When I was doing my furnace repair a couple of weeks ago I did a small Leaded Bronze melt after the firing of the repair. This is the bottom side, this ingot weighs 1Kg. I did the melt in a small steel melting pot with about 6mm wall thickness. Steel pot is NOT recommended for bronze but I consider(for my purpose only) that a small melt did not pose any danger if the steel pot failed. This was a last minute decision to melt bronze and I didn't use any flux or glass cover. I poured soon after I saw some zinc flaring. Always melt any metal, or any other substance for that matter in good ventilation.
This is the top surface, mind you when it came out of the ingot mould it was very blackish, it looked nice and goldy after I wire buffed it.
A couple of weeks later. This is my first Leaded Bronze pour in a sand mould. I used a crushed food grade glass as a cover and some Borax as flux. This is the roughest side, there is some shrink area on this side. It was just a quickie to see how I'd go with the green sand that I have. I used beach sand facing sand.
This is the good side, and is quite smooth, so now I know "it can be done" ---even by me.
It machined nicely and I can't see, under 30x magnification, any sand or other crap inclusions. I'm hooked, bronze is nice to do so now I will put more effort into my next BRONZE casting. I don't think I will be needing to do any large bronze castings so I'll have to order a smallish Silicon Carbide crucible, but before that I will try more melts in the small steel pot.
This should be a new window, minimise or close it to return to Home Page or press