This is usually a pretty educated and diverse crowd. Maybe someone will be able to shed some light on an issue.
Last year, my "quarantine project" became metal casting. I wanted to make jewelry, buttons, and robot parts out of cast metal. So, I got a casting furnace, and some sand, and the equipment, and made a test piece out of cast bronze. It's pretty cool.
As with most projects, it didn't go as far as I would like, because all the usual reasons, but there was one thing that puzzled me.
On our robotics team, we frequently make housings for electronics, standoffs, and occaisionally interesting custom made joints for our robot. We usually either 3D print them out of plastic, or machine them on a mill or lathe out of aluminum. Sometimes, though, the plastic isn't as strong as we need, and the aluminum can't get the exact shape with our mill. What if we could cast them?
I think aluminum or zinc would be the right metal. Maybe copper for some pieces. It isn't super expensive, but it could still be 30 bucks or so for the largest pieces we could cast in my furnace. Zinc might be better. Strong enough, but very cheap. The melting point is low enough we could even do it without the furnace, but the furnace would work very nicely ..... except.
The furnace came with a graphite cylindrical crucible. In the instructions, it says to only use it for "noble metals"....it mentions copper, silver, and gold. I assumed that bronze would be just fine, and it was. However, is there some reason I couldn't use zinc? Is there some reason molten zinc and graphite wouldn't play nice together? If I recall correctly, aluminum has other issues when casting, but I don't think it has anything to do with the crucible.
So, how about it? Is there some reason that a crucible would only be used for "noble metals". It seems to me that if it can cast bronze, it ought to be able to case metals with a lower melting point, specifically zinc.
Last year, my "quarantine project" became metal casting. I wanted to make jewelry, buttons, and robot parts out of cast metal. So, I got a casting furnace, and some sand, and the equipment, and made a test piece out of cast bronze. It's pretty cool.
As with most projects, it didn't go as far as I would like, because all the usual reasons, but there was one thing that puzzled me.
On our robotics team, we frequently make housings for electronics, standoffs, and occaisionally interesting custom made joints for our robot. We usually either 3D print them out of plastic, or machine them on a mill or lathe out of aluminum. Sometimes, though, the plastic isn't as strong as we need, and the aluminum can't get the exact shape with our mill. What if we could cast them?
I think aluminum or zinc would be the right metal. Maybe copper for some pieces. It isn't super expensive, but it could still be 30 bucks or so for the largest pieces we could cast in my furnace. Zinc might be better. Strong enough, but very cheap. The melting point is low enough we could even do it without the furnace, but the furnace would work very nicely ..... except.
The furnace came with a graphite cylindrical crucible. In the instructions, it says to only use it for "noble metals"....it mentions copper, silver, and gold. I assumed that bronze would be just fine, and it was. However, is there some reason I couldn't use zinc? Is there some reason molten zinc and graphite wouldn't play nice together? If I recall correctly, aluminum has other issues when casting, but I don't think it has anything to do with the crucible.
So, how about it? Is there some reason that a crucible would only be used for "noble metals". It seems to me that if it can cast bronze, it ought to be able to case metals with a lower melting point, specifically zinc.
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