My Foundry Furnace is Broken, I Spilled Molten Copper into it. Time to Fix it.
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- A few melts ago, I spilled a bunch of molten copper inside the furnace. That fail on my part took its toll on the bottom of the fire brick foundry furnace. Today, I look at the damage and fix it up in preparation of some more extreme metal melting to follow.
Satanite episode of original furnace build here: • How to Make a Fire Bri...
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#foundry #metalcasting
Welcome to my world Paul😤. In one of my vids I had a full crucible and it failed so I had over 7 pounds of copper swooshing around in the furnace🙄. It made a very interesting Ingot to say the least .
BRING ON HARD CORE MODE BABY🤘🏻😆🤘🏻
HARD CORE MODE INCOMING! 😄
I had flashbacks to your video of that when paul was showing his spills!!!
Greenpatch 421 is supposed to be a great durable coating to use and its CHEAP. More expensive than Satanite but much less than ITC100.
Interesting, never heard of it. Ingot lots of extra satanite though
@@PaulsGarage Satan's ite should work well in hot places.
Is Greenpatch 421 an IR reflecting coating like ITC-100 or a mortar like saitenite that can be used as a coating?
I've seen some people recommend using Itc-100 (or other IR coatings) over saitenite.
@@askquestionstrythings you got to be rich to use ITC-100. The stuff is like $45 a pint. I wonder if they accept kidneys as a payment method?
@@askquestionstrythings Greenpatch is a mortar but can be used as a coating. I used ITC100 in my furnace. You can see the video on my channel. Yes it was expensive, $80 per pint. It works very well but I wouldnt buy it again.
Nice! Tool breaks and fixes are an important part of DIY. Feel free to embed your videos on our homemade tools forum if you want more views; looks like you're one of us - www.homemadetools.net/forum/
I'll check it out!
Early week video, woohoo! That coating makes it look brand new again. I bet if you keep maintaining it that way it will last so much longer...
That's the plan! The bricks look fine under the coating, probably just the satanite is expendable and the bricks will be fine
How do you manage to break your oven so fast, I made one with refractory cement and it still like new
Satanite and light brick arent as tough as something like Mizzou or other castable refractories, but the insulation is better. It's a trade off. Also I dumped copper in there...
And you also seem to be making frequent use of your oven, while mine has been used just about 3 times and with coal only, so it never reaches white-hot temps
Nice repair job, so I'm going to assume hard core mode = cast iron...
possibly! Or maybe not possible, we will find out
Cast steel?
Ha ha, I was thinking the same thing
It'll melt iron but not too liquid state I know cause mine did accidently
@@thefourthtuxzt3078 I bet he can make it to pouring temperature with the newly repaired gear and the burner properly tuned.
So I covered the satanite coating in my furnace (and my forge) with Matrikote for IR reflectivity. The Matrikote actually seems to be better resistant to stuff scratching away the surface than the satanite alone. Now that you've repaired the satanite, add some Matrikote (or ITC100 but it's more expensive and does the same thing).
I've considered it, have not bit the bullet though on the price
I just had this happen, but it was cast iron. The crucible sprung a leak and all of the cast iron flowed to the bottom of the furnace and formed an iron disk that also locked the burner in place. Words were spoken! I have no idea how to clean it out.
heck yeah i finally get to brag about being first.
I love following the project
@The Scrapsmith haha thanks i feel extremely accomplished, i dont know what to do with this amount of power
Can confirm first
@@PaulsGarage my power grows!
You must make a hole in the bottom just for spills! I melt gold and silver snd have had crusables break and trust me you want somewhere for that material to go!
When this happened to me I took a big cold ingot of aluminum (thats what I was melting) stuck it to the puddle, waited about as long as I could and I was able to pull it out mostly solid. Best way to do it is to do it hot lol
Gremlins broke the furnace!
Copper gremlins
1 hour earlier Paul? Or maybe 71 hours late?
Random time release, the last couple 11am videos did well so I'm just trying it out
@@PaulsGarage By all means, do, I'm not complaining :)
i made mine with refractory cement, with that steel brush sponge stuff in it for reinforcement, was a bad idea, im getting some cracks so a recast is going to happen at some point.
for now the foundry is still in good shape and works fine, i did however break my lid last week, it now looks like 2 halves of a donut, upside is: i can now easily take off and put on the lid with just one hand :P still burning charcoal lumps/briquettes btw... maybe that makes it last longer... anyway, realy enjoying following you go trough this stuff, some parts are very relatable :)
I think castable stuff tends to crack, yeah. When there is a temperature swing of 2000 degrees that's a lot of expansion to deal with
@@PaulsGarage i noticed the parts that cracked were the parts with the steel wool in it, wich expands more then the cement when heated up, next build will be without the steel wool.
Hope your not going the route big stack went. Temps were so high it burnt a hole in his crucible. Stay with non ferrous please. Good show and commentary as usual.
I think his issue was the wrong crucible type. Iron requires a special crucible, not the standard ones used for copper/aluminum. My furnace was built modelled after an iron melting furnace, but yeah the right crucible is necessary too
Is that cast iron you just suggested
Just for the fun I checked how the auto captioning handles Satanite. Not very well apparently, 'state night', 'say tonight', 'same night'. I think you're safe from flagging. 😋
Lol autocorrect doesnt like it rather
Either* stupid autocorrect
I’m sure you mentioned it in a previous video but how much did this current furnace cost?
Materials for burner and furnace and cart are probably in the $300's somewhere
Funny. You should look at Brian oltrogge videos. He made a furnace using a beer keg. Good job and nice video. Thanks for sharing.
