First of all I vacuumed out all the loose bits and dusty stuff. I then pushed the burner pipes in and wrapped some insulating fibre tape around them. I sprayed the inside of the furnace with water then pressed and gently hammered the insulating firebrick mix into the damaged section of my EA (Experimental A) furnace. The blackish part is the remains of the flower pot, just a ring of it left. See the "Insulating Fire Brick" page for info on this mix. BUT I also chucked in a hand full of Diatomite to do this job.
So what's Diatomite, just a form of Diatomaceous earth which in turn are deposits of long dead Diatoms. Diatoms are a single cell algae and are very small, up to 40 million shells per cubic inch for some types. Diatomaceous earth is used in a number of different applications and in refractories and as insulation, it is also fairly light.
Close up, once the lining air dried I pulled the burner pipes back into correct place and cut the excess fibre tape off.
Close up of the narrow band of flower pot that's left in the top edge of the bottom half of the furnace. When the repair mix air dried for a day I then put the top half on and fired it up to fire the lining, I also did a 1 Kg melt of Leaded Bronze(LG2) while I was at it.
Here's the top half of furnace, the flower pot is still relatively ok.
Top piece of furnace after being painted with chalk powder. Chalk powder and metho mix.
Close up of the bottom half of furnace after being painted with chalk powder.
Firing it up after the chalk treatment. That's a piece of steel sitting in the bottom, starting to get red hot and there are a few pieces of rust flaked off. I'm holding the camera up high above as there is quite a bit of heat coming up. I also painted the top flat surface with chalk just to make it look pretty. :) If you noticed, my air adjuster for the burner is masking tape. I must try to get around to making a couple of steel air adjuster sleeves some day.
Gas is off, looking down through the vent hole. The steel block is red hot, see the rust flakes that fell off of it.
Top half of furnace removed, still all very bloody hot.
After cooling down, still all nice and white. I have done two more Aluminium melts since this pic and it looks the same. I am hoping and am expecting that the chalk will hang in there and help reflect heat towards the crucible. I can easy repaint it with chalk anyway.
This should be a new window, minimise or close it to return to Home Page or press