If you Build it?!?!

I am finding it increasingly difficult to write these things as my head is so full of stuff that would interest no one besides me.... you know what? to hell with it.

This weekend, well Friday specifically, I hope to clean my garage. Apparently, the walls in every garage I have had are slanted. The lean slightly in, just enough for everything in there to slide into the middle of the area. Almost like there is a drain in the middle and everything is swirling towards it.

Anyway, if I can get the garage clean on Friday, I hope to start work on my furnace on Saturday. With any luck, I will be melting metal by Sunday afternoon. What furnace? Well, this contraption will allow me to melt whatever metal I want and cast it into whatever shape I want. It basically consists of a burner, a crucible (what holds the metal while it is melted) and a body, which houses the crucible and traps the heat to produce a oxygen lean environment that gets damn hot. It take like 1400 degrees F to metal aluminum and climbs from there for harder, more dense metals. I figue mine will be able to metal iorn, if I wish, which i probably won't.

I can say that mine will be a very colorful one!

I have chosen propane to fuel my furnace. The same propane canister that fuels your barby will supply my furnace with the power to turn metal into a liquid. I have also chosen a eccentric vessel for my body, though. Some use garbage cans or stock pots lined with a refractory ( a concrete like mixed that insulates the body from the heat, yet aids in raising the temperature in the chamber) however, I have decided to use an old beer keg. Schlitz no less. Nothing says class like malt liquor.

I will cut it open and line it with a substance called Kaowool. This stuff is amazing. It has the consistency of an air-conditioner filter, it about 1/2 an inch thick, and is cool to the touch on one side, even with 3500 degree temperatures on the other. It also dissipates the heat quicker after you turn off the burner, so the possibility of burning myself, which I undoubtedly will, is greatly reduced, as is the overall weight of the machine. I expect that using Kaowool will save me nearly 300 pounds, which is a big deal when you have to keep everything on wheels and roll it to where you want to use it.

Where would I roll it? Outside of course. Aside from the heat not being house friendly, if molten metal hits concrete it will instantly vaporize the moisture in the concrete causing it to explode. Not War of the World explode, but enough to send shrapnel into your shin and make you unsteady with a 20 pound boiling pot of metal. No, you have to do that in a sand box...

I plan to tinker in Aluminum initially, then move on to Brass and other stuff.

Don't.... put it out of your mind... there is no need to ask....

Another cool thing is that I got hooked up with the bunch at the hands-on-science center. I will be repairing some of the exhibits this weekend as well. That will be cool. One of my goals will be to provide exhibits instead repairing them. The exhibits they have now are old and boring, well for the most part. I feel I can bring alot to the place, given the chance anyway.

Well, that is all for now. If I get it finished, I will post pictures. I am sure you will be less than enthused, but damn it, you look at them and like it.