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Cryogaijin

Active member
Joined
Nov 13, 2021
Messages
27
Location
Hillsboro Or
I'm Greg, though I've gone by Cryogaijin for over 20 years online. ('cause I'm a frozen otaku who got their degree in Alaska.) My grandparents died a couple years ago, and my parents inherited their place here in Oregon. Is I lived locally, my parents made me essentially "caretaker" of the property.

As in EE, I was absolutely aghast at the state of the electric cabling. So I suddenly have aboot 100kg of stripped, pure copper wire. (I cut off all the solder joins, splices, and shorted areas. . . The rest of the wire was Aluminum. . . about 15kg stripped there. I loathe aluminum wire, and this was some of the "heaviest" wire on the property: 4 gauge.

So I could take the stripped scrap to a scrap buyer, or I could experiment with it. So I bought an inexpensive electric melt furnace and some graphite molds and crucibles.

Melted a copper bar first thing (A hair shy of 1kg) with little issue.

What is really piquing my interest is recreating forgotten things. My 2nd cast was Speculum bronze: the alloy used by Newton to make his reflecting telescope. Also I will be attempting to sandcast buttons to replace the missing ones on the seats of my 1975 AMC Matador Oleg Cassini I bought back in August for my 45th birthday.
 
I'm Greg, though I've gone by Cryogaijin for over 20 years online. ('cause I'm a frozen otaku who got their degree in Alaska.) My grandparents died a couple years ago, and my parents inherited their place here in Oregon. Is I lived locally, my parents made me essentially "caretaker" of the property.

As in EE, I was absolutely aghast at the state of the electric cabling. So I suddenly have aboot 100kg of stripped, pure copper wire. (I cut off all the solder joins, splices, and shorted areas. . . The rest of the wire was Aluminum. . . about 15kg stripped there. I loathe aluminum wire, and this was some of the "heaviest" wire on the property: 4 gauge.

So I could take the stripped scrap to a scrap buyer, or I could experiment with it. So I bought an inexpensive electric melt furnace and some graphite molds and crucibles.

Melted a copper bar first thing (A hair shy of 1kg) with little issue.

What is really piquing my interest is recreating forgotten things. My 2nd cast was Speculum bronze: the alloy used by Newton to make his reflecting telescope. Also I will be attempting to sandcast buttons to replace the missing ones on the seats of my 1975 AMC Matador Oleg Cassini I bought back in August for my 45th birthday.
Konnichiwa, Cryogaijin.

Welcome to the GRF board!

What did you cast from speculum bronze? Are you creating a period telescope? Are you using a sand medium or a Delft/Red Clay medium within your molds?

Obviously, this board's main focus is on the recovery and refining of PMs. Please feel free to send me a PM if you would like to discuss more about the casting of noble and precious metals.

Peace and health,
James
 
At the moment, just Ingots. I want to get the material as pure as possible with multiple meltings and skimmings before I try to do much more than that. In other words, practice before I try to make something "perfect"
I doubt I'll try to make a scope with it, though. It only reflects about 60% of light that falls on it, and I can silver glass to get well over 90%. But I may cast a mirror out of it to give to the local astronomy club, or any of the astronomers/astrophysicists I'm friends with.
 
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