most underrated channel on yt

Hi Rob. Glad to see you finding time to explore bronze casting! FYI, I recently built a new/larger foundry furnace out of a beer keg, and have gotten into more sand casting (less soapstone carving required). Currently working on Sauroter 2.0 😊. Regards, Patrick (Ogmios Forge)

vevor 12kg propane smelting furnace kit melting furnace double burners 2700 degrees Fahrenheit: When you're product description writer is also the person who does search engine optimization... :D Nice Review, appreciate all of the videos you post.

Casting is on my bucket list of projects to try… I think a sprue is intended to feed molten metal down to the cavity of a sealed mould. It fills the cavity from below and then metal flows upward and out a vent. The residual metal in the sprue and vent serve to feed the casting as it cools, shrinks and solidifies. I’m not sure you need a sprue in an open face mould? Thanks for doing these reviews. I picked up one of the 100lb cast anvils from Princess Auto (pretty sure there from the same overseas factory as Vevor) and was pleased with the quality to price ratio.

In grad school spent enough time at the art foundry that I was the class assistant and helped run the foundry (bronze and Al). That was many years ago, so take this for what it may or may not be worth. We always started the day by having the crucible in the furnace when lighting. We had a fire brick in the bottom and a piece of we cardboard between the crucible and brick. That way if something spilled, or melted it likely wouldn't stick. Once casting we would cast most the day. About 100lbs at the time (maybe a bit less). We reused Si bronze all the time, never did we use additives (like sand or glass, but I seem to remember some folks maybe do). Pull the crucible out and skim off the slag that ends up on top and have someone "skim" as the bronze is pored, get cleaner castings. We mostly did ceramic shell (colloidal silica/sand of various grits) or plaster/perlite/sand investments, but the philosophy is kinda the same make a mold burn out the stuff and prep the mold material for molten metal heat. For the sand cast, I probably would have done a two part mold. Either with the "coin" vertical with the cup feeding the top and a vent on the side(s) or if casting flat have a two part with cup feeding the middle and a vent on either side. An open casting like that will always be "blobby" as it cools. The cup is to get a funnel to feed the casting, also as it cools it can feed a bit more so the surface defect will be in the cup not the casting. The vent serve two purposes, one to vent air (duh) and the other is when you see metal coming up you know (mostly) that the metal has gone all the way across and filled your intended void. Multipart sand molds are historical. I've seen a cup, saucer, spoon cast as a single casting (spoon in cup, cup on saucer). That used to be a journeyman test, as I was told. The foundry master would finish his tea and hand them to the apprentice to make a complicated multipart sand mold.Anyway my 2 cents. Thanks for your videos.

@ThakIronworks

11 ай бұрын

Good feedback

Always wanted a foundry

So a few things about casting since I have some experience in my home shop as well as at my university. The big thing is that you want at least a 2-part flask for casting parts. Ingots and some other decorative parts can be cast in open molds, but you tend to get porosity, as you saw, and it doesn't fill as well due to the lack of pressure forcing the molten metal into the details. Another tip is using degassing compounds depending on what you are casting, and phosphor bronze shot to increase the fluidity of copper alloys. For patternmaking, I would suggest 3d printed PLA patterns (depending on what you are making), which work in both reuseable pattern and lost pattern types of casting. Some people don't like printed patterns because they are very light and move around, but I find the complexity you can get is worth that annoyance. I also noticed you were using OBB sand, which is an oil bonded sand, which is perfectly viable and oil-bonded sand is my favorite for casting. However, it did seem your bag was imported from Germany, which might explain the price. You can look into Petrobond sand, which is a more common name for it as far as I know, or making your own K-bond sand, which is similar but was developed due to health concerns with the oil used in Petrobond.

@ThakIronworks

11 ай бұрын

Thanks I will try your advice

Carved 2 piece graphite mold works very well for casting sheet metal brass bronze copper or silver. Soot the mold with propane torch with oxygen turned off. i get the mold very hot with gas blowtorch on the mold then pour quick.I cast many sheets of 14 guage silver while every thing is hot. Seth Brown from Taos

Nice experiment, and no great loss of resources there as it can be chopped up, melted and recast at some future date now that you have the furnace.

Thanks for this. I was wondering about how much hotter it might get than the single burner 10kg model. Do you have a time that it took to melt the silicon bronze?

You could tilt the box to flow the metal towards the edges of th 'disc' That works well with aluminum Have a bottomplate under the sand J

Did this come with refractory cement? I just got one and id doesnt seem to have any.

I think you forgot to skim the impurities before pouring...I'm not sure about adding other chemicals for Bronze...But all other metals like aluminum, metal, brass, silver, you have to skim off the impurities before pouring.