Re: Casting Copper

Posted by bpfink on March 16, 1999 at 07:23:57:

In Reply to: Casting Copper posted by Paul Nagel on March 10, 1999 at 10:37:42:

I have cast copper in the past but swear I will never do it again. At the same time an alloy of 96% copper found under the names of Everdure or Herculoy is my most favorite of bronzes and I do that by the the #100 crucible which is a 300 to 330 lb pour.

Pure copper is too hard to melt for pouring, takes too much out of the furnace, oxidizes too much, radiates the heat off too much

when ready to pour, and runs too thick. That is far to many too toos for me and I thought I had gotten in touch with my feminine side. At least that is my view. Your face mask if plastic will even crinkle as you pour copper and your clothes will be hot to the touch. Not for me.

Actually though I would approach it from the other side and do a hand and hammer or better than that English Wheel hand forming of the bowl section from sheet copper and then work the wax or forms around the edges and cast them right in place on the bowl. That bowl could be in the investment and the casting could physically lock it right in. It will not fuse with it (unless there is someway to deoxidize it after the burnout and flux it) but it will lock so well that you will never separate them.

And there is a way to do the fusing if you use a mold you could reopen (such as a Keneset R Oil and Catalyst sand mix and then do it in two segments by putting a thin suran wrap or flour parting layer between the two tamped layers... but this gets to another how to subject).

As for the cupola to melt it... not in my experience, but I would just stick to the crucible and melting furnace way. Maybe others know about that.

As for the next question "what is an English Wheel" oh don't get us started. But you came to the right place. Check out the CHAT transcripts by our resident Guru Wray who makes a living building Jaguar car bodies on it and has put up a most complete series of illustrated descriptions here at Artmetal. You can find it at the following.

Cheers bpfink

http://www.artmetal.com/village/chat/main/transcrp/main_log.html