Pictures of various stuff that I maybe took pictures of, hoping to put up webpages for them, but forgot about the pics so I'm dumping them here instead.
Brazing: setting up. Note the broken firebrick cave.
Heating up. That's the small EMT-conduit-burner-tube burner, .023" jet and no choke. It's seen a good bit of use at this time as evidenced by the crunchy looking flare.
The firey genesis of my medium burner.
Brass braze is flowing, just about done here. The orange flame seen coming off the arm that's being brazed on is due to sodium in the borax flux I added to the joint.
Done. That's one toasty piece of cast iron!
Cast aluminum sides for a flask. You can see it complete, in use on the cross slide casting. Dimensions are 5/16" thick, 3" (3 1/4"?) wide, 10" long. The fresh casting on the right, sprue and all, was supposed to be the final piece but it didn't fill completely so I had to make another side. Poo.
Hot stuff indeed! This was one of those tries at melting cast iron. Turns out I can make very small amounts of it! Haven't tried getting it hot and molten enough to make anything, it's enough for me to say I can melt the stuff. Proof that my EMT conduit burner is plenty toasty!
Really should make a seperate page for this but oh well. This is an investment casting. Seen here is the wax pattern mounted on a flask lid (flask = tomato can, same I use for crucibles) which is then filled with a plaster and sand mixture.
Burning it out in the furnace. This was at the end, after much burning time (2 hours at least) with the big burner on as low as it goes (in fact it burned out a few times).
Melting some metal for same.
Ready to pour...
Tuyere shot. The glory hole. Insert firey euphamism here!
And, dut duh duh daaa, the result after pouring and quenching the mold in water (AFTER the metal solidifies. ;)
Either a bell or a venturi for a much larger burner that I have no use for. Although now that weed season is starting up......
Top down. Sprue and two vents are seen. Not as easy to see is a little shrinkage, due to the center of the mold still being near red hot (indeed, investment would make a good refractory if it had any strength) causing the sprue to harden before the rest of the casting. Inconsequential. A few bubbles also present as blobs on the surface, those file and grind off easily.
Dark shot. No flash so you're seeing it pretty much as you'd see it.. except it's darker than that. LOL Wish I owned that camera (that's my gloved hand and knees; Mark is behind his camera), ours is pure crap for anything not under direct sunlight.
Stirring the slag. Popcanium! See also the medium burner in action.
Lookit that paint burn... no wonder there's soot all around the furnace eh?
Ready to pour. Soon as I skim half the melt's weight off as dross anyway.
Gonna make a page for this once it's done. The New And Improved© reverberatory furnace. This is the almost finished lid pattern, yep the burner (that's the tuyere) will be at an angle to get better heating.
Base pattern. 3" deep, 9" square. I've sanded away a lot of foam for the smoothed edges but there should still be at least 20 pounds capacity in this thing.
Complete top and bottom sitting in place, plus the cutout for the pouring chute. Sheetmetal (about 24ga. gavanized) box is 13" square, lid is 4" tall and hearth 5" so will take around 0.7 cubic feet of refractory... about a 50 lbs. bag's worth!
Complete lid pattern, alone.
A much older photo of melting some more of the same popcans in the trashcan furnace.
Damn cans take so much longer to melt. Torture on the crucible can and tends to burn through. Oh well. Not casting anything but ingots anyway...
Not sure what this is, melting leftovers in the un-burned-through side of the can?
Ah, my power hacksaw project featuring those beautiful 9" pulleys and babbit bearings. But I think I'll scrap it anyway... y'know, I don't really mind hacksawing(!). The blur seen on the pulleys is me moving them as I remove a belt, I obviously wouldn't be posting a shot of my hands stuck in a running machine! Holy ouch batman...
Attaching the crank arm. Needs a bigger setscrew...
And so on...
What happened to that old vise casting. Actually this is when I got it working good, the last thing that happened was I broke it further after my zinc-brazing attempts to repair the broken aluminum failed. Fatigue faliure by the leadscrew for what it's worth. Figured it was going to be there or up by the fixed jaw.