John melts metal

 John has been working on casting molten aluminum. See previous posts under lables "flowerpot furnace" and "forge." The molten aluminum is poured into sand molds, and that is a whole 'nother story. But for now let us look at the evolved process. First, you find some scrap aluminum. Then you melt it in a furnace. John was originally into the Gingery charcoal furnace. So he built one. After some experimentation, we found that the Dragon Lady is the way to go. Put your scraps into a crucible (currently an old plumber's pot, destined to melt lead) and turn the Dragon Lady loose.

 

The Dragon Lady makes short work of the melting. Much faster than charcoal.  When the Lady gets going you can't see what is happening. But it is turning into a liquid at a great rate. There is a lot more to this. I recommend the Dave Gingery series on building your own machine shop from scratch. Especially Volume 1; you can Google on Gingery and get many hits.














After about ten minutes the scrap aluminum is poured into a sand mold. That is material for another post. In the meantime, if you are interested in sand casting, do look at myfordboy's blog, q.g., and look at his videos.  This is a great blog; I am adding it to my follow list.

More to come.