SIMPLE Homemade Metal Melting Furnace (Foundry) for metal casting - by VOG (VegOilGuy)

looking for an easy build home metal foundry needed affordable capable high temperatures and sturdy enough not to fall apart with every use I'm going to show you how hi YouTube my name is Jeff and I'm the visual guide today I'm going to be building this stable high temperature hot metal foundry to work alongside my wife's oil burner for melting and recycling various metals for other projects like some of the others out there I started off using Grant Thompson's mini metal foundry recipe and whilst I still think it's a masterpiece brilliant for short-term use anyone wanting something a little more substantial should think more carefully you can see mine here May from grants 50/50 sand and plaster of Paris mix the problem is it's just too weak it crumbles and disintegrates too easily and frankly ography of repairing mine taking inspiration from rifle boy I'm going to be using dedicated dense castable refractory mix that's capable of withstanding temperatures of 1700 degrees Celsius that's about 3100 Fahrenheit this should be much more solid and stable if you want to build along with me you'll need a couple of bags of this thankfully you can shop around it's quite affordable for the structure of the foundry you could use grants to boogied approach or even my foot boys plastic mold approach but I'm going to recycle my old foundry it was originally a second and vegetable container and these tins are an excellent basis for this purpose I've got a spare on hand and I'll be using both of them to add strength to this home foundry originally I took one of these valuable containers but it was much too tall so I cut out a slim center section and used both top and bottom to correct success obviously it's important to check that the container you choose is going to be big enough to handle your crucibles again I'm afraid grant crucible recipe to quote to me so I need to purchase some but thankfully not only is cheaply on eBay here I'm using the larger of multi crucibles to make sure I've got you'll need a good couple of inches of refractory at the bottom of the foundry so take this into a camp when you're measuring up once you could either end from these containers they do lose a lot of strength and they don't keep their shape very well it occurred to me an ideal solution was to reattach the thick ring I've previously cut away here is an older no discarded lead but I'm interested in the rim which is much thicker and much more structural the angle grinder made quick work of removing the thin top material leaving the rim and sides intact it was just then a matter of sliding this down over the bottom section to do this I need to cut a thin slot again with the angle grinder it was a tight fit but the old lead sled over the bottom section and could easily be tapped down to an ideal bite the middle began to balls where I put the slot but this could be tapped out later a scrap of wood helped me gauge the ideal height all around I then drilled and riveted the build section in four places self-tapping screws or small bolts could be used instead once fixed the whole section regained considerable strength and I was able to tap out the slope balls with several light hammer blows they only cut one slot and in hindsight three or four might have prevented this bolt pass nothing sticks well to loose rust I use the wire brush in my drill to drop and clean everything looking around for something approximately 2 inches tall I use the whole floor as a guide to mark to reach a high line around the inside of the container this is the height of the refractory filling as the foundry will be heavy I plan to later consume casters for easy loading so I bolted a simple plywood base to the container using a bolt means that I can always detach it later if I need to now I've already got a hole cut in my base this is the inlet for the waste oil burner the air supply or in my case both groans tutorial recommends using barbecue charcoal to fuel your foundry at the office few attempts at metal melting that's a good idea but charcoal is hard to control I found as soon as the foundry was hot enough the charcoals Allgood down dead a gas or oil burner is a better way to go that you can source is more controllable and much more dependable if you haven't already built your burner you should really do that first so you know what size hole you need to cut if you're looking to burn waste vegetable oil or motor oil check out my wife's oil burner design this is a simple low-tech easy build design but generate plenty of heat using recycled materials there are three important considerations you need to make when cutting your home firstly as I've already said make sure your home matches the diameter of your burner secondly position the hole so that it spot mate is around three inches above the bottom of the container this will allow for the two inches of refractory and an inch clearance for the burner finally download straight onto the base ideally you want your burner to enter at an angle to encourage the heat to flow around the edges of the foundry evenly eating your crucible reflect this angle when you cut