Melting metal…. with charcoal

Yup, anyone who knows me well knows I like to do stupid dangerous stuff. Things like really hot metal make me happy. Yes, I’ve burned myself (many times) and had some really really close calls but I never seem to learn my lesson. So if hot metal is good, molten metal is WAY better. I have a small kiln I use to melt down gold and silver for doing jewelry casting, but nothing big enough to do a decent pour in aluminum. Off to the internet I went and found plans to fabricate a small melt furnace powered by …. charcoal! I have to admit I was pretty excited, no propane or other gas fuels, nothing like a pesky cylinder to blow up if I get back-flask or the regulator goes wonky. So I built it, now to test it.

A handfull of charcoal and a blower fan out of a roadside dishwasher and we are in business!

After lighting the charcoal and turning on the blower I noticed that it didnt take long for heat waves to start pouring out of the vent hole, so being the smart person I am I opened the top to see what was going on. The charcoal was starting to catch good, lots of red ember. So I put some aluminum scraps in an old soup can and placed it deep in the furnace with some coals around it. Top goes back on and crank up the blower.

This is what it looked like at this point. Nice red hot color in their nice and bright….. wait, ….. whats that smell?  Oh damn thats hot!!! I think I just melted off my eyebrows…..

Yeah, it was way hotter over that exhaust hole than I thought it would be. So I put a piece of aluminum over the top to deflect the heat coming out of that little hole to hell. In about 3 minutes I had this..

The exhaust had melted thought the aluminum 3″ above the hole and the force from the blower blew the center of the hole wide open. On the bright side, if its melting aluminum OUTSIDE the furnace, it must be hot enough inside to do the same, lets look at the pyrometer and see…

Yup, it should be nice and melty in there. Being me, I cant just leave it at that, I have to see for myself. So, turn off the blower, get welding gloves and some hay hooks to lift the lid off, pull out the soup can and turn it out over the concrete.

That my friends is melted aluminum. I made sure the concrete was plenty dry before casting the aluminum out on top of it, I dont need steam turning the concrete and aluminum into shrapnel for my face. Now to figure out something to cast for the next post……