Years ago, someone gave me a small commercial smelter - Foundryette - is the name on it, I cant find very much about it on the internet. It came with a squirrel cage type blower that the propane is plumbed into. They have me a 5 gal bucket full of crucibles as well. Ultimately it is alot like the one you created, except the air induction. I only had to buy a regulator and it works well. If you would like, I can take a pic of the label on it, like I said, it was a commercial made for sale type item. I smelted 8 grams of placer gold into a fair sized button, and due to the borax managed to get rid of any small impurities that might have been mingling with the flakes.
Very cool! I melted a few grams of placer gold into a small button last year as well. Though I found if it is very clean placer gold, putting some borax in it, sitting it in a cupel and hitting it with a blow torch was much faster at melting it into a bead than in the kiln.
You could get the temp that high, but I dont know how even the heat would be. I haven't done anything with pottery before but I would guess it needs to be an even heat. You'd want to elevate the clay in the furnace to make sure the flame isn't hitting it directly at the very least. (I had to Google what "raku" was by the way).
@@LetsCrushRocks Thank you so much for the quick response! Oops, I guess should have said what raku was in my original question...lol. I know people raku fire pottery in a LOT of different home made kilns and heat them with propane, so this seems like it would work to me. I think my only concern is if the heat ramp up can be controlled? I would not want it to go from ambient temperature to 1950 F in 10 minutes 😅
You could adjust the gas flow with the valve and the pressure regulator to help with some temp control. You can also leave the lid off to start with as things are heating up and then put it on later, I do that when I first start up the kiln to drive out any moisture since it since sits in my shed often for months without use. I should probably get around to uploading an update video. I ended up changing my design a bit... stay tuned I guess! @@amyrp9115
Say man, you might want to consider showing the end product, be it a success or failure. I Liked the information in your video (even if it's a bit wordy)... but a look at the end result would have made the video more worth the time. I was looking forward to the reveal with much anticipation and was sadly disappointed to be left hanging like that. I was thinking ...damn, I sat through this whole video listening to you yap for that??? I'm not hating on your video man, just one guys honest opinion. Keep them coming.
Good point! I will see if I have time in the next few weeks to post an update video with some more shots of it in use and lessons learned. In a nutshell: The burner works excellent and I have had no problems with it. I used the furnace perhaps a half dozen times and it worked well each time, getting to >1100C without turning the burner all the way up. However some of the plaster, particularly where the lid and bottom portion meet, did crumble a bit. I think it may be because I did a poor job mixing the material in small batches instead of one big consistent pour. Because the lid and bottom section did not match up smoothly, some heat and gas were escaping out the sides, which I believe also contributed to it wearing down at that spot. Unfortunately, it sat in my shed for about 8 months unused, including over winter, and seems to have absorbed some moisture. I am in the process of repairing it and will try to include that in an update video.
Oops, sorry about the low volume for the first segment, I probably could have edited out that segment anyway.
Years ago, someone gave me a small commercial smelter - Foundryette - is the name on it, I cant find very much about it on the internet. It came with a squirrel cage type blower that the propane is plumbed into. They have me a 5 gal bucket full of crucibles as well.
Ultimately it is alot like the one you created, except the air induction. I only had to buy a regulator and it works well. If you would like, I can take a pic of the label on it, like I said, it was a commercial made for sale type item.
I smelted 8 grams of placer gold into a fair sized button, and due to the borax managed to get rid of any small impurities that might have been mingling with the flakes.
Very cool! I melted a few grams of placer gold into a small button last year as well. Though I found if it is very clean placer gold, putting some borax in it, sitting it in a cupel and hitting it with a blow torch was much faster at melting it into a bead than in the kiln.
You could have coded the outside of that paint can with oil too that would have worked
Good idea! I later thought of putting plastic wrap around it too.
do you think a small propane smelting furnace could be used to fire raku at 1950 degrees F?
You could get the temp that high, but I dont know how even the heat would be. I haven't done anything with pottery before but I would guess it needs to be an even heat. You'd want to elevate the clay in the furnace to make sure the flame isn't hitting it directly at the very least. (I had to Google what "raku" was by the way).
@@LetsCrushRocks Thank you so much for the quick response! Oops, I guess should have said what raku was in my original question...lol. I know people raku fire pottery in a LOT of different home made kilns and heat them with propane, so this seems like it would work to me. I think my only concern is if the heat ramp up can be controlled? I would not want it to go from ambient temperature to 1950 F in 10 minutes 😅
You could adjust the gas flow with the valve and the pressure regulator to help with some temp control. You can also leave the lid off to start with as things are heating up and then put it on later, I do that when I first start up the kiln to drive out any moisture since it since sits in my shed often for months without use. I should probably get around to uploading an update video. I ended up changing my design a bit... stay tuned I guess! @@amyrp9115
I appreciate the help and just subscribed! I will stayed tuned 😉@@LetsCrushRocks
Say man, you might want to consider showing the end product, be it a success or failure. I Liked the information in your video (even if it's a bit wordy)... but a look at the end result would have made the video more worth the time. I was looking forward to the reveal with much anticipation and was sadly disappointed to be left hanging like that. I was thinking ...damn, I sat through this whole video listening to you yap for that??? I'm not hating on your video man, just one guys honest opinion. Keep them coming.
Good point!
I will see if I have time in the next few weeks to post an update video with some more shots of it in use and lessons learned.
In a nutshell:
The burner works excellent and I have had no problems with it.
I used the furnace perhaps a half dozen times and it worked well each time, getting to >1100C without turning the burner all the way up. However some of the plaster, particularly where the lid and bottom portion meet, did crumble a bit. I think it may be because I did a poor job mixing the material in small batches instead of one big consistent pour. Because the lid and bottom section did not match up smoothly, some heat and gas were escaping out the sides, which I believe also contributed to it wearing down at that spot.
Unfortunately, it sat in my shed for about 8 months unused, including over winter, and seems to have absorbed some moisture. I am in the process of repairing it and will try to include that in an update video.
@@LetsCrushRocks You Sir are a good man!
Hi, I'm a producer at RAW TV, we're the producers of Gold Rush and all of its spin off shows. Whats the best way of contacting you?
Just sent you a LinkedIn message.