Celsoari's Foundry Build and Casting Work

[GreenTwin]

I have a BIG interest in foundry/casting work for model engines and other uses, and have been following along with our member "Celsoari's" thread "Homemade Headstock Lathe 1 foundry work", located here:

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/homemade-headstock-lathe-1-foundry-work.36883/


I became curious about what sort of foundry equipment Celsoari had, so I looked at his ytube channel.
He built a very nice stainless keg furnace, and uses the same wrist joint for the lid that I do.
Video title is "How to make an aluminum smelting furnace with a beer barrel, an easy to execute project, lined with refractory for 1400 C".

His video is especially interesting since I also built a keg foundry furnace.
I use the same wrist-style hinge for lid lifting, on one of my furnaces.
I like the wrist joint a lot more than the typical furnace lifting mechanism that is often seen on backyard furnaces, since the wrist joint won't jam like some of the other mechanisms.

Here is Celsoari's furnace build video.
This is a very clean and well designed foundry furnace.
Most interesting to compare techniques from around the world for backyard foundry work.

It is good to see another hobby person building and using such advanced foundry equipment.

If you set the closed captions language to English (or whatever language you happen to speak), you can read the captions and understand what he is saying. Got to the "settings" button on the lower right part of the video, pick "subtitles", "autotranslate", and then pick the language you want.

 

[GreenTwin]

Here is Celsoari's naturally aspirated propane burner, and this is also a very well designed and built unit.
The air dampers on the back allow for fine tuning of the combustion air that gets aspirated through the burner tube.
For a foundry furnace, you need these air dampers to adjust the burner correctly.

If a combustion air blower is added to a burner like this, along with a high-flow propane regulator, you can melt iron.
The furnace refractory must be rated at about 3,000 F if you melt iron, and also your crucible must be rated about 3,000 F, and ferrous-metal-rated.

 

[GreenTwin]

Celsoari's molding techniques.
He appears to use an oil-based foundry sand, similar to or actually Petrobond (tm).
Or perhaps water-based sand ?
These are very nice solid molds, especially after sitting for a week.

 

[GreenTwin]

Celsoari casting aluminum shapes.

A few notes from me:
I have been told by a commercial foundry person that aluminum should be skimmed, but not stirred, to avoid mixing bifilms and slag into the melt.

Many backyard people use "pool shock" to degas their aluminum. Be aware that if you use pool shock, you should avoid the fumes generated, since they are highly toxic.

You can see snap-flasks used in this video.
I also use snap-flasks, since this allows the wood flask to be removed from the sand mold, to avoid damage to the wood in case of a metal spill.

Some very nice aluminum shapes created during this pouring session !