your bulb this containers aren't phased it so a drill and a hole saw make easy work of this a few weeks back I made a new lid but that was made using a mix of my own creation what's this is holding up quite well it was still cracking and so I decided to mt8 the content and fill it with proper high-temperature refractory it also struck needs a good idea to add a lower rim to this as well the increased strength makes it really worthwhile and as I've got a second contender to hand it just made sense so the former lead was cleaned up and the base of the other container was sliced away with manual grinder grant's crucible suggestion of an old fire extinguisher didn't work for me but it did leave me with a nice steel tube I used this to long the hole in the lid I don't food team would do just as well taking the freshly could contain a bottom I found the center marked it and I drilled a pilot hole I was then able to use a hole saw to cut a large feed hole in the future lid a little more work with a file took care of any nasty edges and the tube slid in a treat I cut away the flattop of the formal lead as I did before and this will become the underside of the new lead now the two sections of the lead need to come together this time I've put several slots to make fitting simpler it's the same procedure again this time I tapped it into place and make sure that I've sufficient height to allow for a good couple of inches of refractory I then riveted the two sections together just four rivets did the job at this point I realized the tube autumn guarantee return of typical but thankfully on ordinary food can was an almost perfect fit I cut a few slots and sure enough it all went together well I make sure that I have plenty of room for a soda cap as I do like to melt in recycle these but it needs a couple of handles and you can make these from whatever you like I had some copper pipe to hand it might not be the strongest material but it won't rust and it could easily handle this job the pipe is funny and bent over in my voice it doesn't look very pretty but it is very practical for rivets held the edge of each handle in place and this completed this stage of the lid construction now we come to the refractory now you will need a couple of bags for this project and it isn't the cheapest material but I found just with a little bit of internet browsing I was able to find a good supplier and a very good price so do shop around folks even so I wanted to avoid waste so I filled the base with the dry mix up to the marked 2 inch line I'll check the depth and then I pour the refractory into a bucket for mixing add the water sparingly you do not want a wet mix stir it well a trial works best and ensure there's no draw spots the finished mix should compact well but it should not be some the mixed content was then poured back into the base and pounded down well this point coke my Labrador decided to supervise event pounded flat and level making sure there's no air gaps then you're gonna need to wait around 24 hours the next morn in the base was nice and hard an old plastic paint camp made an ideal temporary mold liner it left a good inch and a half to two inch gap all around the problem was the paint can or board slightly as you can see here so obviously I didn't do a brilliant job of flattening down the refractory but that's something consult out in a moment as you see I needed to cut hole in the plastic cap to align my waste to Auburn adding plenty of temporary weight held the can securely remember the angle of the Bernese all-important as the can was plastic I decided to cut the hole nice and easily using my bottle burner and a blowtorch with careful placement just three or four passes melted a hole just where I wanted it remember the wobbly base while our friend of plasticine or play-doh modeling clay or whatever you want to call it comes in really handy here rolled into Dean's sausage shapes and pressed around the outer rim of the painting it can stop the wobble I took a tiny amount of vegetable oil on a paper towel and rub this all over the tin this should help as a releasing agent you don't need much at all you just want to create a sheen I then wrapped clean film around the tip of the all burn I wrap too thinly and my burner got stuck so make sure you wrap several good layers inside my shed I secured everything into place the plank can rested snugly inside the base the burner was pushed through this at just the right angle and it was secured in place using a few clamps you want to avoid any kind of movement so Trumpy is really helpful as you can see the burner is sticking through at a loss angle to avoid the refractory getting in solid this ipact plasticine around it don't push too hard or it will poke through the other side the plasticine stops the paint from wobbling and the refractory from getting in but the filling process could easily dislodge anything so I added a few scoops of dry sand inside the bank can its weight held everything firmly the lid was placed back on the cap and you'll see why in a moment more plasticine was added to the rear of the burner to prevent any refractory from escaping now this is a wonderful tip from my foot boy again an