Making Steel from sand....
Aug 1, 2008 15:27:35 GMT
Post by Matthew Stagmer on Aug 1, 2008 15:27:35 GMT
So over the weekend my brother and I and a couple other friends and spouses had a little cookout.... One of the fires burned a little hotter then the others!!!
Working with the same crucible left over from Jeff Pringles 2 runs and the same foundry I made a crack at making this stuff again.
I tried to take the info Jeff showed us while here and go from there with few changes.
The crucible was charged with 1000 grams of Jeff's sand and 500 grams of local ore. 400 grams of charcoal at the bottow and about the same on the top. Borax for the flux, and a bit of clear glass.
The furnace ran wonderfully, I ended up going about 5lbs on the propane and saw what appeared to be full melt in about 1 and 1/2 hours. We were getting the foaming Jeff had described and at about 2 hours had violent sparking shooting out the top. Durring the high heat time I added borax as I had seen him do at the hammer-in. slow cool for half and hour or so revealed what appears to be sucess!
The foundry had little wear, the lids are not so happy but are and easy repair.
Thats when I found my mistake. Having worked in a bronze foundry I really feel stupid.... I set the crucible with no cardboard underneath for a carbon parting.... seriously fused to the foundry bottom. So I broke the crucible up to extract the steel.
350 grams of what appears to be pretty clean steel. I ground and polished a corner and it looks like I will see a pattern.
This spark tested perfect. I will get pics of that soon.
For more info on our smelts and our hammer-ins please see www.fireandbrimstone.com
Working with the same crucible left over from Jeff Pringles 2 runs and the same foundry I made a crack at making this stuff again.
I tried to take the info Jeff showed us while here and go from there with few changes.
The crucible was charged with 1000 grams of Jeff's sand and 500 grams of local ore. 400 grams of charcoal at the bottow and about the same on the top. Borax for the flux, and a bit of clear glass.
The furnace ran wonderfully, I ended up going about 5lbs on the propane and saw what appeared to be full melt in about 1 and 1/2 hours. We were getting the foaming Jeff had described and at about 2 hours had violent sparking shooting out the top. Durring the high heat time I added borax as I had seen him do at the hammer-in. slow cool for half and hour or so revealed what appears to be sucess!
The foundry had little wear, the lids are not so happy but are and easy repair.
Thats when I found my mistake. Having worked in a bronze foundry I really feel stupid.... I set the crucible with no cardboard underneath for a carbon parting.... seriously fused to the foundry bottom. So I broke the crucible up to extract the steel.
350 grams of what appears to be pretty clean steel. I ground and polished a corner and it looks like I will see a pattern.
This spark tested perfect. I will get pics of that soon.
For more info on our smelts and our hammer-ins please see www.fireandbrimstone.com