casting

Casting

WARNING! Safety is your responsibility. These pages consist of images and descriptions of equipment which can reach high temperatures creating potentially dangerous situations and should not be taken as a step by step guide on how to construct or use any items.

After buying the drawings for the Sparey model diesel engine its now time to start building my furnace and as can be seen below an old gas tank is going have a new lease of life. If anyone is considering building the Sparey or any other model engine I highly recommend Ron Chernich's site Model Engine News. This has got to be the best site I've found on the web for model engine builders and you can find constructional notes on building the Sparey 5cc diesel and lots of other tips.

Furnace

Now cut down to its final size the burner support tube has been welded on and the next job will be the refractory lining.

Furnace

The base of the furnace has had the central former removed and the top has just been filled with a refractory mix and will now be placed in the garage with a plastic bag over it to slow down the moisture evaporation, after 48 hrs I'll try removing the central vent former

Furnace

The refractory lining has been drying for a week and this is the first time I've had chance to fire it. The fire was left for 1/2 an hour before turning on the blower to really increase the temperature. I ran it flat out for an hour and you can just see a small pool of water on the aluminium tray the furnace is stood on. This was the only water that was driven out of the refractory mix. When all the wood had been burnt away the top vent was covered with a piece of steel to let the furnace cool down slowly and this was the only time, some 2hrs after the fire was out that you would not be able to touch the side of the furnace without burning yourself.

Furnace

I've still got a few more things to do before my first melt, the small 3" steel crucible has been finished and can be seen here on the welding bench complete with the homemade lifting tongs the large steel pipe is to be a 5" dia crucible and there are the trays to make for casting my scrap aluminium into

Crucible and tongs

The moulding boxes are complete, the wood didn't really need to be this thick 25mm x 60mm would have sufficed but 32mm x 60mm was all the wood yard had. Two coats of varnish has been applied to the boxes and register pins fitted to allow alignment of the pattern when in use

Moulding Box

My first try at turning scrap into ingots, since it was my first go I used my patent poundland stainless steel coffee container as a crucible, the good news is it heats up fast but on the downside it doesn't retain any heat because its so thin, I don't think this will last very long. Below are the ingots from melting down a Nissan Micra's inlet manifold.

Ingots