Making a Graphite Crucible
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- čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
- This is a video of how to make a graphite crucible using a rather unique compression and extrusion process I invented. I am sorry it took so long but sometimes what looks easy on paper can turn out difficult. I welcome everyone to contribute in both technique and clay formulas to this project. I will try to answer any questions since I had more video footage than would fit into this 15 min video. Crucible formulas are "Proprietary" among the various manufacturers making finding a formula difficult.
bob - Věda a technologie
Thanks Guys. You have been great over the years. You have enough knowledge now to move on and come up with your own innovations. Mean while i am going after life long dreams. Love you guys
Thanks for sharing this information. Is pure gold. This formula is enough for cast iron? Sorry for my English.
@@adrianmucci4860 Graphite is mainly for non ferrous casting. You would be better off making a lot of disposable clay crucibles for iron or steel. Dry them in in the oven then fire them in the foundry. Make sure you have driven all the water out before ramping the heat up. Boiling Point of water at your altitude is critical point in the oven. My oven was 20F lower and i blew one up once i started ramping the temp. use high temp probe or thermometer.
@@rlbob1would this be sufficient to cast aluminum oxide (Al O3)? I want to make an ingot of corundum / ruby / sapphire. Honesty I was thinking of putting down a sheet of corundum and adding the chromium and other dopants to “paint” a design on it, hopefully getting the temperature just right for it to fuse and turn into ruby and sapphire without losing to much definition. I’m planning on using either map gas, or hydrogen + oxygen as the heat source. That should be sufficient right?
@@Olisha.Sahahha! growing crystals is a very complex thing, there are various processes and lots of machines have been made, that cost up to quarter of a million bucks. You can't just expect heating alumina and magically for it to convert to sapphire, the atoms must be excited and then cooled to find the lowest energy spot between them, this process requires very fine temperature control and engineering, otherwise you will just wast energy and lose money. Check out how the grow sapphire cylinders for smartphones.
❤whoever smelts the gold; makes the rules 😅😂🎉
Superb video from a humble engineer - "please send me your improvements, I'd like to try them out". People like this are gold-dust.
they're the whole nugget bro
A visible demonstration of one determined guy,I salute you.
I thank you for educating me and taking away years of frustration from my life.
I love your 3-section furnace. That makes crucible removal so much easier than what other people do.
Most of what this Gentleman has revealed would in fact be proprietary knowledge / Trade secret of firms. Amazed at his out of the box thinking ! No words for his Genius ! Thank You Sir & My Respect !
Happy New Year bud...... You are the man! I am so happy to see the dedication hard work and pride you have for your craft! I am a novice but learning and taking things slowly.... I was wanting to make my own crucibles just like yours so I am so happy to see it can be done! Cheers!
You sir are a true artist.
Thanks so much for posting this. I have wanted to build my own crucible for a while now and after seeing all the hard work you put into that beautiful crucible, I think I'll just buy one. Again thanks for posting.
You did a fine job - respect!
God bless you sir, and the internet.
Absolutely incredible, sheer talent and professional workmanship, straight to the point, down to earth and easy to understand.
Thank you sir it is the best instruction I have seen on CZcams for this method
Very good video. Very informative. Thank you for the detailed information you provide with the formula.
the sound of this alone is brilliant
I could listen to hours of peaceful relaxing workshop sounds
serious, love it :D
First of all yer a God Damn CHEMIST my friend and second,FINALLY someone wearing proper aluminized safety protection! I used to run a 2 million pound a year aluminum smelter and the number of people on CZcams running around in tshirts melting metal with zero safety gear on just blows my mind!
Great video!
CdnCarWrapper or barefoot. Dumbasses
I think the main reason people don't use this kind of gear is because they don't know where to get it from and if they do don't have the money
My idea why they dont use proper safety is that the metal doesnt glow red hot. People are generally afraid of red hot metals but not metals that look molten similar to when solid.
I only smelt in my crocs... 👷🏽
Exactly. When we were kids we played with melting lead and nobody thought it was a safety hazard. I had the pot almost explode several times.
This video was mad 8 years ago, has anyone tried it and please post links to any videos with improvements. Thank you good sir you will go down in history as one of the best backyard engineers. Always wondered how crucibles were made.
