Today I’d like to say about differences in melting aluminum and brass.
First of all, I want to mention that it was enough easy to melt aluminium from the first attempt but the situation was totally different with brass.
The hardest thing is the temperature. We should remember that if for aluminum we need to get 660 °С (1220 °F), for brass we need to exceed 900 °С (1652°F). That means brass demands +250-300 °С (482-572 °F).
My first attempt was totally failed. I couldn’t get the right temperature. I added a lot of charcoal but the temperature didn’t increase. Therefore, charcoal and approximately 1 hour was wasted. Nevertheless, not totally wasted. I’ve made a conclusion that the problem was in the air supply.
I had to make my first metal melting furnace upgrade. I’ve made a new blowpipe which allowed to supply the air not only in one place but around the whole furnace.
Finally, some brass was melted but I was able to cast only a small quantity of this metal. The crucible became red, in some places light red and several points became orange. Though, I’ve got some positive result, it wasn’t enough to melt the whole brass. My task was to reach 1000 degrees °С (1832°F). In this case, my crucible should be orange or white.

However, results were not only negative, so I decided to make second furnace upgrade. My idea is to make blowpipe using larger pipe diameter. I’d like to use 32 mm (1 ¼ inches) instead of 15mm (1/2 inches).

свернуть