/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Cheapest I ever built was a hope in the ground with a leaf blower pipe burried at an angle to the bottom. Melted stainless. Cost zero dollars. Burnt wood.

>>1599094
I tried this with coal, did nothing but throw embers all over my yard. but I did have the blower pointed 90 degrees toward the coals.

Couple of paint cans, a soup can, and a blow dryer.

>>1599094
I did this with coal in an attempt to blacksmith, but it melted the steel I was going to use.

>>1599096
>>1599094
The trick with these things is to have the fuel have as much surface area as poss, much more efficient burn, much hotter.

>>1599094
Use a hairdryer.

>>1599087
If you can get a couple old microwaves you can use the capacitors, some cheap firestone, and car battery electrodes to make an arc furnace. Costs a bit in electricity to run tho. Best of luck.

>>1599087
I recently made a Foundry using silica bricks off of eBay for about $72 overall and I ordered satanite 5 lb online for 15 plus $30 total with shipping.

I bought some 22 gauge sheet steel from Lowe's to act as a covering for the outside to keep everything together because I know my mortar holding the bricks together what eventually crack which they did. I modeled everything on a 3D software before I put the angles together but even though I did that I still had to shave an inch off of one brick to get everything to fit

The top and bottom are two full size bricks with rectangular pieces slapped onto the sides to give a more octagono look.

Bending the sheet steel was pretty simple but tedious after taking a long sheet of one eighth of an inch flat bar Steel and putting a nut and bolt through it and a table to keep the steel strapped down while I hammered with whatever angle I needed on the edge.

It took me awhile but I'm pretty happy with this propane furnace. The torch are used does based off The King of Random torch on YouTube

>>1600550
At the same time I finished my Foundry I found this thing for pool covers with and aluminum spool only a quarter mile from my house. I took my skateboard out and rode down to it put the back end on the skateboard and walked it back to my house. Then I disassembled the plastic ends slip the plastic cover off and angle grinder into sections I could melt I got around 2 dozen to 3 dozen muffins out of it. And I would say it was a big score.

I'm going to make some molds with the aluminum for my custom injection molds.

>>1600558
>found

my grandfather made one and gave it to me and some kike broke the top into six pieces and there were a few other problems in making it my main problem though is that i dont have enough wood to fuel it, ive made charcoal before and im trying to get more wood to do it again but the fire pit i use dissipates way too much heat to do it effectively does anyone have any tips on batter ways of doing this and some ideas for making foundry's on a limited budget (id be willing to spend around 100 but more if i have to

>>1600984
Well it was on the side of the road

>>1601067
jesus christ reading posts like this makes me realize most school teachers don't even try anymore.

>>1599112
I said hole in the ground. Never mentioned steel

>>1599087

Don't go overkill like pic related.

Do make it with cast-o-lite 3,000.

Do get good crucibles and appropriate tools. I caught my jeans on fire 6 inches from a steel crucible and the next day melted it and spent 4 hours cussing and beating on shit with a hammer and torching to get it out.

I highly suggest NOT using sand and plaster unless you love literal lava down the back of your neck and in your face.

Grant Thompson on youtube is the best basic advice. King of Random channel.
Watch his vids a few times on it and FOR SURE watch the one where the title says something like "before you build the foundry." That 5 minute video was a 2 month headache for me and it sounds like his experience was similar.

Highly suggest the kwicky burner off youtube as you can run your froundry on basically any flammable gas or liquid you can find. Be sure and get an inline fu3il filter and maybe run oil through an old oil filter because the nozel clogs easily and it's a mutherfucker to get it back apart to clean it.

Good luck folks. Oh, and either /diy or buy your petrol bonded green sand. I used limestone rock screenings ran through a sifter and bentonite gel. It worked just as good as the expensive oil shit and didn't get you all oily and slimy. But every single cast you gotta mix it and fuck with moisture content being perfect. Oil u just dump it out and go.

I had a lot of fun with ice trays from the perv shop. Be sure and buy the silicone ones and a can of mold release. Cast easyflow 60 2 part plastic in it and then ram plastic dicks into the sand for solid cast aluminum dicks!

Or. You know. Not dicks.