This is great! Very informative and nicely done.
I don't think I can properly express how valuable your video is, Sir. I have to try it on my own! From what I see, a meat grinder should come in handy for homogenizing the mix. If you ever test it, please post what the results are. Many thanks for your work, Sir! You're doing us a great favor!
Ingenious method. Thanks for sharing and providing a decent and highly informative video.
Thank you for sharing it! Great work!
Beautiful piece of work!
Well thought through and presented and a rather unique subject. All thumbs up!
The food channel has really improved.
All kidding aside this is amazing and inspirational.
Definitely coming back to this to craft my own crucible!
what ratios of the ingredients would you recommend for making silver and gold molds with good chemical resistance and long life longevity?
finished product looking good.
brilliant work dood! im currently into induction melting and making graphite crucibles is of huge interest. cheers fella
Ah thank you for making this i always wanted to make my own graphite crucible
Its all new to me the method you are using and there may be strong reasons why you do. However i come from a ceramics background where we were slip casting. That is getting all dry clay ingredients adding to barrel of water making thick slip clay, adding deflockulent.which makes it appear thinner, more wattery. Then we added slip to dry/ semi dry plaster of paris molds. The benefit is there is definitely a higher success rate/ failures due to cracking. Dont know of this helps but just what i know
Fantastic safety measures with the fire suit!
Really nice looking crucible.
Safety at all times cuts to clip of him handling molten metal on a wooden porch covered in leafs lmao love it
thank you sir, i will pass on what you have shown me to my students
I like your ingenuity. I don't feel alone. Essayons
Hi, glad to see someone else uses the wife's oven to make furnace parts. I also know what I can do with the 15 to 20 pounds of graphite powder I end up with after making molds every month.
Great video, I'll give it a try but on a smaller scale.... Nice job
The chair he is sitting in LOL
Informative video.
So informative. Thank you.
Great video. Thank you!
Respect on your work sir
thanks for the information, I would really appreciate if I see a video of the new formula
Is there any particular grit size you are using for the silicon carbide? I have some 150 grit and some 1200 grit any benefits to one grit over another?
brother you looked a little shaky at first, but you are the safest and one of the smartest casters on youtube period. i think your work is excellent, that same starbide crucible would cost 200 plus bucks..a spectacular job, i am very impressed, and i'm not easily impressed
kudos
I'm looking to make a crucible to melt more-or-less pure quartz (silica). It melts around 1700°C. A pure graphite crucible melts around 3600°C so I think that'd work. But...do you have any idea if your graphite crucible mix could work up to around 1900° (I'd like a little temperature buffer to work with since I might have to run at 1800°C or so). I suspect since glass is a component in your mix it will cause your crucible to fail when the borosilicate melts, which is apparently 1648°C...although sometimes mixes have surprisingly different properties so maybe it could withstand higher temps? Have you ever tested it?
This gave me some ideas on what I need to do, I want to make a crucible that will accommodate the irregular shape of my furnace and not waste any space but concerned about the heat flow as well. I don't want to break down its efficiency so any suggestions would be appreciated as for the fire chamber coverage
Dude awesome AWESOME video. Thank you so much for the exact recipe to make my own. I know it could get spendy buying them. Glad you taught us how to save money. I do assume we can save clay for later if we do want to make smaller ones?? or should i just cut the recipe in half?? just lil curious because i dont want to use a large one all the time.. Once again GREAT job on the video. Makes it easy for some ppl like me to follow along.
thank you for the video sir, could you please put where you get your supplies from, thank you
Great job!
I noticed when you were hand-mixing that you started kneading the stiff clay immediately after wetting it. When I want to "thin down" stiff clays a bit, I prefer to add the clay & a bit of water to an airtight container, then forget about it for a few days. Letting the water work its way into the clay on its own is far easier, and makes for a much less slimy experience, IMO.
What do you figure cost and all materials to make (just crucible) and what size is it in holding volume you would say?
