Building the flowerpot furnace
2020 Vision said: “Just wondering how you got the air into the flowerpot? Was it through the holes at the bottom or did you somehow cut a hole in the side? I would have thought the latter could weaken it.”
Posted in: Casting, Projects, Projects
Tags: Flowerpot furnace, Hole cutting, Teracotta
Blobs to blocks 2
From my second cast, I produced the following two blobs. The left hand one was much better than previous attempts with a large section of straight sides and a better finish. I expect the right one would have been better
Posted in: Casting, Lathe, Machining
Materials: Aluminium
Tags: faceplate dogs, Metal Work
Model Engineer Exhibition tickets on sale next week
The Model Engineer reports that tickets for the Model Engineer Exhibition at Ascot in September will be on sale next week. Also see the website if you want to enter your model in the competition or run your engine on
Posted in: Uncategorised
Tags: 5in Guage Track, Model Engineer Exhibition, Model Engineering Fair
From disk drive to slabs
A tip from the Home Foundry and Casting group, indicated that you could get some good quality Aluminium from old computer hard disk drives. Compared to the other options of drinks cans (too small) and old car parts (too big)
Posted in: Furnace
Materials: Aluminium
Tags: Disk Drive, Melting
Paper stronger than cast iron
What do you do if you are a scientist in Sweden and can’t get any cast iron to build your steam engine out of? You invent some paper that is stronger than cast iron of course. By bashing their wood
Machined blob
This weekend I machined up one the castings from last week’s melt. Here’s the stages from scrap to machined results. Step 1Some scrap ali that I found round the back of the shed, sawn up into suitable sized pieces to
Posted in: Casting, Lathe, Machining
Materials: Aluminium
Tags: Metal Work, Scrap
“how to knurl a bent steel bar”
“how to knurl a bent steel bar”, this was the search that one of the Workshop shed readers had made against the site. Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any complete solution to that problem but here’s my independently thought
Posted in: Uncategorised
Tags: bent bar, knurling, Metal Work, Steel
Red Hot – Casting
This morning the flower pot furnace was lit and I cast my first aluminium. I’d finally got good weather, all the safety gear and tools were finished and I’d sawn up an old strip of aluminium into small chunks to
Posted in: Casting, Furnace
Materials: Aluminium
Tags: Flowerpot
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Metal sculpture in brass, mounted on an 1800s French Coin