>>1599289

Ive taken this a step further. Aint gonna be no fucking around with my fire pit. Got an old fuel pump and a cheap drum of rotten racing fuel. Stinks for a minute and not good for cars but burns like gas. Have it on one side 4 feet from the fire to mist it down. Universal propane electric ignitor about 100 feet or so away qired i to the panel. And pic related is roughly a 6"x12" outlet blower piped into a large screen on the bottom to fairly even disburse a fuckton of airfloe. About 30 seconds and a roaring bonfire is there. 2 push buttons and a togle switch for the blower.

I'll never have to fuck with water soaked wood again.

Has anyone made axes, maces or other tools/weapons here?

>>1602641
You don't use a foundry for weapons, foundries are for melting metal and pouring into moulds
Forges are what you use to get stuff hot and them hammer on. There's a knife making thread up most of the time and once in a while a general blacksmithing thread is around for a hundred posts or so before dying

Also technically weapons are against the board rules but as long as you aren't being an edgelord about it and maybe keep it out of the op you're probably fine. Just call them historical artistic recreations or something.

>>1602659
Actual yeah, I wanted to make some Roman style weapons, but lack the skill of metal working.

>>1602709
It's not that hard to /diy/.
The equipment that is, the skill is another matter but you only get that by doing it.
I think I spent 40$ total on this, it's very far from perfect but good enough to mangle bits of metal while I learn.

>>1602722
On one hand, I love that you made a nifty DIY forge and anvil that looks somewhat functional.

On the other hand, I fear your firehazard wooden pan forge and am triggered by your hammering on a pretty cool marine antique.

I guess they my feelings cancel out and I feel totally neutral about your ridiculous setup. carry on.

>>1602730
I do feel a little guilty about the cleat. Better than half buried and rotting away like I found it, but probably deserving of a little more gentle retirement than I've given it so far. It's far from ideal though, soft and weird shaped and round holes aren't particularly useful and I don't want to drill them out square, so I'll get around to replacing it with something a little more suitable when I find a better piece of scrap.
The pan is actually an inch or so above the 2x4s, held up by the brackets. I wasn't sure it would survive but there's no charring and barely even any discoloration so it seems fine for now.

>>1602758
you need a piece of railroad track.

>>1599087
probably refractory blocks and propane

buying a used furnace if you can find one is probably great, electric bill might be $10k/month while you're pouring life-size statues of yourself though.

>>1602722

What ship did you rip the "anvil" from?

what kind of crucible or what can i make a crucible out of that wont need replaced as long as i take care of it?

>>1603274
Graphite crucibles will last for a few years, it taken care of. Clay crucibles are more vulnerable to heat differences, and can get really soft at high temps

is there a difference in temperature between wood embers and homemade charcoal?
blowing air into the embers i got them white hot and liquified some glass, but it was a pain in the ass because i was doing it manually
does charcoal burn hotter? if so, why? the hot embers are pretty much just carbon, right? there was no smoke. just insane amounts of heat

I work at a steel casting facility, we've got some small-scale induction furnaces but i used to work with gas furnaces. Its all ive ever worked with but im still young and learning so i dont know a lot. I can take pics of current work and here's one of my old workplace. lmk if youre interested or have any questions for me

>>1600550
>no hole in bottom of furnace

If you ever have a crucible failure, you're gonna have a bad time.

>>1601167
>jesus christ reading posts like this makes me realize most school teachers don't even try anymore.
Jesus Christ, reading posts like this makes me realize most school teachers don't even try anymore.
>I'm sure there are other ways to improve sentence structure, but whatevs.

>>1603388
what kind of raw cast iron do they get to melt?

what if any metallurgy stuff do they need to do in order to make it cast good? cast any grey iron?

>>1603388
start here >>1601167 please

>>1602761
no he doesn't

>>1603388
herro?

>>1603479
Yes he does. Best bang for your buck is a good railroad anvil when youre just starting out. Theres literally no point waisting hundreds to thousands of dollars buying a "real" anvil when a scrap of track will perform just the same and save him untold amount of cash.

>>1603806
>bang
see what you did there

What use do you guys have for a foundry? Genuinely curious.

>>1603894
Currently making a 200x100 anvil out of an excavators broken jack hammer bit. Need to do more grinding tomorrow before it'll be finished.
For heat I have half of my old furnace now standing at about 350mm which i fill with coal and power with an old house duct fan.
Main furnace is a trash can filled with concrete and a graphite crucible which needs tongs hence why I'm making an anvil and forge.
I'll wait out on making a proper foundry until I buy a house sometime next year.
Pic is one of my second furnace from about 5 years ago.

