Furnace Links

Seeing how much the furnace is going to be needed here are some links for all to see that may help you, I included links to yahoo groups where they have plan, how to's, and even how to make your own burners.

FURNACE LINKS: http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

http://www.foundry101.com/search.htm At this site they also sell a cool propane burner pretty cheap, it beats me trying to make one spending hours just to make it plus the time locationg the materials.

MATERIALS: http://www.budgetcastingsupply.com/

Yahoo:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/castinghobby/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HomeFoundry/


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HomeFoundry_and_Casting/

Great post,

It's good to see people looking into the heating materials. The ingot molds look great.

Some words of advice though, mostly for those who have yet to work with the high temperature propane kilns and other options.
While it is possible to get those propane furnaces pretty hot, it also takes a while (read forever) (not to mention a lot of personal involvement) to get it to the heat to melt gold with the propane torch. I've made a few furnaces in the past, and in the end (for the sake of simplicity, ease of setup, and overall peace of mind) I opted for an electric model. If you do have one of these models though, an iron crucible could help more than a ceramic one.

Of course I was making furnaces to save on cost, but in the end, after finding it's nearly impossible to melt silver or gold in the fall or winter where I live, I purchased a mid-sized electric one for about 300$ (shipping included) and started using that instead (it can get to a little above 2000F in about 1:30-2:30 hrs.). My only other comparable option (with the refractory cement and insulation) had cost (if I remember correctly) around $120 total (and required a lot more effort—I had to use it outside and it took a while to set up everything and then put it away). In contrast, this one is clean, quiet, and easily reaches a very high temperature. Induction models are faster and smaller of course, but I wanted something a bit larger so I went with a standard electric model.

I'm pretty sure the site I bought my kiln from was this one:
http://www.clay-king.com/kilnslist.htm
It has a lot of good options, but it's always worth shopping around.

Hopefully this helps those who are considering getting a kiln.

All my best and happy holidays :-)

Bill

and it takes a 3-4 hours to get it to 800 degrees, I have never tried a Kiln though.

Its my understanding that propane is faster than kilns too based on what I read on those foundry forums.

but maybe your right, all I know is that most peopel that want to melt metals use gas fired furnaces.

Forced air is very important to reaching high heat. The furnace in the video was not forced air but those types of heads can put out a major flame. What you can do is use an old vacuum motor to blow air in. Then you just have to adjust the gas to get the flame to the right mixture. Then you make sure that your lid hole is smaller so it constricts the output just a little so the flame chamber is under a little pressure. You put your flame output at an angle inside of a round furnace and the flame circles around your crucible.

The lid of the furnace in the video was very light weight. He picked it off with his tongs very easily, I don't know what it was made of. I worked in a foundry for years though so I know about this stuff, and have had quite a passion for it, just never got around to making a furnace yet.

Hey guys,

Yeah I think that a suped-up propane setup as mentioned above (with a modified vacuum pumping air in) would probably be a bit faster than an electric kiln. It's important to be able to use it in a well vented area though and in a warm climate or during a warm time of year can help as well (that way the air pumped in is hotter). What I had before was much simpler (very thick insulation, but just the propane torch and no attachments to pump air) so I think that affected the time it took.

Another reason I switched to the kiln was because I kept getting worried about the propane and never felt comfortable using it indoors. I also don't have a shed area or a place outdoors that has a simple roof over it (just a stone porch), so I had to wait for clear days and often ended up putting things away if it started raining. I think the kiln I have (a caldera model) can heat a bit faster than some of the jeweler's ovens, but either way I end up waiting a while.

I ended up with some extra refractory materials if someone is building a kiln or apparatus of this nature. I have some high temp cement (20+Lbs?) and also a refractory blanket (a few sq. feet). It's kind of bulky to ship but if anyone is planning to make something, wants to pay for shipping, and you lives nearby (eastern US...I think it has to ship ground) just drop me a line. (I think my email is in the profile)...I'm about to take a vacation though, so I might end up being able to ship it in a month or so.

Anyhow, hope this is useful :-)

good to hear from you all,


Bill

Bill,
Whenever a member chooses to add their email to the profile, it's displayed as a button on the bottom of every post they make.

OK, I had to weigh out all my options:

To make your furance you have to do it right or else the refractory could explose or fall apart.
Needing to get on with expierments, I do not want to tie up a month or two expiermenting with furnace making.

So, I threw in the towel and bought one too from Lost and Foundry.

I have a lot of expierments to work on Moses, Dew Salt, and GW.

I have all these wonderful dreams of me making the stone!

That's great word2give!
By the way why did you remove your photo? Just curious.

kevinpaw123 wrote:

That's great word2give!
By the way why did you remove your photo? Just curious.