I love that fricking suit dude.. .can I rent it for Halloween? lol Great video... I am going to use some of your procedures, and tweek others to fit my taste. :)
Hi Bob, so 2 things I'm curious about. 1- you spoke of a new formula you had a few years ago. Has that worked better for you and would you care to share? 2- with these crucibles, once you do the slow process of bringing things up to temp for your first pour; do successive pours have to be slow as well? In other words my crucible is setting around for 2 weeks. Do I need to heat it up really slowly when I decide to do some casting or can I just ramp up my foundry furnace on waste oil like I normally do with a steel crucible?
Great Video, good to learn from a pro. I am olanning to make a crucible from your recipe, but I am unable to locate any borosilicate glass. Is it possible that sodium silicate can be used instead. Thanks
very nice work
been thinking about having a reasonably tall kiln and cruisible combo where i can put in a complete cilinderhead (unbroken with valves springs everything still in it )
i seen it done once but the guy used a verry large burner putting the flame staight in the opening against the aluminium inside a steel barrel layed down at an angle with the catchcan under a hole in the lowest point , verry crude and wastefull in the amount of energy used to melt it but it worked
the dross basicly stuck to the barrels wall on the way down while the pure aluminium dropped further and out the hole
like to try it with the kiln vertical and the burner as is normally placed and have a hole in the bottom of the cruisible sitting on a hole in the bottom of the kiln , the kiln sits higher off the ground then usual and the mould is placed under it (want to make clean aluminium ingots that can be remelted and cast the normal way )
my thought is basicly to not spend a lot of time pouring or even take out and handling a red hot crusible , taking out dross and all that but just have the aluminium leak out the bottom at the same speed as it melts off the head
and keep adding scrap through a hole in the top and having moulten aluminium pour out the bottom
any idea how to get the dross to seperate while the aluminium drops out ?
will it stay in the crusible or block the pourhole ?
if the dross comes with the aluminium leaking out i was thinking on a small gutter from the leakpoint down to the mould for the dross to stick to , but it might be too cold and have the aluminium solidfy before it enters the mould or just make a bigger mess of things
lot of work appreciate the video
I would also definitely purchase one if you sold them. Great video!
Please let me know if I can purchase one from you.
While it’s been over seven years ago and prices changed and product availability may have gotten more complicated (or not), I’m curious as to what it cost to make and about what volume does this one shown hold. My small-ish (A5?) was about $35 if I remember correctly (I probably don’t).
would adding a metallic powder to the mix help at all with cracking? I suppose it'd have to be at a low ratio but I haven't ever been in a position to test it.
The crucible can be enhanced with a sacrificial coating, painting on a well mixed slurry of plaster sodium-silicate and graphite every few times you use it. Just to give them a longer service life, since it does take a bit of time and money to make them.
WOW goooooood nice Man >thank for you and Your kind assistant
Hi, do you have a list of the material sources ? Where would you purchase the material. Please be specific. Thanks John
Sorry I have been away so long. So many things happen in life which make filming CZcams videos seen trivial. I did make an experimental crucible but lost video and formula. Had the crucible professionally fired but owner of shop was so leery of it she fired up the whole kiln with just my crucible ... nothing else. Well in its raw unfired state it does like its made of gunpowder. Let me dig around a bit ... maybe i can retrieve it from old drive. Love you guys and gals.
bob
Glad to hear you are alive and kicking. I get the thing about things happening in life- death in the immediate family, new job, house burnt down in the forest fires, global pandemic… been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
Anyway, life does go on. I’m sure many people here would like to see your new formula. I’ll admit, I’m leery of putting glass (even powdered borosilicate) in my mix as I mainly melt cast iron and my experience with glass is that if any silica sand gets into the furnace it tends to melt into glass, making a sticky mess that can sometimes get between my plinth and crucible. Over the years, I’ve been through a few $$$grand’s worth of Morgan super salamanders and I’m getting tired of it. Asbury graphite isn’t too far from my shop and I can get bagged fireclay and grog locally too. I bought the Vince Gingery book on making crucibles many years ago as a curiosity and his formula, for a 3 pound mix (page 23) is “Hawthorne bond 35 fire clay, 38% or 18 ounces. (Or other fire clay may be substituted.)”, “Potash Feldspar 2%, or 3/4 ounce.”, “Brick grog 20 mesh 60% or 29 ounces.” He doesn’t say anything there about the graphite, but on page 21 he says “The graphite content of such crucibles is normally in the range of 30-40% or the total weight of the crucible”, so it could probably be scaled into the clay/grog mixture. He also says on page 7 “Typically a good clay was mixed with 20 to 40 percent of its weight of graphite” Those numbers seem pretty in line with yours. He mentions that of the amorphous and foliated/crystalline, the crystalline is the type used for crucibles and lubricants and the amorphous form is used for lead pencils, foundry facings, electric brush carbons, and paint pigments. I will probably give Asbury a call and see if one of their application specialists can recommend a particular product. I get the feeling from their website and elsewhere that they carry 50 or 60 different graphite products, varying in mesh, crystalline versus amorphous, and intended use. I got a 20 pound bag of powdered graphite from Budget Casting Supply years ago when they were still selling it (they’ve been ramping the business down for the last year or two, selling off inventory), but I don’t know what the intended purpose was. I’m using it as a mold wash for my gray iron castings to help it not melt and stick to the sand, which is a pain to clean. I don’t assume that just because it’s powdered graphite that it’s appropriate for crucible use.
