Upgrading Furnace......

My New Years resolution is to finally get settled in our new home and to land a permanent job. With all the downturn and the Economic Crisis, I hope to get back to normal and to figure out what I want to do. I have two choices and both are pretty unsure as in what kind of work I want to do. I can either restart a new Tile Business and start over where I left off, or I can do alot of studying and become a Mining Expert and mine Base and Precious metals. I don't mind either but I think these two choices will cause me to work out of town alot unless I move my family closer to work. When things get all settled I am planning to rebuild my furnace and change it over to an oil burning furnace. Coal, briquettes and wood are nice but they seem to burn out to fast and I have to keep it restocked or it burns out. I am going to do a combination of propane and oil where I can get it hot real quick with propane then transfer the fuel source over to oil. I haven't decided whether I will do a drip system where the air intake will feed the oil to blast the furnace or do a system with a valve to determine my oil flow into the intake manifold that is mounted on my oven also fed by air. On "Lionels Lab" Website I have been coming up with some really good ideas, which I am a big fan of Lionels creations. I have a link to his website if you are interested in checking out what kind of projects him and his collegues are up to. I also have been offered an oven that is made out of fire bricks with heating elements string inside of the oven to heat it up. This is a 220 volt oven that will get around 2400'F which will melt most metals. I haven't got it yet but I am excited to build me a backyard lab so I can branch out to do my own Fire Assays for testing ores for people. I have a long way to go before I can call myself an Assayer, but I really love working with metals and testing ores for value. I really hope this company down in Searchlight NV pans out because I would really like working with this guy and learning all I can to become a Professional Mining Expert. This would really open up some doors down the road as far as becoming a independent consultant or just working for larger outfits doing Assay work. I'll let you know how things go as soon as they start happening.

2nd Trip to Searchlight Nv.

I headed down to Searchlight to work last Tuesday just right after the snow storm and I was stranded on the freeway about 20 miles from Las Vegas. I later learned that a fatal accident occured from black ice on an overpass on the freeway. I made it to Searchlight around 11 pm Utah time which Nevada is 1 hour behind us, and started working right when I got there. On Wednesday it snowed from 8 am to 6 pm all day long. The wind blew also so it was hard to determine how much snow fell on the ground, we estimated between 8 to 12 inches of snow and some places were 3 to 36 inches around bends and between places. Las Vegas even got about 3 inches of snow from what I heard and that was pretty good for a place that has a low elevation.
I mostly worked on covering water lines up and re-organizing the tool sheds and trying to get familiarized with the area. In between those jobs I would go and help out another guy with the Assay and Precipting the metals. I asked lots of questions and even pitched in and helped on some of the samples, that were being processed for evaluation. I really enjoyed doing that part of the work around this place, and when the snow melts the owner is going to start setting his equipment up to start mass producing this ore. The ore we are working is Copper and Zinc, and the left over sludge is going to be re-processed for the precious metals that may be in it. With the snow and partly the cold weather and some funding we are having a hard time getting the go for this operation and hoping for a break in the new year. I haven't had time to play around with my hobbies lately and with the process of moving and the holidays I don't expect to get to any of my hobbies for awhile. I will post some of my past hobbies later when I think and ponder about them and share them with you until I get to some of the new stuff down the road.

Searchlight NV. Trip....

This trip was very busy and very informative. First day there I ended up doing some plumbing work on a 14x70 trailer that was on the property. It was a very long day but I was able to get all the plumbling done, and then retired for the night. The next day was interesting... I was told to go and organize the sheds that have all kinds of cool stuff in them. These sheds are no ordinary sheds, these type of sheds are actual 14x70 trailers modified into different storage units for different things. I was organizing a plumbing shed that has all kinds of plumbing parts in it for just about any task you may get into. The other trailer has eletrical supplies, (which my friend is an electrician who his dad owns this place) who was very excited to see and talk about parts for just about anything. The other trailer was the tool shed which I have never seen so many screwdrivers, hammers, sockets and etc,etc. except in a Sears store. The last shed was the nuts and bolts shed, and this shed had almost every nut or bolt you would need to put something together with washers, lock washers, and all the drill bits you need to drill a new hole. Of course that wasn't the only sheds around, he had other sheds that had items of interest in them that I had'nt gotten to yet. Later that day I was visitng with one of the workers who does Assaying for this guy I'm working for and he showed me around and gave me a somewhat of a crash course on how to Assay ore samples to determine what kind of metals are in them. I really like this part because I always wanted to know how they did this, so I was all ears during this period of time. The next morning we got up and ate out for breakfast, then when we came back I was put to another task learning how to fill out claim papers and how to read the claims on the map and write down the sections to be filed. Wow!! talk about a crash course on mining and other interesting work, I havent had this much fun at work EVER unless I go home and build things after hours. I'm headed back down tomorrow morning and I sure hope the weathers nice with all the snow we are getting here in southern Utah. We don't see very many snowy days here in the desert!! And when it does snow it usually melts off the same day or the next. Hopefully I can get some pictures this next time to fill you in on all the fun.

4th Furnace Run Cont.....

I wanted to post some more pictures of the successful run I had today. This is another picture with the graphite crucible in the furnace with metal in it melting.

This is a pretty cool picture, the smoke that is sort of white looking was actually blue compared to the orange flames. Must of been some of the brass melting which I heard gives off blue smoke, I'm not entirely sure but I think was brass.

My poor furnace is on it's last leg. I bet it could last one or two more runs but it's pretty slim. The lid is almost crumbling and the inside keeps breaking more and more everytime I put more heat in it.

I don't know if I'm to motivated to re-build it just because I realized I don't need a furnace this big to do what I want it to do. I have thought about making a bigger crucible/ladle to put in the furnace to melt more metals at a time. I probably will take it with me and re-build it sometime in the near future.