>>1602722
Looks comfy bro

>>1599094
I did the exact same thing with great success.

Dug a hole in the ground and lined it with refractory bricks. You can also put refractory bricks over the hole when it's burning.

Then I buried a metal gutter, one end stuck in the bottom of the hole, the other end above ground. I put charcoal in the pit and blew a leaf-blower into the gutter.

I was using an iron pipe nipple as a crucible and melted it.

The only downside was that charcoal has many embers, and the blower basically shots the embers up out of the hole like hellfire. Sometimes the embers would fall into my gloves and burnt like hell. Normal coal may work better.

>>1605402
Bump

>>1603885
kys

>>1607738
no u

If you are just starting out, need an anvil and can't get railroad track, sink a sledgehammer head into concrete in a 5 gallon bucket (leaving a work face exposed) and it'll do for a bit. Long enough to make your first set of tools (tongs etc), anyway.

>>1607750
Also look into brake drum forge for cheap foundry.

Railroad track anvils are pretty but they kind of suck. There's so little mass under the hammer that you lose most of the energy in the blows. There's a reason good anvils are 300+lbs of steel and not just a hardened plate bolted to a stump.
You can mount them like this and they're actually great, apparently, but then the work surface is pretty small. Still usable, but any big solid chunk of hard steel will do a better job.

Anything is better than nothing of course, you can hammer on a rock and heat metal up in a hole in the ground if you need to.

Just dug a hole. Don't bother lining it. Why does everyone want to line it. It is already lined with an earths worth of Earth. Just dig a hole . Gosh freaking idiots!

>>1599094
Also did this with a bucket forge and made a hurricane of fire in my yard.
the heat was so intense I had to use welding gear and the neibours called the fire brigade who were mildly concerned but laughed it off when they saw I was actually making things not burning things

>>1599087
Anyone bought a used industrial furnace before?

>>1607775
Not sure if b8, but too much water in the soil to be practical.

>>1609750
Absolutely not.

Let's just say there was. One could dry it by filling with

>>1603894
Here's mine.

>>1603986
Just make a piece of railroad track

>>1609856
Ive seen this type around a lot. Is this a commercially available one, or just a common diy project?

>>1609925
I don't have a piece of rail track

>>1610082
I got it from here:
http://devil-forge.com/gas-furnaces/40-fb3h.html

You can make one for drastically cheaper, but I had more money than time when I initially needed it, so here we are.

My rig

>>1610265
>$1,567.00 USD

>>1601167
Zero punctuation.
>faggot

Great thread. I experimented around with a concrete furnance similar to >>1609856 my problem was I was using charcoal and it was taking a long time to melt some small aluminum parts, I also didnt have an appropriate crucible but this guys idea >>1605402 seems pretty good.

My question is what is the quality of parts? supposed I was to make a mold for something. Do you recommend that I buy the material from ebay or how do I get quality aluminum/steel? and end up with a quality part.

Also anyone have experience with induction furnaces?

>>1603986
>>1609856
>What use do you have for a foundry

>>1611683
Its a great field of metal working, and a lot of fun to fuck around with.
If you wanted an example, I used mine to make castings for a slide valve

>>1609560
LOL same. Fucking 15 foot fire tornado in a 5gallon bucket

>>1603894
I intended to dig tenches and cast a bunker. Wayyyy to ambitious. I settled for casting aluminum dicks and random other things before scraping it for my dream foundry. All push buttons and levers hindreds of feet from that damned heat

>>1603388

MOAR FOUNDRY PORN

>>1602770
You can gamble on a natural gas well for 50k like i intend to do some day

>>1611683
I'm working on casting a grave marker. After that, I'll probably make casts of 3d printed objects, maybe build more tools for the garage.

>>1610746
>My question is what is the quality of parts? supposed I was to make a mold for something. Do you recommend that I buy the material from ebay or how do I get quality aluminum/steel? and end up with a quality part.

