Non-Chemical Show your work area

[Smack]

Welded this up on July 2nd, took most of the day. I even tested it with a 2200 deg. crucible before I fully welded it. Put a lot of thought into this design and this is what I came up with from experience and trial & error. The handles come from the other side so it has a better center of gravity or weight distribution. #16 crucible in the photo, have one for brass and one for copper. The hinge part is just a section of heavy duty hinge, then everything else is welded to it. If I end up making another like this I might use 1" rectangle tubing, fill the tubing with sand and use a slip roll to bend it.

 

[bswartzwelder]

Really nice. Does the top cover prevent it from opening up once you have the crucible in it? I like to weld. I guess it helps me think I have an artistic or engineering side. But that's the way to do things. Make a design and then tweak it through trail and hopefully not too much error. Thanks for the pix. It looks like stainless. How much heat can it withstand?

 

[Smack]

The top is just a heat shield, there is no lock just a stop that gives about an inch of squeeze once it touches the crucible. I had it clamped on the hot crucible 3x longer than what I estimated I would need it touching and it never turned orange, just darkened it a bit. No it's not SST., would be nice though eh?

 

[bswartzwelder]

I am really impressed with this even though I don't have a use for one. What kind of welder did you use? I started learning welding with a Sears "buzz box" AC welder. Never had much more training than my first wife's uncle showing me a little. Learned the rest through trial and error (heavy on the error part). Since then, I have graduated to a very nice MIG welder. I have even welded a wee bit of aluminum (still in the error stage there), but can make a fairly respectable weld on steel. You, have obviously mastered the art of welding. Congratulations.

 

[MEANIE]

Very nice and a great fit,
but,,,,,a number 16 hold 51 lbs of brass at about 1700 degrees.
Your handles are not long enough for me,
When you use it I would like to know how it worked out.

great job smack

Todd

 

[Smack]

It's a Powcon mig with Argon/CO2 tank. I used to do production welding in the past. Even with new steel I kept getting porosity on this thing for some reason so some of the welds look like chicken crap (to me), had to grind some back out 3 times before I got a decent weld. You should check with a local Community College or Trade School about an introductory welding course. Most have something like that you could take in a short amount of time.

I did fill the crucible with as much brass as I could get in it and it was fine. I don't just expect it to work right out of the gate, I definitely plan on doing the final test with it full of molten copper so it's contained in a catch pan in case it fails. Your right Meanie, this is quite a step up from the #10 I have been using. I even called a heat treat company and asked about having it heat treated and they told me it wouldn't do any good. Also thought about different coatings like ceramic but I don't think anything will hold up. I did think about wrapping it with some high temp exhaust wrap to help keep some heat off the tong. In the test with a 2k+ degree crucible I held it and moved it around for 25 seconds. I plan on making another one similar but better and stronger right behind it, just too busy right now getting ready for concrete at my shop.

 

[Smack]

So I got the first pour done on Wednesday and got the base cabinets mounted to the wall in the lab area. Thought the counter top would come this week but didn't see it so I will have to call on Monday to see what's up.

 

[Smack]

Got the concrete done today, just need to bring in a little bit of crushed concrete to fill in around the edges. I'm tired now, I don't know what's worse, the labor it takes to get it done or paying the hundred bucks a yard for the concrete. Maybe I'll pour some more next year, but for now I'm pooped, I must have had half a dozen blisters. Only had help during the pouring of concrete, the rest was all me and my shovel and the skid steer of course. There used to be a house right in the middle of the drive, I ran into the old foundation when I started digging, didn't find any treasure darn it all. I even took my metal detector over it, found nothing good though.

I worked with a contractor in Jackson, MI on getting a counter top for under the fume hood and after a month with the back and forth on the phone and emails I gave up on them and called another company over by Grand Rapids, after the second call to them, I got what I needed ordered, or so I thought. He (Larry, the owner) said I should have it in 2 to 3 weeks. After 4 weeks I emailed Larry, no response, at the end of the 5th week I called asking what the status of my order was, Larry calls me back, asks if I need the holes at each end of the fume hood, I said no and he said "Ok that should speed things up then" then he hangs up and I'm like, Umm...bye?. So I assume he never ordered it at all the first time around.

I miss the old days, and I don't mean way back I mean just back to like the 80's and 90's when you could get the things you needed in a timely manner. It's so hard to get anything beyond groceries or textiles these days. Having any sort of custom work done IF you can find someone to do it is an exercise in futility because chances are you'll be overwhelmed with incompetence. If you can't make it yourself with what you have, your going to have a real go of it and you might actually retire before you finish what you've started.

Sorry if I vented a bit there.

