about 500 deg F for roughly half hour to let it drive away any remaining moisture. This is where I'm currently at in my process. What I will be doing next is coating the wool with Greenpatch 421 that I ordered, let that air dry for a day, then fire it up to working temp for about half hour and then letting it cool down. Once that is done, I also want to apply a coating of Metrikote which I ordered as well, as an efficiency point of view. I've seen so many posts end up contradicting each other in terms of these products and their order of application, so any advice would be appreciated or if this seems fine for a simple hobbyist, then let me know. Thank you