Aluminum is easy enough to find locally. Scrap yard will probably be cheapest. If you wanted to make alloys that are more castable, it really depends on what you're trying to do--but a lot of people have success just melting down scrap aluminum.
You won't likely be working your way up to casting steel, but bronze is a nice material for casting. I get mine here: http://shop.clay-planet.com/silicon-bronze-ingots--everdur-c873.aspx

>>1603254
the one that floated away from the dock.....

anyone in australia know what type of bricks i need to buy to build a little foundry/kiln/bbq

i have a small 80cmx80cm area that i dug out in the middle of a brick pathway and was thinking of just lining the area with some fire bricks and mortar, then building up so it's raised out of the ground some. making another small channel underneath with more bricks to pump air if desired with an additional brick cover.

any forseeable issues with the surrounding brick? should i do two layers of firebricks insulation?
but the main question is; are there certain types of firebricks which are not recommended to use in ovens or barbecues that are used in foundries (or vice versa)?

appreciate it

>>1613001
any brick should do m8

Weather recent got better. I made this small furnace over the winter. I made it out of a 5 gall. bucket, left over cement, hanger wire, and steel wool. I'm also using a lawn burner as the torch, and my gf's hair drier as the air.
Pic took 10 mins to heat up, before my cheap cover bricks broke due to water.

>>1613557
i was under the impression that certain cement/concrete would explode at high temps due to moisture content or something like that.

i can just use ordinary bricks if i want to build one of these?

>>1613612
The moisture thing is true, but you can dry it out, it just takes a very long time.
I let mine dry out for 3 months, but one month should be fine. The only other issue is that the cement calcinates.
My cover broke just after 30 mins of use, and is in about 10 pieces atm. If you wanted a long lasting and efficent one, I would do it the right way and use actual firing bricks

>>1602722
Do you know the Bow Chock (not a Cleat) you're using as an anvil is cast iron?
It's not solid steel.
Basically, you're hammering on a sponge.
Real anvils, and railroad track like anon No.1602761 mentioned are surface hardened.
They are harder than the metal you're forming. Anvils have "bounce", they rebound the hammer blows.
A 1" ball bearing should bounce when dropped on a good anvil like a golf ball.

You're only going to learn bad habits and be disappointed with this setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuX5s5r9i74

>>1613686
do you think this will be safe from moisture if i use some mortar on the inside of these bricks then put a layer of firebricks and more mortar? im going to build it higher but im worried about moisture seeping in from surrounding bricks after rainfall

>>1602722

oh man are you in for a treat when you use an actual anvil

>>1599094
Need a schematich

>>1600550
>that's_nice_cat.bat

>>1599087
Cryo-hardening is really that hard to do I havent seen big smithing channels attempt, though there are demos on yt they arent very illuminating.

>>1613832
Im not an expert in this sort of field, so take my word with a grain of salt, but I'm guessing those bricks are clayish, and if dried, they are pretty good for a diy furnace.
The mortar will be useless after one or two uses, as most brick mortars are limestone based, and will calcinate very quickly, turning it back into sand and quicklime.
I had built a small furnace from cement chimney blocks, and it worked for about a week until the rain and poor material choice lead it to falling apart into sand. This was just my smelter for aluminum, since I could power it with wood I chopped myself, and of the low temps it was barely capable of.

So in my honest opinion, no I dont this this would be moisture and long term friendly, unless if you built it under a roof, and had a tarp over it.

>>1614200
even high temp mortar rated for 1k degrees?
this is troubling as i wanted a semi bbq/furnace/kiln. maybe i will line everything with some sheet metal. thanks for the protips

>>1613832
No. Those bricks absorb moisture, and the heat WILL seep into them, and as soon as they hit boiling temp the moisture in them may turn them into a literal grenade. i would suggest getting ahold of an old brake rotor from a junkyard/wrecked car, some lump charcoal from walmart(the hardwood stuff, like oak) some non galvanized 2 inch pipe, a stainless steel shower grate, and a hair dryer. you can build a decent little coal forge that will exceed what you need.

>>1613991
i mean you could just not be an edgy cunt and heat treat it like you are supposed to instead of relying on crackpot methods that dont work at home.

>>1600550
>ordered satanite
heresy

>>1609856
Looks similar to this design, however this one appears to use vegetable oil instead of propane

>>1599438
It's none of those things for the cheap arc furnace you fucking retard

Bump

What could I use as a blower?
I've tried hair dryers, but they end up breaking within a month. I am very tight with money atm, but I was thinking of jerry rigging an old bathroom fan as a blower?
Could this work, and are there easier options?

