@Boomdamoboobry I tried adding salt because I saw other people doing that but it didn't seem to do anything at all. I guess I have to go get some Borax instead. Thank you!
+epohnopulse He is a materials engineer. Sorry, I can't say where he works though. And yes I do!
My first attempts at aluminium casting turned out great! Now I have to find a nice big ant hill... :D
Its way over the melting point for aluminum dude, aluminum melts at somewhere over 1200F so I would put it at like 1300F. Really cool video tho^
melt some silver!! :)
What tool do you use to break the metal into pieces? Did you use a hammer?
You should really start using ceramic crucibles before you wreck you furnace from a leak.
Okay, your 'crucibles' are made of tin coated stamp steel. If you're going to use steel, you should probably use 1/8"-1/4" thick tubing depending on how hot you're getting the metal.Try to keep the oven just over the melting point of the metal, so about 1250-1300 Fahrenheit, not the 1600 degrees you had it at(which may be contributing to your tin cans melting).Beach sand is not for casting. Since you're doing starter pieces, I'd say you should use plaster mixed with a little fiber glass insulation, quick lime or cement, and talc. Tap the mold with a hammer lightly to get the metal set right and reduce the chance of it disfiguring. Then just break/wash the plaster away. Wax would be easier to form than styrofoam, but you need to burn it out of the plaster in the oven before you try to cast in it. Also, wear a leather apron and a heat shield for your face. Burns from molten metal hurt. Your skin slides off right with it.
There is a place called Budget casting supply that is a great place to look for items. You can get a clay graphite crucible in size A4 or A6 that is about the same capacity as your soup cans for around. $30. I know your young and probably don't have much money, but you could probably sell a lot of the ingots you've melted down at a scrap yard to fund a purchase of decent crucible. EBay sometimes has good deals on crucibles too. I'd enjoy seeing a finished rocket motor video if you have one. Thanks?
Actually, I wanna know more about your furnace!
kind of risky using those cans. you may spill it all over your foot.
pssst here is a tip, if it rusts that means its not stainless steel :D
I dont really understand why you put your furnace at 1000 celcius. You probably know that aluminium melts at 660 celcuis and certainly even less than 660 because its not pure aluminium
Just FYI the past tense of "cast" is "cast," not "casted"
nice work.your nozzles should turn out fine using you home made tooling.Keep up the good work!
The guy in this video REALLY aught to be wearing some type of welding mask/resperator because I GUARANTEE you that the fumes from that melted aluminum can give you cancer.
Use pop cans instead :)
He kept saying um
use a graphite crucible, you can buy it on ebay, ps the salt simply makes the molten alluminium more fluid, the borax does nothingborax it's used to flux impurities from molten metals as gold or iron
I will buy you a real crucible.
Graphite Has a melting point of about 5000'C / 10000'FAluminium Is about 1000'CI strongly advise Graphite Crucibles/Molds
Way to hot man aluminium melts at just under 700 degree celcius a little hotter and that crucible could melt too
you cant use an aluminium container for melting aluminium. the container would also melt. use Iron,
1000 celcius is way hotter than it needs to be and that is definitely hot enough to render thin steel like that useless.
Also. DON'T USE BORAX! Borax works fine as a flux for ferrus metals like iron and steel but it will only contaminate your aluminum. Also DON'T USE SALT! What you want to use as a flux is potasium cloride or potasium chlorate i forget which but it is sold as a salt substitute called NO SALT. Also a little bit of baking soda will act as a degassing agent. Normally you will get some residual flux and degasser working for you as a remnant in the metal from when it was cast in the factory but that may only get you 1 pour when you use those ingots you will want to add flux and degasser because anything that remained from when they cast the VCR parts is likely long gone when you made it into ingots.
ou need thicker metal as a crucible. or an actual crucible
Nice setup except for the crucibles also check out 556raven he shows you some cool stuff with all of that
Should it be pointed out that any moisture coming into contact with molten aluminium will probably result in an explosion?
You are wearing a synthetic jacket and if you drop some on it and it catches fire it will melt and stick to your skin and burn you and you cant get it off, iv done it just in a small part on my wrist and i still have a scar, jeans are a good call because cotton doesnt melt so a cotton jacket would be better just dont want you to get hurt. Cool video!
You made that look easy. You could line the inside of your cans with half inch thick muffler putty or clay or something. Why not make the outside of the rocket cast too? Or will it melt?
Can you show in detail how you make the mold and shape the foam?
Nice little furnace you have there. I am very impressed that the loose sand doesn't cave in, that's crazy! I'm not understanding that part. Would it be that the foam melts so fast and the aluminum solidifies so fast that the sand has no chance to cave in? I thought the sand had to be green sand for this. Totally awesome! I gotta try that.
the melting temp of aluminum is 660 Celsius and 1220 Fahrenheit. You dont need to turn the furnace to 1000 degrees cecius
I would like to applaud your efforts so far. Aside from th obvious safety issues pointed out by others shoes gloves face shield and synthetic cloth... etc... you are using too much heat. Aluminum melts at about 1220f or about 660c and pours best around 1400f you are ramping up WAY HOTTER than you need. That's likely why you blew out your first few crucibles. Also you really want a longer pair of tongs. Try a pair of fireplace tongs. That and idealy as was also mentioned a heavier duty crucible.