Subject: RE: Small foundry operations

From: [email-masked] (BrnzCaster)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 14:47:18 -0500

To answer a few questions raised by Mike Sharp, David Adams and
others, here is some more of my rambling regarding small foundry
operations.

>Have you ever heard of PYRAMID PRODUCTS CO....
Yes, they make some good furnances and starter kits for casters.
I haven't used any of their stuff, but a few of the folks I've
taught over the years have purchased their kits rather than
build their own.
If you are on a tight budget, the PYRAMID units are expensive
compared to "roll your own" furnaces, but building a good
touble-free furnace from scratch for the beginning foundry
can be too much trouble (getting the refractory, right size
steel shell, casting the insulation, etc).

>What kind of "cooker" do you use? ....
I have built all of my furnaces from scratch using commercial
refractories. You can purchase several grades of refractories,
but I like the "lightweight" castables (ca. 40 pounds per
cu foot); using the furnace daily, I get ca. 5 years from each
fabrication.
I use propane to fire the melts. My biggest furnace has a 13 gal
steel drum shell and it will handle a #10 pot (silicon carbide).
With a #10, aluminum is ready to pour in ca. 20 minutes and
bronze is ready in ca. 40 minutes.
My air supplier to the furnace is an old electric Champion forge
blower. It originally had a rheostat control for speed but that
burned out years ago and I've used a PowerStat (autotransformer)
for the last several years.
I use small tanks of propane. A 20# will melt ca. 5 pots and a
30# cylinder will handle ca. 8 pots (depends on want metal I'm
melting and if I melt one pot right after another).

I've posted the following address before, but here it is again;
these folks sell crucibles, fluxes, bronze, lostwax supplies, etc
to hobby folks. Catalog is $5.
Power Model Supply Co.
13260 Summit Drive
De Soto, MO  63020
314-586-6466

Over the weekend, I ordered several catalogs from foundry supply
houses I've just found out about and I'll post their info later
if it looks like they are interested in small order business. Many
of the firms I buy from don't want the *little order* (IMHO, the
business attitude in the US is going or, gone, to hell).

>From  several examples already posted, it is a FACT that foundry
work is VERY dangerous. I've only been burned bad once but you
have to act like you're handling rattlesnakes whenever you are
working with molten metal.

Later...
Winston Harness
[email-masked]
[email-masked]
[email-masked]