Smack

 

[Geo]

whoa Smack, that looks great. you look like you have done that before.

you did get the pup out of the form before you placed the concrete, right? :lol:

 

[bswartzwelder]

After having lived in our present home for a few years, I finally got the wife to agree to a deck. Home Depot had a computer program which helped plan it out and provided a parts list. I laid out the pattern on the ground and rented a hole driller machine for the upright support posts. Local ordinances say 2 feet deep, but I went 3. Put the posts in the holes and made them plumb with 2 by 4's. Since there was no access to my back yard, I bought a relatively small concrete mixer and had a pallet and a half of concrete delivered. Took the deck off my mower and bought a small cart and started hauling concrete into the back yard. Mixed and poured, mixed and poured until I thought I would die. Then, I started on the deck itself. Funny how there are things you never think of, but...Every time it would rain, the water would drain through the spaces between the deck flooring and drip into the same spots on the ground underneath. It wasn't long before I had a pretty, diamond shaped pattern in the dirt under my deck.

Dug it down about 4 inches with a roto tiller, and hauled out more than 60 to 100 cart loads of dirt. Packed some crushed rock into the area, then added a little sand. Made forms from plastic pipe and then started all over again hauling in sacks of concrete. Mixed and poured, mixed and poured until I was sick of seeing concrete. Did get some help from my boys with laying down bricks over the concrete and a friend and his son showed up to help with the deck for 1 day, but the rest was just the three of us: Me, Myself, and I. Never again, I'm retired and no longer able to handle such heavy work.

 

[Smack]

whoa Smack, that looks great. you look like you have done that before.

you did get the pup out of the form before you placed the concrete, right? :lol:

Yeah Pip is safe Geo, she was there quite a bit helping. About 12 years ago I poured over 100 yds. that summer and concrete was about $55.00 a yard. I got a letter from the concrete place here a while back like 2006 or so saying that there is a concrete shortage and prices were going up because of all the building that was going on in China. That's about the time they were working on the big dam in China. So now that all that work is done are prices coming back down? lol yea right. What I did in the drive took just over 22 yds. it's about 35'x36' and 5.5 inches thick.

bswartzwelder, I'm right behind ya bud, it's not so much the age as it is the miles.

 

[Smack]

Some progress on the lab, just finishing up on electrical and exhaust. That epoxy resin the counter tops are made out of cuts harder than concrete.

 

[bswartzwelder]

Now that is an IMPRESSIVE set up.

 

[kadriver]

Smack, that's a really nice pro set-up. Got any updated pictures, is it finished?

kadriver

 

[oldgoldman]

Smack .. that set up looks killer ..

Here is a picture of my shop / studio .. In 110 year old haunted loft .. little scary at night ..

 

[Smack]

Smack, that's a really nice pro set-up. Got any updated pictures, is it finished?

kadriver

Got a lot of irons in the fire, haven't had time to do any chemical work in the lab, only dealing with the scrap I'm getting in, sorting everything, setting aside stuff I want to process myself but I have been doing some initial incineration on IC's to be processed by me of course. A friend has an outside wood burner with boiler that I do a pre-incineration on things to get rid of most of the smoke before I do a good incineration on it all in my shop. I'll get some pic's up before long.

OGM, that place is cool, can tell it's old by all the support posts and the large gaps in the flooring. Kind of wonder what all is in those cracks.

 

[Smack]

Been trying to get lab work done before it gets too cold to run the fume hood. The gold foils are from fingers, the rest is just batch after batch of pins, connectors with gold pins that were incinerated (boy was that a dirty batch) but not quite done yet. Been a lot of digest, decant, filter, rinse, decant and so on if I even got that right. Been going like mad for almost 2 months now.

The little lock collar on the vacuum line is my regulator My little vacuum pump was a freebee from a dialysis reuse machine. :mrgreen:

 

[MarcoP]

Nice lab! Only one thing in common, the paper cutter http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=23111

Marco

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Smack

That looks top class mate. Have you had any issues with the stainless steel bezel on the from of your hood yet or does it seem to be fine?

Jon

 

[Smack]

Hi Smack

That looks top class mate. Have you had any issues with the stainless steel bezel on the from of your hood yet or does it seem to be fine?

Jon

Thanks Jon,
The key is to keep it clean, anything with HCL will attack it. I'm always wiping it off, I only noticed one time on a spot I missed when wiping, that some splash of HCL or A/R had begun to attack it slightly overnight. When I got this hood I bought 2 and had to change the painted airfoil on this one to the sst. airfoil from the other hood, then sold the other one on ebay for a nice profit that paid for this hood and a lot more. I think I paid $83.00 for both hoods.