The Tinker Box

Opportunity to go sampling ore in Milford

2009-08-29T19:30:00.002-06:00

I have this prospector buddy who has mining claims through a family network over in Milford Utah. He asked me if I wanted to join him and go learn how to sample ore. Oh, boy am I over joyed about doing this but the problem is that I have to rearange work to make it possible. I have been learning alot about mining and prospecting through this new friend of mine and so far I have throughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Experimenting with Arc

2009-08-28T19:57:00.002-06:00

I haven't been doing any experimenting or building anything lately. I wish I had a shop to tinker in but non so far other than a garage full of stuff. I have been welding with my grand-dads arc welder and came across an idea of maybe figuring out how to widen the arc to melt metals. I still think if you can rotate a drum with considerable of RPM you can possibly separate metals in a liquid state??? Still invetigating but still have'nt found my answer. If anyone has a suggestion give me some insight to ponder.

Life In The Slow Lane

2009-06-15T22:59:00.002-06:00

It's been pretty crazy here in Panguitch. I have'nt been to busy panning or doing any other type of prospecting. I did get out with the family about two times so far and went panning for gold in Marysvale. The Tushar Range Mountain is supposedly a very rich area to go gold hunting. The gold is very fine and it takes a lot of work to get alot of it. The snow was still melting off and the run-offs were very cold, even though we managed to have fun anyway. I have'nt done anything with the Searchlight project and the last time I was updated was that the funding has not came through yet. The whole process still intrigues me but the more I get involved here in Panguitch and make new friends and such I don't know if I want to go clear down to Searchlight, NV. I Have'nt done anything with my metal melting or anything related to it at all lately. I still want to build me another oven and melt some more stuff but until then, ???. I have been busy with work and that has been a blessing which we are just hanging by a thread in most cases trying to survive. I have been watching the gold prices and they are still very good to anyone who has any means to find, collect, or wherever gold is and still make a nice profit. Like I told a good friend, "If I could just pan gold and get 1-2 ounces a week I would do far better than working and I would probably enjoy every bit of it." O'well does'nt hurt to dream right! Hopefully I can get some more exciting things going on and let you know more when I persue my adventures. Until next time....C-ya.

Upgrading Furnace......

2008-12-28T23:46:00.004-07:00

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.

2008-12-21T17:34:00.002-07:00

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....

2008-12-15T22:22:00.003-07:00

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.....

2008-12-10T18:56:00.007-07:00

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.....

2008-12-10T17:07:00.007-07:00

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)

2008-12-09T11:30:00.003-07:00

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......

2008-12-04T17:31:00.002-07:00

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.......

2008-12-02T17:18:00.018-07:00

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....

My Second Melt.......

2008-11-30T19:41:00.009-07:00

Since my first melt wasn't quite a success I wanted to try something different. I went and bought some briquettes and coal to see if I can make the furnace burn hotter. After I did all that I gathered up some things I wanted to melt, which different metals have different melting points.

In the picture above shows a few items I chose to melt which are a Copper ingot, 2 pieces of Platinum, 4 pieces of buffalo nickels, 1 regular Nickel and 2 Sterling Silver utensils.

I chose these items because Sterling Silver melts roughly at 1640'F, Nickel melts at 2651'F, Copper melts at 1985'F and Platinum melts at 3225'F. Why I did this is because I wanted to see what would melt and with that it would determine how hot my oven would get. The picture below shows the furnace just getting hot right after it fired up and so far it looks like it really getting hot inside of the oven. The flames were 3 times longer than the last run I did.

As you can see I let this oven run for at least 45 minutes this time thinking I needed to run the melt longer to melt the metals. What you see here above is the items in my crucible and what they look like after they were melted.

When I dumped them out you can see that not much changed except that the items were charred. I was definately disappointed to see that all my efforts here were not much of what happened the first time. The coal did burn much hotter but wasn't hot enough for what I was looking for.

The next question I ask is that I need to bring up the heat closer to the crucible that way the heat is "directly" on the cup. I believe that if the heat were on the cup you won't lose any precious heat that is crucial for melting the metals. Hope you all had a nice holiday and keep coming back for more stories.

My First Melt.....

2008-11-27T22:02:00.003-07:00

Back in May of 2008, I started my first ever melting adventure. I have spent 6 months and a few hundred dollars to build this furnace which was inspired by a few websites and a goal to build a project I had in mind. As you can see I am using a copper pipe to push down the pop cans I was testing to melt. I don't remember how many I put in, but it was enough to form a good size ingot.

