How to Make an Electric Foundry for Metal Casting

by baneling-bust

12K32511

Intro: How to Make an Electric Foundry for Metal Casting

Hello,

In this instructable I am going to be showing you how to make an electric foundry for metal casting! This is one of the most complex and expensive projects I have ever made and it took so much of my time so I would really appreciate it if you could vote for it in the metals contest.

This video shows how to make version 1 of the foundry. This version had no temperature control, no proper lid, no proper crucible and it was either turned on or off. Despite this it still works really well to melt aluminium!

After the success of version 1 I had to upgrade it more! So I created version 2 with PID temperature control where I can set the temperature to anything between 0 and 1000 Celsius! I also created a proper lid and leveling feet.

I also created my own custom steel crucible from scrap steel that I found in my shop.

Using this foundry I then melted down some scrap metal into some aluminium round stock that I could turn on my metal lathe.

I found that the temperature control on the foundry meant that it was perfect for heat treating small knives so I made a little whittling knife from a drill bit. I also used the foundry to cast an aluminium handle for the knife and I think that it turned out quite well.

I hope that you enjoyed the project!

11 Comments

marvic2409 6 years ago

Where do I connect the power cable. I noticed its three cables inside the power cable so where do the three go.

DrRadium 6 years ago

Oh and one comment to anyone making this or any other design with a solid state relay. As I discovered, they don't completely turn off power, they just cut current to a trickle but at the same voltage. So even when the pid controller has the relay turned off you can still be shocked. Not to a fatal degree, just an alarming one.

DrRadium 6 years ago

EDIT I answered my own question. You use a piece of kanthal A1 wire bent over as a stable to hold the element into the firebrick.

Thanks for the instructable and the you tube post on this. I built a slightly larger square one along with steel tube crucibles. It works quite well but I find that the heating wire tends to slip out of the channels after a short time. This tends to result in the heating wire sagging and making contact with other sagging wire. At best this creates wire breaks at worst complete heating wire meltdown. Because the wire gets quite brittle pushing it back i to the grooves also tends to produce breaks. Have you had problems with this and if so, how did you address them?

I have seen one build that suggests leaving a lip to keep this from happening but I've found it less than trivial to do this so I was hoping for simpler solution.

seniorfrito 7 years ago

Is there any way to get this hotter and can you use ceramic fiber instead of firebrick?

Geeks with lasers 7 years ago

Nice build. I would love one of these.but alas, I lack your DIY skills.

Thankyou for the inspiration though, I may take this along with basics from (https://www.instructables.com/id/Flowerpot-Furnace-a-Home-Foundry/) and make myself one :D

PloobleMoose 7 years ago

You are blatantly STEALING the art of weapon's content. It's ok if you make a similar project and make your own intractable, but really? EVERY single intstructable on your account is copied from his youtube. You disgust me

kurshiukas 7 years ago

Neat! This one should be great to work with steel indoor, I think, however, an improvement may be done for heat treating knives to make, a horizontal crucible imbeded in to the forge, so that you do not touch the heating element with knives. Other than that - what is the power of this forge (how much electricity does it consume?)

C3DRIC 7 years ago

Really good instructable, however i will probably not do it...

Reasons are I find hazardous the way you examine the way to get the sling resistance to the right length... Also the resistance WILL end up damaged after some time, now of course this is probably after a few years or something like that but still xD

Basically main problem is if it's only gonna melt aluminium i'd rather make something with charcoal tbh ^^

Of course that is only my opinion, and this is still an amazing project! Keep up the good work!