I get annoyed at my own face LOL!

That's funny!

I use to have a little catalog from a place in the US that sold the world's only distillation unit for mercury. They are a company that sells supplies for gold prospectors / diggers / panners.

They had perfect little jeweler's ovens that could be used to melt gold, and they weren't very expensive. They came in sizes from very small, to large enough to melt a pound of gold I think.

But now even when I tried searching the web for a place that sells a mercury distillation unit, nothing like that exists. I had a copy of the website address and photo of the distillation unit in a Word document on my old hard drive that crashed. Really sucks because I want that oven so bad!

NDC wrote:

I use to have a little catalog from a place in the US that sold the world's only distillation unit for mercury. They are a company that sells supplies for gold prospectors / diggers / panners.

They had perfect little jeweler's ovens that could be used to melt gold, and they weren't very expensive. They came in sizes from very small, to large enough to melt a pound of gold I think.

But now even when I tried searching the web for a place that sells a mercury distillation unit, nothing like that exists. I had a copy of the website address and photo of the distillation unit in a Word document on my old hard drive that crashed. Really sucks because I want that oven so bad!

I saw it there the other day.

By looking for Nick's lost links about jeweller's ovens and mercury distillation units I found under the glasware section of www.unitednuclear.com real Alchemy retorts.

Frank

Their retorts are only $40 for a 500ml. I like them because they make distilling liquids at very low temperatures go much faster. The main reason they aren't used in today's chemistry is because they allow some impurities to distill over with the liquid. Distillation systems of modern design have an arm that goes upwards instead of downwards, so the impurities fall back down into the flask, and only the purest part of the liquid makes it all the way over the arm. That's probably why alchemists had to distill and rectify their solutions 10 times just to get it pure enough.

A person who isn't yet a member of this forum, yet read the forum, saw this thread and he provided me with the answer to my question about that illusive website I couldn't find; the one that sells the world's only mercury retort, and the little jeweller's ovens.

The website is http://ABprospecting.com

Here is the page with the mercury retort. They changed the design to make it safer I guess, and able to handle 2 pounds of mercury amalgam. The one I saw had a glass receiver with a pressure release valve and looked much cooler, but I guess it couldn't handle much amalgam.

Mercury Retort


And here's the page with the turbo air furnaces and the kilns, and they ain't cheap. I remember them having little jeweller's ovens that could melt gold and they were less than $200:

Page 19 -- Kilns and turbo air furnaces


And here is the table of contents for the catalog so you can see every page. It's the 2007 catalog, and when you request a new catalog be sent to your house, next to the information fields, it says they are working on the 2009/10 catalog and it should be ready by September. But then when you hit the submite button, it says you will be mailed the new 2007 catalog. So I guess they are still updating the one for 2010. Also I think the one they send you in the mail is black&white.

2007 full color catalog

Thank you very much Richard for your generous donation and your help with giving us this website link! It made a nice little Christmas present! I was loosing my mind looking for that website.

While I'm waiting for my furnace, I'm going to also try using a butane burner sold at Cynmar.com which gets up to 2500F. It's only $50, and compared to the $500 for the smallest propane furnace costs, it would be wonderful if everyone could use the little butane burner instead. Gets up to the same temperature, but probably isn't capable of heating up an iron pot to red hot. I have a MAPP gas torch that gets up to like 5000F and it can't even make an iron crucible red hot. Maybe after waiting for an hour, the iron would finally be hot enough with the butane burner, but then you have to let it cool so you can refill it. So you would have to have 2 of them. I found one on eBay for only 20 bucks including shipping, and look just the same, but I'm doubting that it can actually reach 2500F. The nozzle has to be designed just right for the air flow to get the flame hot enough, because butane normally doesn't burn at 2500F.

They also sell "muffle" furnaces that are very nice and convenient, but the cheapest one is a thousand dollars, and the most expensive is 6,000. The cheapest one only gets up to just over 2000F, so it would probably still melt gold. And the most expensive gets up to just under 2200F.



It weighs only 20 pounds, half the weight of the propane furnace and twice the cost. I'm gonna buy this bad boy hopefully next month, but I still want the propane furnace because it's guaranteed to melt gold with no problem. Having nice furnaces like these really makes you feel like a true alchemist, and when you make videos of yourself using these furnaces to melt metals and make the Stone, people tend to have much more respect for your work. Anyone can have a little distillation system and a make-shift lab, but it takes a truly dedicated alchemist to spend a grand on a muffle furnace, then another half grand on the propane furnace, and another half grand just for supplies like those expensive aprons and gloves, and the iron casting molds, the crucibles, etc.








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