Here I am pouring my first ingot. You probably can't see it very good but it was nice and shiny and had a similar look as murcury before it solidified as a aluminum ingot.

This is what the furnace looked like after, I would dare say it got close to 1300 to 1500' F which aluminum melts to a liquid around 1100 to 1200' F. This was just wood and briquettes and it didn't get as hot as I wanted it to. In order to melt copper I would need it to reach 1800' F plus to do anything. So my next melt I'm going to use briquettes and coal.

Updates coming soon...

2008-11-24T20:50:00.004-07:00

With all that is going on I have to say that it is time to include you in on my failures. I have done several melts with lots of disapointment except one. I was able to succeed on melting a batch of aluminum cans and pouring a small ingot. Then I upgraded to copper and wasn't able to get the furnace hot enough to melt it. I was probably 3-500 'F off because I managed to get the copper pipes to bend. What went wrong?? I think part of the reason I feel this oven won't get hot is that I have too much space in the oven itself. I can't contain the heat around the crucible because of too much dead space in the oven. I am going to try again only this time I have to bring up the heat closer to the crucible. We live near all kinds of lava fields so I picked up some big chunks of lava rocks to put in my oven hoping I won't melt them in the process of my melt. I am going to use a combination of briquettes, coal and wood and keep it burning hopefully for an hour. In the past I only done melts between 30 to 45 minutes and I think I may need to run it longer?? The piece of metal I want to melt is a combination of copper, gold, and possible some other metals which I don't know and it is all blended together. If you have any thoughts don't hesitate to fill in the blanks, I'm always open to other suggestions.

I'm back.....

2008-11-21T21:57:00.003-07:00

I am finally back from the Grand Canyon, just in time for the big dinner next week. The weather was cold but it was really nice for this time of year. I did'nt get to enjoy the view because we went to work from sun-up to sun-down. Work has been really scarce these past few months, it's a pain just trying to round up work from week to week. I have'nt had time to do alot of experimenting since the summer even though my mind works around the clock just thinking of what to do next. I am getting close to try one more experiment with my furnace. I have'nt had much success with the last two melts, because of the way I built the furnace. Apparently it does'nt get hot enough around the ladle to actually melt the metal. I hope this next run will do something different. I also been learning how to pan for gold and read up on all the lost treasure stories out there. I have'nt had any luck finding anything but I tell ya, I sure had alot of fun trying. I bought a military generator about 2 years ago and for the last year had it repaired from a guy I new. I finally got it back and it runs like a champ!! It is big enough to power up a normal size house for times of need. Anyway this sums up what been going on with me lately, until next time.........

Long time no post??

2008-06-01T12:48:00.008-06:00

Good afternoon bloggers, as you can see I have abandoned my post!. I am so surprised that I haven't been kicked off yet. I have tonz to tell and lots to show so be very patient and I hope it will be exciting. I'm gonna start out with a small trip I took back in april with a friend. It started out when I was talking to a guy, who is an electrician, about this melting lead idea I had. I told him how I wanted to melt lead or copper and make a perpetual machine. We got talking and he lit up and said that is dad was doing something pretty cool where he lives in Nevada. I asked him what it was and he told me that his dad wanted to figure out how to reproccess slag from old tailing piles from mines who melt and refine ore to get metals out. I did'nt really understand why or what the whole purpose was, but I could see why he might have wanted to do that. As we talked the more excited we both got to actually go down there and he how this operation worked. He told me that the third weekend of april would work for him and asked me if I wanted to go. I talked it over with Lisa and we decided to go down with my daughter and my friends daughter ( which are also friends ) so this made a trip of four people going. We packed up with my friend's trailer and 4-wheelers and my truck and headed down friday afternoon. He was telling me that his dad lives pratically in the middle of nowhere and that he has a junk yard with things he can use for his experiments.. Boy was this exciting!! We made it to Las Vegas, and then headed towards Henderson. After another hour or so we were nearing a place called Searchlight, he said that his dad lives a short drive from there. We finally got off of the highway from Searchlight and to a dirt road to this place that had a chain linked fence fully fenced around. This 20 acre piece had a gate that opened with a remote with camera's surrounding his place. When we got to the gate all I could do was just stare at all the things he had, I have seen junk yards before but this place was beyond anything I could imagine. This place was awesome!! My friend kept telling me "I told you so!" and when you hear about a junk yard at someones house you would guess that it was just little things collected over the years. This place was something else. This guy had things like old cars, trucks, busses, trolley cars to trailers, singlewides, double wides, little boats to big house boats and on and on, just to name a few. Our daughters was literally preoccupied the whole day in a half we were there. We finally got settled in and visited with his dad for a while during dinner about all kinds of stuff and what it was he was trying to do. He gave us a breakdown and then preceded to take us on a tour around this place. I was in awe the whole time because he was no scientist or engineer, he was just an ordinary guy trying to figure out how to make things. Better yet he had his very own bone yard to pick apart things he needed for his experiments.