>>1599106
already tried it, and it barely melts an icecream in summer

>>1603388
First of all, what do you think of those cheap furnaces you can get for a few bucks on Amazon

>>1610746
Aluminum quality seemed ok. I used old aluminum lawn chairs and other scrap aluminum I found at the dump.

Don't bother using soda cans, they are engineered to use the least aluminum possible. They are basically half paint.

I threw in table salt to help out-gas the melted aluminum -- I'm not sure if it did anything. Otherwise, I used an old metal spoon to scrap away the Aluminum oxide dross. All my casting seemed good quality (for a hobbyist)

My best castings came from lost-foam casting. Basically, I cut forms out of pink housing styrofoam. Then I coated in a few coats of plaster, and buried in silica sand. The surface quality was quite impressive.

>>1617861
What kind of casting do you make?

>>1614831
REPENCE.JPG

>>1599087
i wanna make a new one since i tossed my old propane one when i moved. either electric resistance because i have a 240v 50a socket or natural gas because far cheaper and infinite supply vs propane. has anyone done either? how much of a hassle would natgas be since its such a low pressure out of the wall and less energy content than propane?

>>1620543
Does electric it really cost that much compared to gas?

>>1601785
>Or. You know. Not dicks.
Dickfarmer would not be proud of you, anon.

>>1602659
>You don't use a foundry for weapons
>foundries are for melting metal and pouring into moulds
Excuse me but isn't that how you make many many shitloads of kinds of weapons
I'd like to cast receivers

>>1607774
Why wouldn't u lay it down horizontally so u get all the surface area u want the side not facing the camera looks like it would nice and flat...

>>1621009
well i just figure it would be easier to set up (torch, blower, done) vs coil sizing, cutting a coil channel, pid controller, wiring, and then having a couple thousand watts to deal with.

>>1621896
Because the most important thing is mass under the hammer. More important than hardness even.
Hammering on the top of the T you only have the thin web between the faces resisting the blows, you lose a ton of the energy in the hammer to the web flexing, vibrations, etc. And they ring ridiculously loud.
Think of the forces acting on the work as 50% of the energy in the hammer hitting it from the hammer side, and 50% hitting it from the anvil side. You wouldn't use a hammer that had that profile, because it would be garbage
Most of the time a big face isn't as useful as it seems, you can only actually hit an area the size of the head of your hammer after all. If you need a big flat spot, it's probably just for straightening or planishing and you don't need a ton of force for that because you're not moving much metal, so a plate on a stump works just as well.

>>1599087
I believe you can use "perlite" for foundry. You can find it almost every where.

>>1602722
Fuck that's a big clevis

>>1603388
Fucking post em up man.

You make any cool shit?

>>1615936
Bathroom fan a shit. Go to a pull your own scrapyard and snag a car vent blower

what fabric is good for bellows
does it need to be completely airight?
i have some from old army tents, fairly heatproof and fairly air tight
is there something i could soak it in to make it airtight

>>1599087
I did a casting class with 22 5th graders. I gave them each a wad of wax and they all made little things they invested in grog and plaster in a soup can. Total nightmare when it was time to cast. In the hole I dug, I used a shop vac and charcoal with a real graphite crucible. The little bastards were out of control and started jumping over the foundry with about 20 pounds of melting aluminum and sparks blowing up. Nobody got hurt though. If they invested badly they got a lump of nothing in the end. I had them using hack saws and files to finish their pieces. Some were completely unhappy with their little lumps of nothings at the end. I will never ever do that again.

>>1625882
The first problem was giving control to 5th graders.
Now highschool class could be pretty cool.

>>1626402
It was my brothers class. He quit the next year because those little fuckers walked all over him.
Intercity school in Atlanta.

>>1600550
>satanite


HAIL SATAN

>>1600550
Nice work anon.

My first few were plaster and sand and a mess from his vids.

Just buy refractory cement my bros

>>1601067
Kwiky burner

>>1601167
>jesus christ reading posts like this makes me realize most school teachers don't even try anymore.

Jesus christ, reading posts like this makes me realize most school teachers don't even try anymore.

>>1624597
No idea but i think leather or nothing.

You really need an electric blower of some kind.

By hand sucks aids