Casting brass

Hello again

I've been saving all my brass swarf for some time now as I figured I could melt it down and cast it. Can any one advise me on what I can use an a crusible?

Matt

Graphite crucibles are good, general ebay result from google.....

**LINK**

I hope you appreciate how much swarf will be required to make very little solid brass. I will add that you will also get a lot of dross because of the oxidisation of the very large surface area. For the home worker the most effective way of reclaiming swarf is to plunge it into a pre-melted part-full crucible of the metal in question. Do ensure the swarf is absolutely bone dry or moisture will flash to steam instantaneously with possible disastrous results.

Hello Mat as brian says above it's best to plunge into allready melted brass in the crucible,I never ever melt swarf down,only solid brass & never just melt down to make ingots, I don't think it does it any good re-melting it as you can boil out the zinc , i remelt alloy though, I use salamander suprex crucibles for brass & alloys but if I need larger amounts of alloy I use a steel pot, suitably coated with refractory wash as molten alloy dissolves steel as well as becoming contaminated,brass is not allways an easy metal to cast, allthough there's some clever casters on youtube,there's loads who melt[or "smelt" as they like to think they are doing] wearing shorts & flip flops then pour into tart tins & followers chuff them up for being so clever, well anyone can melt a pot of alloy but it's the "gentle art" of persuading it to properly fill a mould is where the skill lies.

Graham.

In the 'eighties my friend and I attempted to cast one of the two cylinders for a 5" Simplex from bronze swarf. We had collected what we thought was ample for a pair of cylinders and set to with wife’s vacuum cleaner in reverse to get the coke a’glowing. As Brian mentions we had dross in abundance and as it turned out, not enough melt. The result was a perfectly formed half cylinder and some newly invented expllitives. Ah, I remember it well!

Rik

Matt - Apologies for not addressing your original question. Our failed attempt used a DIY crucible made from a piece of thick walled steel tube with a thick steel base welded on. This we lined with fireclay.

If you are going to the trouble of hopefully casting pukkah parts then I would give yourself the best chance of success and use commercially available crucibles - ours was heavy (very) and unwieldly.

Rik - Good luck - mold boxes and all.....................!