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need a melting furnace
Thursday, May 29 2008
Since yesterday, I've been working on building a set of stone steps leading from the south deck up to the woodshed. This route is not an important one at this time of year, but in the heating months it is critical. It is the way the majority of the heating BTUs make their way from storage to consumption. They do this in small portions of firewood carried in my arms, and there's nothing especially tricky about this chore unless there is ice on the ground. In winter, though, there often is. Putting in a set of steps would make me much less likely to slip and fall while carrying an armload of wood, a potential disaster with many possible bad outcomes. In building the steps today, I did my best to get things right from the start, using large thick stones with enough inertia to gradually sink into the soil and bind firmly. There are many things that irritate me, but I reserve a special disdain for wobbly stones on a footpath.
At some point today, I melted a handful of pre-1982 pennies, each a solid unit containing 1.7 cents worth of copper. I did so in a crucible made of a steel can that had once contained beans. As a heat source, I simply blasted the pennies with a MAPP gas torch. Unfortunately, though, I was unable to develop a large enough puddle of molten copper to do what I was hoping to do: cast a copy of a plastic gin bottle cap whose cast I'd made in Portland Cement. At this point it's clear that if I really want to do proper casting, I'll have to build myself a little melting furnace. But think of the possibilities once I do! Casting allows you to make close copies of everyday objects in whatever metal you are able to melt. It seems a lot more straightforward than, say, machining copies of models.
By the way, the cast I made in Portland Cement seemed to be exceptionally hardy and heat tolerant. I could blast it with MAPP gas flames until it glowed bright orange, and it didn't do the things I'd expected it to do, things like crack and explode.
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