Casting aluminium without a furnace?

Dear folks,

I attended a workshop in jewellery making and discovered a new wonder! Jewellery craft has reached a new climax..product comes in a clay form with a mix of precious metals and combination agent ... easily shape...bake away the moisture...harden and polish till glitters like silver or gold.

Speaking of casting, are there such thing as alumimium paste that can be mixed with water and pour into mould...after it has dried and harden, simply bake in a oven to drive away the moisture...hence don't need a furnace and the danger of pouring hot molten alumimium. Great for people staying in flats or small workshops.

In this generation, anything is possible

Steve Wan

Steve, your propossed method sounds very much like sintering, the way Tungsten Carbide tool tips are formed, its used to form other metal parts. Ian S C

Steve, that sounds like Precious Metal Clay from Mitsubishi which I think is only available in Silver and Gold. A competing product, Art Clay, does exist in Copper and Bronze forms.
It is a very expensive way of getting a metal object. It will shrink during firing and the finished item will be porous.
Baking is at 970 deg C so rather more kiln than oven.
Casting is great fun and melting in a small electromelt furnace and casting into something like Delft Clay could easily and safely be done in a flat.

Andy

Metal Clay even the bronze /copper stuff is as said ferociously expensive...esp. the non precious stuff( vis metal price)..But might fill a gap( no pun intended).

what about "micro foundary"... at least one system offered using domestic microwave oven. works for brass and ali... working on stell apperntly.

Sorry for spelling in a rush.

RDGS Jason

Why does it not arc over as when metal is put in a microwave?

Hi jason

Thanks for that link the digitising probe looks interesting. As I understand the process there is an eletric micro furnace with cruciple included in the kit. The domestic microwave is used to melt the wax from the investment plaster cast and vaporise any remaining wax. The metal is then melted in the supplied electric furnace and poured into the mould. This process is for small parts so should suit some model makers.

Regards - Pat

Well not my product but my guess is the mould isolates the shot metal and allows all the energy to heat the metal as opposed to the reflected energy producing standing wave E (electric) fields and thus ionisating the air.( might even be ionisation due to heating of the air not certain but again no standing waves...).... 'sides my microwave already "allows" certain metal parts ok ..

Read there website It might explain..no connection etc.

Hi Steve,

Have a look here microwave casting.

Hope this helps.

Peter.

Hi Ian SC,

Sorry for the delay, was busy making a deep hole drilling at my small press drill. Making a recess for the leadscrew of my mill carriage. Hence no time to check my email last night. Not so much of tungsten carbide way but I saw a video, a guy used a real broken ceramic to cut a steel rod! Wow! Am sure this is so much cheaper for home workshop

Hi Andy, Jason, Pat and all,

Yes! It's metal clay product but very expensive! Guess, it's not practical for engineering use. But I was excited someone mentioned microwave casting...but this suitable for very small casting. Charcoal furnace-casting is still the best to date

Thanks for the tips, I search more into micro-casting in small workshop.

Steve Wan

Andy, if you used the bronze material, perhaps you could make Oilite bushes, this could be very handy if the real thing was unavailable.

There is quite a bit on the net about microwave metal casting from what I remember. Ian S C