Wrought iron casting foundry free#

A homemade cast aluminum lathe is one thing, but one with cast iron parts would be even better. It’s an interesting lesson in metallurgy, as well as a graphic example of how not to make a flask for molding cast iron.Ĭast iron from the home shop opens up a lot of possibilities. The furnace itself is quite a thing, running on a mixture of diesel and waste motor oil and sounding for all the world like a jet engine starting up. had to play with the melt, adding lumps of ferrosilicon alloy to get a cast iron with better machining properties than the original rotors.

Wrought iron casting foundry free#

Usually available free for the asking at the local brake shop, he scores them with an angle grinder and busts them into manageable chunks with a hammer before committing them to the flames. The cast iron comes from a cheap and abundant source: car disc brake rotors. The video below shows a fairly expansive shop and some pretty unique tools he uses to recycle cast iron we were especially impressed with the rig he uses to handle the glowing crucibles from a respectful distance. It looks like knows a thing or two about slinging hot metal around. But imagine what you could accomplish by recycling cast iron instead. Not that there’s anything wrong with that there’s a lot you can accomplish by casting aluminum.

When it comes to choice of metals that can be melted in the home foundry, it’s a little like ’s famous quip: you can melt any metal you want, as long as it’s aluminum.