We spent the better part of the next day learning and talking about some of the things he wanted to accomplish. With all this experimenting he said he has outside funds from different investors investing in this very idea that would hopefully make them millions.

What a trip!! I have had fun trips before, but this trip was just astonishing. Here are some

pictures so you can see just some of the things we did.

Anyways, I didn't take a whole lot of pics, next time I'm gonna get tonz more. I really enoyed this trip...It's cool to see other people doing things that I enjoy, and also to mingle and get other ideas that I probably would of never thought of otherwise.

Update on Furnace

2008-02-24T18:19:00.004-07:00

I am really excited to announce that my furnace and all the components that go with it are finally done!! This on-going project has really been a challenging and rather spendy one. I normally don't go all out with sinking alot of money into these type of things unless I feel like it may have some potential output. The trick with saving a bunch of money on "just parts" is to do alot of research on what might work. (In this case I had alot of custom type weld jobs that I don't have tools or experience in.) I always test my limit and brainstorm how I can possibly build something out of ordinary junk. I mentioned before that my two best places are either a junk yard or some specialty shop that may have something laying around that I could possibly talk them into giving me. Nine times out ten I get it free, but sometimes they are pretty tight with their stuff that I would have to end up spending a few dollars. I have built alot of things over the years, and very seldom I have something that actually works with what I have available to me. I used to think how fun it would be to work for a big firm with a research and development dept., but after I get into reality I finally realize that if I were to really have something it would be taken away because of the rules of the company. When Lisa and I were in our first few years of marriage we lived in my grandpas old house in town. He and grandma passed on but had all this furniture that no-one really wanted in this house. So with lots of creativity moving it around and stuffing some of it in closets and such we finally made due and lived with it. I will never forget this one piece of furniture that they had, it was a small pink lazyboy type of chair that did'nt do anything but sit there. Lisa hated the color but admitted that it was comfortable, so we lefted it out to enjoy. I really liked this chair because it would literally wrap you in when you sat in it, and when you sat in it your legs were at a perfect 90 degrees and your back would be straight and it was just comfy. This was just the perfect chair to sit and think, I spent alot of time just sitting, reading and pondering my thoughts. I have to admit that I came up with some really cool ideas in this pink chair and to this day they are still in my notebooks filled with stuff. To get back to the point, I wanted to share that I can't wait to take my project to the next level. I'm not going to be to hasty because I want to make sure that I have everything in place before I go for it. One things for sure, if it don't work I sure had alot of fun building it.