Anyway, thanks for the video. Glad you’re back! Definitely please share your recent formula (with the obligatory disclaimers, if need be, though most of these jokers commenting are just arm chair warriors and won’t actually make a thing in their lives anyway). I’ll be doing some experimenting, but it feels like a waste of time to reinvent the wheel or duplicate effort that’s already been done by others before us. Thanks again.
Good work! Where did you get the metal pipe with the reducer flange? You don,'t mention the different size pipes, tube's or dowel. This would be helpful. Thank you
wow, your pretty smart. I didn't think it would work. Thanx for help.
Great video!
Is it possible to mould a coin into this graphite clay mix and produce a coin mold without needing to carve the coin in a solid graphite block?
Great work
awesome video. great crucible. I want one as big as this. one question though, how expensive was this to make?
good job you had a robot to help you at the end:)
Just finished watching your segment on making a crucible and have a question. What type of graphite do you recommend and do you have a recommended source? Thanks in advance.
Thank you and I love you vidoes.
Thanks for the reply.
Nice press! This shape add Fe shavings to grapheme recipe and wrap w shielded copper wire and you'll have an awesome magnet!
hello bob just writing to ask if you have been using your graphite crucible much and how it is holding up ? i would like to make a permanent mould using your recipie and would like to ask also where best to obtain the ingredients? any help or advise would be much apreciated looking forward to your reply jason
Nice video. Can you tell us what the O.D and I.D. dimension of the crucible is? Will you be making these for sale?
@rlbob1 absolutely genius of our time, I do have a question, what would be the cons of have a stainless steel reinforcement in the mixture, similar to the technique of reinforcing concrete, seeing as stainless steel melts at a temperature far greater than what a home foundry could ever produce?
Excellent videos on the foundry and crucible. Do you sell the crucibles? If not what are the dimensions of the crucible and where is a good place to purchase one? Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this, knowledge is power.
I wonder if you could use a hand crank meat grinder to break up the clay to make it easier to mix.
I was think of trying to build one but maybe you would sell one do you sell any furnaces?
Don
aka=fatbeeman
we have graphite heater elements for vacuum furnace,Contact Number/Wechat:+86-15617656935 Skype/Whatsapp:0086-15838243056 Email :elko@graphitemanufacturer.com Website :www.graphitemanufacturer.com
great tutorial dude
The formulas and how to mix the clay was great. What you were doing after you made the rings was very obscure.
He was using a hydraulic jack to compress the rings with the collared steel tube he showed you in the beginning.
@rlbob1, did you score the ring segments before setting them in the mold?
He didnt show how the mold goes together, or how it is oriented in the press. It's not clear or detailed how he packed the clay nor did it show what keeps the clay from just pushing out the bottom. How did he end up with a solid bottom if he is using a hollow ram with a flange? No information on that. How thick is the walls and bottom? Not a clue. At 10:24 you mostly see his back not a clue what he is doing there. At 10:34 he ducks down so who knows what he is doing there. All the camera shows is the same large tube with a hex flange. Whats the large tube with the hex flange for? Between 10:24 and 11:21 he shows nothing of what he is doing. Between the beginning up to 7:40 its a great video. Between 7:40 and 11:21 not so much. After 11:21 he shows what is going on again. Like most things in life you never get the full story from one source.
