• First Firing

    Trent Wainwright • 01/21/2015 at 16:35 • 0 comments

    I tried melting some aluminum for the first time. It was a success! sort of.... First, I couldn't get it up to temperature. I burned through a whole tank of propane to figure out that my naturally aspirated burner wasn't pulling enough oxygen in... Out of desperation, I got my wife's hairdryer and propped it up to where it was blowing air down the burner pipe. This was a huge improvement! The aluminum became molten within 5 minutes, and I started feeding the rest of the scrap I had into it. But I guess it was working too good, because it burned a hole through my makeshift stainless steel crucible... I was alerted to this after hearing a bubbling noise that erupted as the molten aluminum engulfed the end of my burner... So for next time, I will get a better crucible and start off with a forced air setup.