The Perpetual Magnet

2008-02-16T17:51:00.007-07:00

I'm going to put aside my furnace project and tell you about another project I have been working on. This project has been in developing stages since 2004 and to this day I'm still stuck on this particular phase. I have been researching this idea inside out and had many long discussions with different people about the perpetual motion magnets. The most common answer I get is "IT WON'T WORK!!" If it did it would have already been in the works. **FRUSTRATING** Well, I have'nt let it deter me and have been looking at all possiblities. I had a friend who is a physics pro tell me "Newton laws of motions is what it is!" "Many people who are scientist and endless grants still have'nt solved this problem." . Well, there you have it, I guess this is a fruitless idea and finally just put it on the back burner and moved on to another idea. While pondering this other idea (which is a game) I kept on thinking about this perpetual motion idea. I kept on thinking "Why won't this work??" I started to research again on the internet and it was a double edge sword everwhere. Some people say's they figured it out and others said nope it's not possible. I even read that one guy totally had a prototype going and it has been working for "X" amount of time. So to top it off he say's that magnetic perpetual motion is so powerfull that his machine self destructed because the magnets made this spinning motion go so fast and it broke. I thought about this and in a way it makes sense because if you were to put two opposite poles together it will resist each other. So it leads me to believe that you would have to put some kind of braking system on it to control how fast this thing goes. I just could'nt stop thinking about this perpetual motion magnet idea so I would spend alot of time during my spare time and start drawing up how I thought this thing could work. Days, weeks, months go by and every now in again I would pick up some parts that I would need to build me a prototype. Then the time came... I had this raw prototype put together with lots of hot glue, pipes, wood, and other adhesives to see if I could test my idea. I finally put it together and........"Nothing!!" .. I asked one of my brothers one day what he thought about this particular idea, and with new feedback his answer was that the properties of a magnet are very tricky. He said that North and South Poles on a magnet always have to connect. He said that there is no such thing as a MONO Pole magnet...It did'nt matter how many times you cut it in half it will create new poles. Well, this was exactly the answer I was looking for!! This was one of the reasons my makeshift prototype would'nt work because the magnetic fields are so strong that which ever angle you turned the magnetic field there were a counter part. He told me that magnets don't respond to some metals which are copper, lead, alluminun, and some others that I don't know about. This is were I get excited because I wonder if I could take one of these metals and create a shield around one of the poles to make it not read the other pole. He said that mono pole magnets don't exist so my theory is to try to make one. SO! This is why I am putting together this furnace to melt me some copper and build me prototype with magnets to test my idea. I have no idea if this is possible or if I'm wasting my time, but in the mean time I am really having fun just trying. I'll keep you posted and if you have any thoughts on this I sure would love to hear your input.

My Furnace Completed!!

2008-02-05T16:06:00.001-07:00

02-05-08 I have been really busy and all, but in the mean time I have finally finished my furnace! Here's the final product.

This has been one of my hardest projects that I have tackled this far. I have never done this before and I really had to research this idea to make sure I was putting it together right. I have made some modifications and changed a few things but in all I hope it works.

Lets take a tour and see how this thing gonna work?! (Theoretically)

First... You open the furnace lid. You'll see a hole with pipes etc. The outer concrete wall is the insulator which helps keep the heat in so it can reach the designated temp I need to melt the metal.

Second... The space between the pipe and the concrete is the place to put the fuel and airflow. The pipe on the bottom right side of the furnace is the air source. The fuel I plan to use is a combination of briquettes and coal. After the coal gets nice and hot I turn on a makeshift blower to add air to the coals to really get this thing going. (I read that during this time the furnace will be sounding like a jet airplane getting ready to take off. I really hope my neighbors are nice :/...)

Third... The inner pipe is the actual oven. This pipe is 5" diam and 1/4 " thick. It should be able to withstand some heat. The crucible I made for this is 4" diam and 1/4 " thick and this is designed to fit snuggly inside the furnace.

Fourth... Add fuel and light it up and wait.. during this time I will be preparing my self for melting and casting by putting on my safety gear which I plan to buy. I need a face shield, apron, leather shoes, etc. I already purchased the gloves.

Fifth.. I take the crucible / ladle which I had custom made differently than the people on the internet were using.

And I take this thing and place it into the furnace to start heating up.

Sixth.. I close the lid and put the center piece pipe I had made to help guide the metals into the ladle cup that is fully inside the furnace engulfed in flames.

This is what it looks like if you were to look at it from the side..

Seventh.. Now comes to the fun part. After the ladle starts getting really hot I can now insert the metal of choice into the chimney pipe looking thing to melt it. I have no idea how many cans I can melt at this time, this is one of those ongoing things and I'll tell ya later. The metals I want to melt are copper, brass, tin, bronze, allunimum, and what ever I can find hopefully for free.

Here's a demo of what it will look like.:)

As I was updating my post I noticed that my hair is gone. Nobody told me that my hair was heading south. Lisa say's I wear to many hats and don't notice it. She said that we can buzz it and make it look more even. Can't wait!! :):) Well this pretty much sums up this time around and hopefully I can update sooner than later and next time see where I have gone next.

Thanks for visiting!

Furnace Accessories!

2008-01-11T18:01:00.001-07:00

One of the accessories I needed was a funnel for my furnace. So I started calling around to see if anyone had any cylinders. I was looking for something a little smaller like an oxygen tank, but no one had anything like this here in my home town. I had one person tell me that the oxygen tanks had like a 60+ year life span and that it is really hard to get them. So I called another place and the lady told me thay had helium tanks and such and that they were no good. I told her that this was exactly what I needed. I brought this lovely thing home and took the top off just to make sure that it was empty. Then I grabbed my cutting blade and cut the top off. All I needed was the top because I think this will make a perfect heavy duty funnel. This cylinder looked like it had seen it 's share of outside use and the paint was peeling off and it looked terrible. So I grabbed my grinder and a pad that I use at work and started to clean this little fella up.