Unfortunately the solid steel tubes did not allow much for camera angles so I had to rely on the storyboard in the beginning. Still I think I can answer most of your questions. The large tube with the hex flange is bolted to two 2*4's which straddle the concrete blocks and firmly hold the smaller tube and the core base in place. The large washer on the core base fits snugly against the end of the flared portion of the small tube and keeps the clay from pushing out the bottom. It also centers the core and forms a nice flair for the crucible top You recall the hollow ram also has a solid end as well as the washer end. After building the clay to the top of the core you flip it to the solid end and add another inch of clay for the solid bottom. The solid end is also used to force the crucible out of the mold after unbolting a board holding the core base in place. Just remembering it is being formed upside down with the flanged top facing down and the solid bottom up and that will help visualization.
His neighbors must call him "moon man"
Great video, I want to make graphite crucible but I can't find Silicon carbide powder in my country. I could buy it from ebay but shipping price is to big, so I thought maybe I could make powder from abrasive grinding wheel because they are made of this material. So what do you think guys
well, I'm impressed.
GREAT JOB
Some of you have not seen D he touches blocks of just set blocks of aluminum with almost bare hands it nuts how you people endanger your lives. Thank you Loader.
has anyone made one of these crucibles? if so what metals have you melted?
Follow up on the glass question do you have any suggestion on a supplier for the glass
Nice TY! I would like to make one 2 meters cubed. Any suggestions other than what you have done? TY in advance.
thanks allot for the formula.
thanks for your video,yesterday i made research on the net and found out about lost foam casting and slury for better surface."The prepared foam patterns were then dipped for 60 sec. into a slurry made of a mixture of Zircon flour and colloidal silicate".You can find out some more if you Google article;Process Control of Lost Foam Casting using Slurry Viscosity and Dipping Time
would you like to share composition of different ingredients you used to make graphite crucible
Will a clay graphite crucible work in a charcoal fueled furnace? I read somewhere that clay crucibles couldnt be used in certain types of furnaces. I am currently having someone weld a steel crucible for me to get started melting aluminum, but after seeing this video I want to also try my hand at making a clay graphite crucible since they last longer.
I already have some ideas on a mold for the crucible that should work while still coming apart easily, I just need to know if it is safe to use one in a charcoal furnace first before I go to the trouble of making it.
Also, The steel crucible I am having made for me is from 6 inch steel pipe with a quater inch wall thickness. Can you tell me about how many melts I could expect to get from it? I am only planning on melting aluminum.
Any help is appreciated.
Jon Coates A charcoal fired furnace will generally have a less oxygen-rich internal environment than his propane one. Assuming you aren't forcing in inordinate amounts of air (which you'll never need for melting aluminum), you should have little/no problem with burning the graphite out of a graphite-clay crucible.
As far as a melt-count on your 1/4" wall thickness steel crucible, that will primarily depend on 2 things:
#1: Steel Alloy..while something like, say, an M2 tool steel can withstand pretty much anything you can throw at it without lighting the aluminum on fire, some lower-temp grades of "mild" or "stainless" (or especially anything with a >2.5% carbon content, like "cast iron") steel could melt marginally close to your working temps & not last long at all.
#2: Overheating...the closer you stay to the temperature where the aluminum "only just" melts, the longer your crucible (any crucible) will last. The more heat you use beyond what's necessary for your process, the faster you'll degrade the crucible.
With that said, on average (assuming you used a decent steel & reasonable firing temps) you should get at least a couple hundred firings out of that thickness of a crucible I think.
what size is the dimensional size of the crucible and what is the amount it holds , I won't be working with large amounts and wonder if it will be worth the effort and cost to make this
Very informative. A mixer with a worm gear drive would enhance your daily production.
Hey Bob, Your videos are very professional and I am learning much from you. I am having trouble locating borosilicate glass. Will you name a supplier or two? Also, which grit of silicon carbide is best? Thank you, Kenn
تشکر سوالی دارم😘👏
Very informative, well set out video. Thanks very much.
Where did you those great pouring tongs?
Where are you getting the borasilicate glass?