The foundry has arrived, and I will be trying out the gear and doing initial testing by melting down some scrap aluminum to create ingots that will be used for the class.
The class is now scheduled for Saturday June 20, starting at 6pm.
Please note the safety requirements of long natural fiber pants and leather closed toes shoes.
Oh man, that is going to be a blast! I am going…
Should we bring our own aluminum to trow in?
Can we commander the aluminum cans in the break room?
Do we need to sign up or just show up?
…X…
Very interested. As on 12:00am it is not showing up on the calendar!
Awesomer:
For this class no need to bring any metal, I’ll have pre-made ingots from melted down aluminum picture frames.
I don’t know if we’re ok to do our own “recycling” from the cans, but I would like to assume so. Just be aware that using the cans will mean your initial melt will have quite a lot of contaminants/slag in the melted metal, so if you want to go that route it might be better to do a melt and pour of the cans to create ingots, then come back later and melt the ingots down and do your casting pour with those. You don’t have to do that, but it should greatly reduce some issues that could crop up from contaminated metals in an attempted casting.
Just show up…
wandrson:
It was submitted to the calendar fairly recently, it usually takes a day or two for it to be processed and put up on the calendar.
Paul W.
For raw aluminum, there is also the chip bucket for the HAAS.
Pretty sure that it’s been explicitly stated that the aluminum from the HAAS has already been spoken for in other posts.
I wasn’t aware of that, thanks!
No, the aluminum from the HAAS is available to the foundry. But it looks more impressive than it is, there’s a lot of air in there. Also be aware that there are other metals in there as well.
OK, so noted about the HAAS. I would still lean towards not allowing HAAS scrap due to the other metals potentially contaminating a melt and the crucibles. We should have plenty of scrap just from soda cans and the aluminum frames I bring in from work…
For what my opinion is worth, I could not disagree more. I think we should work to develop a method for recycling all the discard metals from the machine shop, including the HAAS as the biggest source of scrap (at the moment).
My reasons:
I agree on the concerns you’ve raised, but I’m thinking they fairly easily contained and/or resolved. Contaminated crucibles, for example, could be resolved by using cheap-o crucibles for the initial melt to create ingots.
Separating scrap should be fairly easily accomplished with magnets for steel/iron removal and/or melt point differential…
But that might all be more work than it’s worth…
It’s more likely that there will be carbide than steel in that tub.
To clarify, the “steel/iron removal” was pertinent to my “…work to develop a method for recycling all the discard metals from the machine shop…” statement, more so than the HAAS tub in particular.
And, in fact, that should read “…all the discard metals from the 'Space…”
And to be fair to your statement, I know nothing of carbide nor how it might be separated from the AL for melting, but I remain certain it’s possible.
Plausible, however, becomes some large area of unknown to me.
I don’t think safe commercial crucibles are available that are ‘cheap’. I have melted aluminum in cast iron pots, but that in an of itself ‘contaminates’ the aluminum. I doubt we would want such ‘contaminated’ ingots in the good crucibles, but if kept separate it would be viable. I would like to see if the carbide ‘dissolves’ in the molten aluminum and what properties it would add to the metal if it does. I have been able to get metals with much higher melting points to dissolve in a pot of molten aluminum that is kept at about 1500 degrees.
Cast iron crucibles (Lodge pots) work well for up to about a dozen pours before they start to develop ‘holes’
What if we just passed the alu melt through a steel mesh? (perhaps with some coating so as to not contaminate the melt) Or maybe pour the majority of the melt into ingots with the chips/carbide left at the bottom of the crucible?
In general, I have no problem if you want to experiment on melting down in-house scrap soda cans.
That said, I would say melting down HAAS scrap or other materials with unknown/excessive contaminants
is ok only if you use your own crucible, and not one of the 3 DMS owned ones. I intended each of the DMS
crucibles to be dedicated to one metal each (brass, bronze, and aluminum). It’s only $15/$30 for a
small/large crucible from the vendor we got the DMS ones from: http://foundry101.com/learlink1.htm
All IMO, of course, but I consider it a understandable request that experimentation that can damage DMS
equipment be done on personally owned gear whenever reasonably possible. Since crucibles aren’t that
expensive, I think that this should be an acceptable workaround.
Generally I agree with this. Among my “buts” is when does my experimentation cross over from “should be funded by you” to “should be part of what DMS funds” if my experiments are to DMS’ benefit, as I see the recycling of HAAS chips being. I reckon the right answer is “whenever you make your case to the board and they chose to fund you” I can work with that…
Awesome job Paul! Loved every minute of the class! The only improvement I can offer off the top of my head is: more chairs!
Oh, and class only took 2 hrs, including the post pour chit chat instead of the three scheduled. You should include cleanup&require us to help for the full 3 hr credit!
Thank you again!
Results from the sandcasting in aluminum class…
The rough cast straight out of the sand:
After the pour sprue is removed with some clean-up and polishing:
Love this and I’m sad I missed it