In the words of albert Einstein, for those that have never made a mistake have never tried anything new (not that you made a mistake though). I enjoy watching your videos as both educational and funny.
I considered that but legs are waaay expensive. Sheet metal is cheap though. I didnt use stainless like a keg, but this still works. And I make PLENTY of mistakes around here lol. Thanks for watching
@@PaulsGarage I would send you a keg that a friend gave me but the cost is prohibitive.
The black stuff you see aroung the burner and the bottom of the furnace is prabably scale from the burner flare that melted and got blasted off
Good point, lots of scale coming off here and there
Going Hard Core on your Satanite. Will that give your furnace an XXX rating :o)
Aaaaand flagged hahaha
Looking forward to a hard core video, prolly gunna get flagged by youtube
Its gonna be far too hot for youtube! Also I almost burned my face...
i wonder if you can make the inside wall of the furnace from a realy big crusible (or make a pipe from the clay graphite stuff and set that in the furnace ) and fill the space between the crusible and the outer wall of the furnace with the satanite and maibe some of that wool stuff
i think the crusible once its baked through and through should be way stronger that the satanite stuff and should be able to handle molten stuff that leaked out of the actual crusible
Never thought of that but it's a cool idea
@@PaulsGarage downside smaller area
I think your furnace is really holding up well compared to some I've seen.
I agree, only the satanite needs maintenance and that's easy
@@PaulsGarage Even ITC-100HT coated furnaces need maintenance. You did a lot of melts in your furnace before you did anything to it. Then it did look easy. Just mix up and brush it on. Now it looks new again.
I've seen some people recommend ITC-100 over saitenite. Something about saitenite bonds better to the bricks but the ITC-100 is a better IR reflector and makes the furnace hotter. (There are cheaper alternatives to ITC-100 with good IR reflecting values)
So why didn't you coat the brick you are using for a pith ?
No reason, I just didnt do it
@@PaulsGarage might be worth it when you replace that current brick pith
Ooooo hard corp mode, now your talking
Talking AND melting
Hey Paul you ever think of casting any Dnd dice, id love to see you cast an aluminum brass or copper D20.
Haven't considered it but that might be neat to try
Good work. My foundry which I made almost a year ago still holds together pretty well. If you recall mine is made witk kaowool not bricks, but I have it coated on the inside with multiple coats of satanite (including the lid). I also don't tend to spill many things inside. :) On that note, I'm proving myself a liar because I have just melted a bin of soda cans and dropped 2 of them outside the crucible, oops. Got 2 and a half pucks of aluminum out of 57 cans, haven't weighed them yet because they're still hot (I had 59 cans, but see above).
I used a different flux this time, made of 6 parts magnesium chloride (ice melt, 'tis the season) and 4 parts potassium chloride (water softener). It's too early to tell but I think it cut down on the amount of dross a bit.
Let me guess, next time you make Everdur? Been waiting for this for almost a year. :)
(edit) my plinth looks almost new, no cracks whatsoever. It's also coated in satanite, which I recommend. My crucibles are also coated on the outside in it, and it does really make a difference. Use 2 coats minimum.
(edit2() I weighed the aluminum pucks, I got 506g out of 57 cans; considering the average can weight of 14.5g my recovery rate was 61.2%. Ugh.
I'm not making everdur next week, but eventually I will. Still not certain I can keep stuff melted long enough to dissolve silicon, it takes a while :(
I haven't tried kaowool, but I once considered wrapping this is some of that.
The flare doesn't look great - but that temporary air restricter that you made from aluminum duct, that is looking mighty fine!
The best temporary fixes are permenant ;)
I made my foundry the same design as you. After two firings, a couple bricks started to melt, some steel at the top of the foundry for my lid handles melted into the foundry and destroyed the bottom, the entire end of the torch melted completely off, and there was the black "soot" you were talking about.
Bricks melting? What kind of bricks? I got 2800 degree rated light fire bricks, no damage so far except the plinth block that isnt coated with anything
I got 2600 degree bricks, and it got WAY hotter than I ever expected it
@@fuzzmaster1234 I use a piece of 2600 degree brick as my plinth, the burner blast is full on it and it did not melt or crack after many runs, including high temperature copper and bronze ones. I coated it in satanite and that is probably what makes the difference.
I used several coats of satanite on mine too; I don't really know what went wrong or why its getting too hot.
It's possible your burner was running too lean. That will cause excess heat while also leaving unburned oxygen blasting into the hot furnace, causing all sorts of melty, burny problems
The flare isn't melting it's just severely oxidizing
Actually it's probably melting to some extent too. The first one I used on my home-made burner did, it severely deformed into an oval shape under its own weight during a long and hot bronze melt. It was a b*tch to get out of the furnace hole afterwards - I had to unscrew it from the burner end with it still inside the furnace. Those fittings are in fact not made of steel but of cast iron which melts at temperatures somewhat lower than steel.
@@stamasd8500 well that explains it
Cast iron? That would explain the problem I'm having...
@@PaulsGarage Yes I'm pretty sure it's cast iron. They're fine generally, but keep in mind that they melt at a lower temperature than steel.
What is hard core mode?
Hotter stuff
Yeah Paul, there's always maintenance with furnaces. It looks like you have your furnace under control 👍☺ in fact I really like your setup. Thank you for your videos, I really enjoy them. Take care and hopefully your not under a blanket of snow..lol. I'm just a couple counties north of you and we didn't get any.. (Knock on wood). Ttyl Buddy
I just got a dusting of snow but I heard Rockford Illinois got LOTS. I lucked out!