4th Funace Run.....

Today was a good day, I wanted to do one more run before I had to pack everything up. This picture you see here on the left is a copper (with other metals included) Ingot. This ingot was made by a spinning drum so it made it the shape of the drum. I was trying an experiment on what this would do and this is pretty much the result.

Here is more spinned ingots made out of copper, It was interesting watching the moulton metal roll around in the drum till it solidified.

Here on the right is my dryer with a special made drum that made my spinned ingot.

Here is another run also done today with a graphite crucible placed in the center. It fell to one side when all the fuel burned down, I also had copper in it.

Here is the same crucible from picture above only this time I had it covered when I added more fuel so the chips and charcoal wouldn't go in the cup.

Here is my air source. I was really upset when it started smoking and shortly after it burned up. My dad does'nt know it yet but I owe him another weed blower.

The picture above middle shows the

copper ingot in the cup after the cup was pulled out of the furnace. Here on

the right is the ingot after I had to break the cup to get it out. This ingot has different metals in it and it weighs 3 lbs. Copper has a pretty dense mass so it could easily weigh that much.

This picture shows what it looks like when you are holding it, just to give you an idea about how big it is. I wanted to try and see if I could make layers by adding different metals all in one cup and letting it slowly cool. You really can't see in this picture but it has some layering but you really have to look closely. The metals I have in it are Copper, Brass, Nickel, Sterling Silver, small amount of Platinum, and possibly a small amount of gold. So it has quite a variety. Tomorrow morning I am heading down to Searchlight to help a good friend of mine out on some projects. I can't wait to show him some of my experiments. Anyways I hope you all find this interesting and I wouldn't mind a comment or two on some of your thoughts about some of the things I am doing.

New Job (Temporarily)

I have been bouncing off the walls this morning because of some great news I received last night.
I had to do a bunch of honey do's yesterday and stopped by a good friend of mine to visit for awhile. As we talked I shared some ideas with him about my metal melting and other hobbies, and had to show him my blog of all the things I did this past year. He was excited and commented on some of the things and we talked about what his dad was accomplishing. His dad also melts metal for a mining company testing and trying to figure out how to reprocess old tailing piles. We were talking about the fun times we had when we would visit his dad and all the experiments that were being created and hoping that someday something will come out of it. Well, we said our goodbyes and I headed home to retire for the night and about an hour or so later my friend called me back saying he visited with his dad on the phone and said that he wanted me to come down and help him for a time. I was just ecstatic about the idea that I couldn't sleep last night, this is just an opportunity that I just can't refuse. I am planning on going down Thursday morning and staying there till Saturday night and going back down that following Tuesday. I am so excited I can't contain myself about the idea of being a helper of a great Inventor/Scientist.

For Safety Sakes......

I wanted to put in a disclaimer for me as in saying that I do not recommend anyone doing this type of hobby without reading, researching and preparing before he/she decides to melt metal. This is an extremly dangerous hobby for anyone who jumps in and want to start melting metal. I am not responsible for any duplicating or borrowing any ideas from this site for personal use. I have done alot of research and have tested ideas here on this site to where I am confindent enough that my safety is in check.
This is a fun hobby but if you don't prepare you can do alot of damage to yourself, others and property around you. Moulten metal is very dangerous especially if mishandled, or dropped and splashed. Anyone knowledgeable about metal melting knows that water and moulten metal do not mix and if it does can cause serious burns or even death. If you do proceed with this type of hobby, please take special care in what you are doing, and if you follow by the rules you will have alot of fun experimenting melting metal.

My Third Melt.......

Well, "3rd time is charm" as some would say it, and at this point I would have to agree. I am just estatic about the success I had last night, I went ahead and put lava rock in the bottom of my furnace to raise up the heat source. I filled in the top layer of the lava rock with briquettes and some coal to where the bottom of the crucible sat and lit it to start heating up, then I put the ladle/crucible in the oven to fill in the sides of the furnace around the cup to the top. At this step, the briquettes and coal heating up takes probably a good hour for it to really get hot. So, while I'm waiting I went to my dads place to pick up the leaf blower to use as air source. This works really well because it has two speeds for air flow. As you can see below these flames are the beginning stages for heating up, and when the flames start getting darker and goes to the orange to yellows then you are getting toward melting temps.

You can see the flames above are getting hotter, and all the smoke is the carbon burning off the coals I put in. Coal takes awhile to get hot and when they do the smoke goes away.

Here is a great view of the briquettes and coal heating up, and as you can see the yellow in the middle is hot enough to melt copper. I had copper, and probably silver in this run and it only took around 8 to 10 minutes to melt to a liquid.

Here I am getting ready to pour my first melt. (I didn't post pictures of this)

I really like this picture because it shows the crucible glowing red inside of the furnace.

Here is the furnace going full blast on my second melt, I put the same metals in from the last run and this time I was able to melt all the nickle, copper, thin platinum buttons, and sterling silver. I had a stainless steel spoon also but it did not melt. Nickel melts roughly at 2500'F, so my guess is that my furnace had to be at least that temp.

This picture was taken right after the second melt that night and by this time the furnace was really hot. If you look close enough you can see the stainless steel spoon still intact while everthing else disappeared.

This is a piece of slag picked up from a local tailing pile. You can't see from the picture but it has alittle bit of copper that wasn't fully melted out the first time. I wanted to see if I could melt the rock so I threw it in and waited.

Here comes the final moment..........

I just could'nt believe it, I actually remelted the slag and was able to get maybe about 2 pennywieght of copper out. This picture below shows the 2nd melt with the stainless steel spoon (without the spoon). You can see the different colors of metal in this piece of ingot...pretty cool....