I was looking at casting videos from the past week and I came across your video. First I want to say that it is great that you are doing this *with* your son. Not just showing him, but having him participate. Having him try things and experience it and figure things out himself. I also have one of those melting cups. (smelting is not a correct term, smelting is converting ore into a metal) I received mine a couple of days ago and have not yet used mine. I haven't decided what to cast with it. Someone on a Reddit forum had asked about an inexpensive way to try casting pewter. I did a search and found this item and gave it as an option due to how low cost it was. It is far from ideal but for the price you can't complain. It was so cheap that I ordered one even knowing how less than ideal it is. One of the problems is that the cup is very thin and the heat from the element is not easily transferred to the bits of metal to be melted. And this is particularly bad if you are trying to melt a small amount as you were doing. Stainless steel has relatively poor heat transfer compared to regular steel. So the bottom/floor of the cup will not have much heat to melt the metal resting on it. Better would be to tilt the cup so the unmelted metal was sitting on the side of the cup where the element is. You solution was to add some external heat. My thought on how I would use this melting cup is to leave at least an inch of metal in the cup at the end of the pour. This way there is better heat transfer from the side walls into the metal to be melted. I would never leave metal solidify in a crucible but due to the design of this melting cup it would be more practical for the casting I might use it for. My interest is in bigger pours, and while I have pewter that I will use to initially test this item, I am more interested to see if it can be used to cast zinc alloys. If your son continues to be interested in this, you might want to consider sand casting. There is a casting sand called Petrobond that is oil based and uses a fine grain sand and can produce good detail. I use a water based sand (sand, clay, water) which has some advantages and disadvantages compared to the Petrobond sand.
Bro can u give your instagram i am new into this it would be great if i can clear some doubts. I see u explained very well pls help this business is my last hope
I was looking at casting videos from the past week and I came across your video. First I want to say that it is great that you are doing this *with* your son. Not just showing him, but having him participate. Having him try things and experience it and figure things out himself.
I also have one of those melting cups. (smelting is not a correct term, smelting is converting ore into a metal) I received mine a couple of days ago and have not yet used mine. I haven't decided what to cast with it.
Someone on a Reddit forum had asked about an inexpensive way to try casting pewter. I did a search and found this item and gave it as an option due to how low cost it was. It is far from ideal but for the price you can't complain. It was so cheap that I ordered one even knowing how less than ideal it is.
One of the problems is that the cup is very thin and the heat from the element is not easily transferred to the bits of metal to be melted. And this is particularly bad if you are trying to melt a small amount as you were doing. Stainless steel has relatively poor heat transfer compared to regular steel. So the bottom/floor of the cup will not have much heat to melt the metal resting on it. Better would be to tilt the cup so the unmelted metal was sitting on the side of the cup where the element is. You solution was to add some external heat.
My thought on how I would use this melting cup is to leave at least an inch of metal in the cup at the end of the pour. This way there is better heat transfer from the side walls into the metal to be melted. I would never leave metal solidify in a crucible but due to the design of this melting cup it would be more practical for the casting I might use it for. My interest is in bigger pours, and while I have pewter that I will use to initially test this item, I am more interested to see if it can be used to cast zinc alloys.
If your son continues to be interested in this, you might want to consider sand casting. There is a casting sand called Petrobond that is oil based and uses a fine grain sand and can produce good detail. I use a water based sand (sand, clay, water) which has some advantages and disadvantages compared to the Petrobond sand.
Bro can u give your instagram i am new into this it would be great if i can clear some doubts. I see u explained very well pls help this business is my last hope