ordinary electric sander becomes a fabulous vibrating tool I attached a piece of copper pipe to my electric sander using just a couple of ordinary screws but I found that this wasn't enough with using the screw worked loose so I added a couple of cable ties as well and this seemed to do the trick mix it up the refractory again this mix was a little wetter than the first time as it needs to move around but still don't use too much water only enough water so that the substance moves I've seen videos of people making a right mess trying to fill this narrow gap when making a foundry the painting lid comes in really handy for this user the bit of old board in the scraper I was able to push the refractory down the slot hardly any mess was made pack the refractory down very well with a stick pay particular attention around the burner as you'll need the refractory to flow under the burner pipe this is where the vibration tool works wonders no matter hand would you pack it down with the stick the vibration tool just seems to make things flow and sink so much more eventually the base was filled and this probably uses more refractory than you'll expect at this point a scrap of wood made an excellent striking off talked and made everything nice and level the reinforced rim certainly came in useful don't rush this stage make sure you compact it as well as you can work out any air bubbles fill any imperfections and tap out the area again when you are happy a light hand and a troll make a nice job on the surface see how the repeated beating and vibrating has drawn the moisture to the surface now you can see the lid you'll notice how I've screwed the handles down this holds the structure flat against the board and prevents anyone into curvy that can happen when the materials this thing it also makes things much more controllable and with the lead-filled that's it all we can do now is wait for it to dry one week on and everything is looking really good we need to take this cam out because it's too weak and it won't survive the heat of the furnace as you can see lots and lots of tap in here you took about two three minutes of tapping then I gradually got order an order an order but it wasn't shifting that refractory really grips well in the end I had no choice but to grab a pair of pliers the scraper just removes any dry material and a few taps of the hammer help to loosen the lead from the board the board is just an old scrap these so don't worry about the marks that get about to see now let's take a look at the base as you can see that dried air to treat as well so needed to remove the leak now and hopefully remove the burner that would be the sensible thing but I couldn't get my burner out as you've seen me mention earlier on I didn't put enough cellophane on it please don't make the same mistake I did so I've got no choice but to smash the cannet shame really I think it would have pulled out the fixed ball really did seem to do the trick never go it's this pinching and twisting motion that you got to do it does work but you're probably gonna sweat a lot if you've got to do it the same way as I did eventually it came free but the burner stood at the bomb there we go you see the plasticine still in there a little bit of sand which we can't argue up in a moment you can see I actually put the casters onto the base obviously we need a couple of lockable ones to stop the whole thing from moving there we go I managed to get the burner out I had to use a little unfortunately which means I got a little puddle of oil inside my base but other than that it's not looking too bad is it and here we have a finished product I gave it a light sanding applied some ghost killer then gave it a few coats of heat-resistant paint all that's needed now is to load a small fire inside it to help it dry out problem before we introduce needs a proper foundry heat so I'm going to wrap things up there now folks I hope you'll agree with me that it's a nice easy bill and you can expect good things from this designer foundry if you've got any questions to get in touch if you enjoyed this video please like it if you didn't then why not let me know why I'm always eager to improve my videos your comments and questions are always welcome and I really love to hear from you so do drop me a message below please do check out my youtube channel and of course one of the videos I've got about 40 videos out there now and I'm receiving some fantastic feedback and I'm seeing some really interest from subscribers so thank you all for that and if you haven't subscribed yet then please do if there's a subject you like me to make a video on then let me know and I'll do my best to help so that's it for now folks thanks very much for watching

Channel: VOG

Views: 355,950

Rating: 4.8729339 out of 5

Keywords: High Temperature Homemade Metal Foundry, home made foundry, foundry, metal foundry, refractory, high temperature, vegoilguy, easy build, how to, waste oil foundry, home foundry, home furnace, metal forge, aluminium casting, home cast, homemade metal foundry, backyard foundry, soda can foundry, vog

Id: n42t3M1fOyY

Length: 20min 58sec (1258 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2016