Me melting aluminum at my shop. The device is a 1200 Watt CalRod heating element embedded in a Perlite / Furnace Cement (4:1 ratio) refractory. The crucible is a ceramic jar I found at home, it holds 700 mL. The temperature is somewhere around 900C (1650F) or higher… Spent less then $50 dollars to make it.
Duration : 0:4:8
Second video, step by step detailed description of my foundry in propane furnace, homemade steel crucible.
Duration : 0:9:6
Details of the equpment I use in my home foundry.Please watch Metal Casting at Home Parts 1 to 8 & 10 for details of how a sand casting is made.
Duration : 0:4:11
Check out my website: http://www.budgiemetalworks.ca
This is the first casting in my homemade aluminum foundry. Approximately 5 lbs of aluminum was poured here which took about 2 hours to melt. The furnace draws 20A on 220VAC.
It was built from plans bought at http://www.dansworkshop.com/
The element was custom made for me at a pottery kiln shop, the body of the furnace is made from firebricks and commercial refractory. The tools for handling the crucible were made by myself. The amperage controller is sitting on the pink foam on the floor, I’ll be enclosing it properly but wanted to try it out first. The crucible was bought from Canadian Thermix, a really nice company to work with. The final furnace took about 6 months to complete, working on it every couple weekends, and I expect to get a lot of use from it.
Duration : 0:4:35
Video by Robert Clarke. A bronze casting demonstration held May 2008 at Glendarragh Studios, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
http://www.umha-aois.com
“Umha Aois” (Irish for “Bronze Age”) is an ongoing experimental project organised on a volunteer basis by a committee formed of artists & archaeologists. Through research and experimentation we are attempting to rediscover our Bronze Age ancestors’ casting methods, and in the process empower the artists involved with unique approaches to working in bronze.
This video demonstrates our discovered techniques to date, using bellows to power a small charcoal fired furnace, melting bronze in a hand made crucible, and casting into a clay mould. The mould is broken open afterwards to reveal a typical Irish Bronze Age axehead.
Please note that although we are striving for “authenticity”, some aspects are still in development, such as the lifting tongs, forged by Umha Aois member Mary Jane Verniere. Also we have not allowed “authenticity” to stifle any creative ideas, and as such we do not pretend that our methods reflect any specific time period or place, but rather we strive for a reproducible approach to working small scale bronze with ‘primitive’ technologies, taking the Irish Bronze Age as our main inspiration.
Duration : 0:2:51
This is a clip of us pouring our molten aluminium from our crucible into our mould. Aluminium from a bell housing, a gearbox, a rocker cover and an alloy wheel. It worked a treat! We do other stuff too. Click here. http://sites.google.com/site/wecanmakethat/
Duration : 0:2:11
This is a slideshow detailing how I made my CalRod melt furnace
Manufacturers of Gray Casti Iron Crucibles & Auto Parts.