I tell ya.... it looks alot better. After this I'm going to figure out the demensions on the pipe I need and have the welder weld it on the bottom so I can use it for my molds and such. I saw this on the internet and this was the perfect solution to the problem. I hope it holds up because this is melted metal I'm using. I also went to a place behind us and picked up a 7 gal bucket of coal for fuel and it was really cheap (Like $2.75). Yesterday I was working on one of my molds and being so cold outside I brought it in the house to dry. I could'nt wait so I decided to help it dry faster.
I turned the oven on for 300 F and nicely put it in on a cookie sheet and let it cook. I did'nt know how long it would take so I just watched it accasionally till it was done. It did'nt smell or anything and when I told Lisa she was not happy at all me cooking my furnace parts in her oven.

Anyways I got it all done and then let it cool in the oven slowly because I did'nt want it to crack in the cool air. This is what it looks like after all said and done.

I still have lots more to do and I try to do at least something once a day to try and get it done before it warms up. I might have to go and get some party supplies and fireworks to celebrate this day when it finally gets here. So far so good, I'll keep you updated!!

My first Welding job!!

2008-01-07T21:05:00.001-07:00

First of all I had to get my dad to help me wheel the crucible out of my garage to my front porch with a dolly.
I have no idea how heavy it is but it took both of us just to tip it on the dolly, and we both had to drive it over where it is now. I borrowed my dad's welder and was ready to install the hinge and it did not fit. I had to cut little grooves on the arm of the hinge and bend them about 1/8 " angle to get it to line up with the lid. I finally got it to line up and then I drilled the holes to bolt the arm to the furnace.

I hooked up the welder Then I started welding. I did TERRIBLE! I watched my grandpa weld once and he made it look simple. I called my dad and he said that he was'nt good either and told me to keep trying.
So after 15 minutes of spot welding it turned out okay.

After alot of grinding and cleaning up the spotty weld the job turned out satifactory.
I went to Lowes and bought bolt to bolt the hinge together. I still have to MacGyver it alittle to get it to fit.

I'm setting up a spot in my backyard to put my furnace. I still got to do more prep work, then I can finally start the next step. I'm gonna need to do some shopping for some protective covering/gloves/face sheild, etc. before the oven goes. I predict this oven will heat up anywhere around 2000F to 2500F (I hope alittle hotter because iron melts at 2800F).

I'm hoping to fire it up when it warms up alittle, of course I need to get some coal to fuel this thing. I'll keep you updated!! C-ya

The Hinge

2008-01-04T19:42:00.001-07:00

(a.k.a. "The Toilet Seat")

Here's a cut out of what I wanted my hinge to look like and to explain to the welding shop what I needed.

It took me alot of explaining and hand jestering to the guy how to make what I wanted and finally he told me to leave my template.
WaaLaa my hinge!! It looks like what I made out of card board.
He went ahead and made the bottom part himself because I didn't know what would be best.
Here's what it looks like to gether. Now all I have to do is install it on my furnace.
Check back later for more:)

Backyard Furnace continues.....

2007-12-30T21:38:00.001-07:00

As you know, at this point it takes cement (lots of it) time to dry. I figure probably 3 to 6 months to fully cure to where it will be safe to fire it up. You are probably wondering why the cement has to be dry?? Well, from what I learned from my research you can't have heat to wet cement because it drys out to fast and cracks. On the other hand if you put extreme heat to wet cement it will probably explode or pop. (Dangerous!) I'm not about to put my or anyone else's life to stake because I can't wait to get it up and going. As of right now I still have lots to do before I can get to the next point.....Two days after I poured to cement I took a fiberglass float and smoothed out the edges and rubbed the top flat. I also put a box fan I had laying around and put it on top facing down to blow air into the furnace to help dry it out. The next thing I had to do was to get another 55 gallon drum to cut and make my lid. I needed a 2" mold to pour in cement to build a lid to cover the top of the furnace. I modified it from the original plan to have a 5 " hole in the center to be able to insert the metals I want to melt. After getting the supplies I was ready to get to work. I took my sawsall and cut two and a half inces from the top of the barrel which gave me two inches inside. Then I took some paper and cut it round to cover the bottom of the lid so the cement would'nt stick. I bought three 2" x 1/2" bolts with washer and nuts to insert into the mud to build an anchor for the hinge. I took some lath I had and cut it to go in the mud to help support the concrete so it won't crack (I hope it works), and mixed some concrete and poured the lid. I don't have a picture of the next step, but I had to let it dry for at least a couple of days to be hard enough to take out of the mold. It did'nt take to long after that to dry because of open air that was able to help. Here is what I have so far!!

The next step that I'm waiting for is the hinge.

I had to measure and cut a circle out of card board and do some engineering to where I could explain to the welder what I needed. The welder just smiled and so far getting it done. I hope I can pick it up either tomorrow or wednesday. (can't wait!!) Oh, I can't leave out that I have no clue what I'm gonna do when it comes to the time to move this thing.

This thing has got to weigh about a ton or more because I could'nt even slide it. Thats my next dilema!! for now I'll just finish it up then worry about the rest.

Backyard Furnace...

2007-12-25T21:21:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone had a nice christmas. My family and I sure did and I am glad it's over:).

Okay.. pick up where I lefted off. Finding the material to build something from scratch is sometimes challenging. Reasons are because usually the part or parts I need are not readily available so I have to build it with what I can find. My favorite places to find things are the junk yards or shops with left over parts (such as appliance repair shops, machanic shops, etc.).

So I go in somewhere and talk to the manager or owner of the shop and tell them point blank (or in a round about way if I don't want them to know what I'm building) what I need. Nine times out of ten I get lucky and they either give me a broken down something or give me a refurbished part for cheap. Then I haul whatever home and start cutting, tearing, unbolting, the one or so part I need for my project. I usually do this with many items to get the one thing I need for the overall project and this process takes me sometimes months. In the mean time I have jobs to do and family to tend and other life duties that comes first. I started my furnace about 1 1/2 months ago. The parts that I needed were a 55 gal drum, a 18" duct pipe, 5" pipe 1/2" thick, cement and some other items. Here are some pictures.

After I get some items I need then I get to work. This gets really tricky because I have to draw out what I want but I'm not drawing to scale or to measurements. I always draw a general picture of what I want then when I start building it I have to modify the objects to look like my picture. I should be percise and log everything I do but I usually don't and I'm constantly going back for measurements. After sawing, bending, twisting, cutting and lots of work I finally get some progress.

Of course this all did'nt happen over night. This probably took me a week to do all this. I had to take the center pipe in to have someone cut the "U" out with a torch because I did'nt have such a tool. This gets really exciting when you start accomplishing something right out of a notebook and start seeing an actuall object. The next step is to mix concrete and fill in the gap between the barrel and the secong pipe. Before that I had to add a blower pipe at the bottom of the furnace so I can attache a blower on it to push air in to heat up the coals for the oven. Now I can add the cement.

Some more pictures.

After seeing this I am getting more and more excited to move along but unfortunatly cement is on its own schedule and there is no hurry on this. I'll update you with more later.

Backyard Furnace

2007-12-24T23:40:00.001-07:00

I have not the skill on this bloggin' yet so bare with me. The first idea I am tinkering with is a home made smelting furnace. First off, I came up with the idea when I was browsing the internet on another idea. This person was building a furnace which is called a crucible or smelting oven for melting metals. I looked up many ways how and what melting ovens looked like and some were pretty lame. One guy had a set-up which intrigued me most when he put together out of a popcorn tin can, cement, and some other odd stuff for a backyard melting oven. He was melting alluminum, copper, brass and other light metals, and pouring them into cupcake molds. (Lisa would killed me if I had done that). So the idea was born... I now was thinking, pondering, drawing and planning which came to the hard part.......Finding the materials I needed and building it. Times up and I'm tired but I will get more into detail on my next visit with photos and all to take you on the next adventure.
Merry Christmas!!

My first blog!

2007-12-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I am starting a blog to broaden my horizon in the things I seem to enjoy.
I am a person who loves to think and create. I have this problem with my mind wandering, and when it does I sure better have a notebook handy. I have been interested in thinking, drawing, and then building prototypes of these off the wall ideas I get. I normally don't share my ideas and in most cases I probably won't, but case in point I want to share others and hopefully get some furthure insight from others who may have a different outlook, or idea on how I can better my creations.