okay what’s up guys today I’m out here
with my mini metal foundry because we’re
celebrating a milestone the video on
melting pop cans has reached over
thirteen and a half million views and
over one hundred thousand likes
now when I first made the metal foundry
I had no idea that so many of you would
actually be making this yourselves and
as a result a lot of you have had
questions and concerns and left comments
about failures and mistakes that have
been made and I wanted to update you
through this video about some of the
personal tips and tricks that I started
using that may solve those problems for
you the mini metal foundry is made of
some very basic materials it’s just a
steel bucket with a little bit of sand
some plaster of Paris and some water to
create just enough of an insulating
layer that you can heat up and melt
metals like aluminium brass and even
silver and gold okay now some people
would like to know why did I design the
metal foundry out of sand and plaster
when I could have used refractory cement
chalo wool or other higher quality
refractory materials like that and the
answer is simple
when I design the metal foundry I wanted
it to be relatable I wanted most people
to be able to go out and buy simple
commonly available materials and put
together a backyard foundry that would
work now along with that using cheaper
materials means that the system is going
to break down a little bit faster one of
the most common pieces of feedback I’ve
had from people is that after two or
three firings the lid starts to crack
and crumble and break and that’s not
just you guys that happens to me as well
but I figured out a cool little trick
you can do it’ll make it last about 10
times longer and all you need is a
little bit of steel wool I went down to
the hardware store and found some of the
courses steel wool I could get and when
you unravel the bundle you can see it
rolls out into long strands of steel
which is kind of like a metal spiderweb
and the idea is to push this down into
the plaster and sand mix while it’s
still wet because this metal mesh will
help reinforce the sand in the plaster
and hold everything together about ten
times longer than it would without it if
you want to get even more mileage out of
your metal foundry than try using
stainless steel strands instead of the
steel wool you can get stainless steel
strands in things like brillo pads which
are gonna be a lot more expensive but it
should hold up a lot longer in the same
kind of conditions another one of the
benefits of the metal foundry is it’s
very easy to make over time the walls
will start crumbling but you can just
bang all that crud out with a hammer and
mix up a new batch and in 20 minutes
you’ve got yourself a brand new system a
bag of plaster and a bag of sand
together will cost about $20 but the
cool thing is you can make between two
and three metal founders with it now
some people wonder if you can use cement
or concrete instead of plaster of Paris
and I would strongly caution you not to
the reason is
if there’s any moisture trapped in the
concrete then when it heats up there’s
the potential it could explode in your
face on the other hand plaster of Paris
and sand are very porous so they vent
the gasses off and there’s very very low
risk of that happening at all now the
foundry will reach temperatures up
around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and I
know that because of a melt copper and
if it can melt copper it’ll melt silver
and gold as well but it probably won’t
melt steel steel has a melting point up
around 2300 to 2400 degrees Fahrenheit
so you might be able to use the metal
foundry to help you forge steel but
you’re not going to be able to melt it
down and cast with it
okay let’s talk about crucibles now I
used a fire extinguisher for my crucible
and that was mainly just to show that it
could be done in an apocalyptic
situation I certainly wasn’t
recommending that a fire extinguisher
was the best way to go but it’s blowing
my mind how many comments and questions
I got from people asking where to get
fire extinguishers or that they bought a
fire extinguisher only to find out that
it melted in the foundry let’s address
that issue first first of all if your
fire extinguisher is melting in the
foundry it’s not made of steel remember
a magnet will stick to steel but it
won’t stick to aluminum so if you want
to know if your fire extinguisher is
made of steel or aluminum touch a magnet
on to the edge and see if it sticks I
got my news from an industrial equipment
supplier but that’s not going to be the
typical story for you by far by far by
far by far the best crucible I’ve ever
used is called a clay graphite crucible
and it’s one that I found off the
internet for about 30 to 40 dollars now
it seems like a little bit of investment
but trust me a fire extinguisher isn’t
gonna be any cheaper and the clay
graphite crucible is gonna last a lot
longer I personally put mine through
over 30 different firings and it has
taken a lot of abuse
you see it’s vitrified and almost like
turned to glass on the edges but I put
this thing through thermal shock I heat
it up I cool it down I heat it up I cool
it down I heat it up and cool it down
again and it just keeps going and going
I even cracked the side of it once but
it seemed to just heal itself so a clay
graphite crucible is probably what you
want to go for and I’ll put a link in
the description to one I found on Amazon
that I think would be a good
recommendation for you now when it comes
to making ingots I’ve made all kinds of
different shapes sizes and styles but
definitely by far my favorite are the
mini metal muffins
these ones are my very favorite because
they’re extremely easy to store they’re
very easy to melt and they’ll almost fit
any sized crucible if you make some of
the bigger muffins you’re getting a much
bigger crucible to melt them back down
and it’s gonna take a lot longer to do
now let’s talk about charcoal not all
charcoals are created equal the charcoal
I used for my first firings was the
Kingsford Charcoal which is used for
barbecuing there are ingredients in
there like lime which is specifically
designed to make the coals burn
lower temperature so they last longer so
if you ever switch over to something
like lump charcoal which is basically
just pyrolized wood you’re gonna find a
massive difference in the way it
operates the first thing I noticed about
lump charcoal is it emits a shower of
sparks so you definitely want to make
sure you’re wearing long sleeves you’re
gonna end up with little sparks burning
your arms the other thing is it burns a
lot hotter in the early days I had one
of my steel fire extinguisher crucibles
in there and it actually got so hot that
it melted the steel and all the aluminum
leaked out so if you use lump charcoal
it will burn a lot hotter it’s very very
powerful stuff but you need to watch it
more carefully use a lower setting on
your hairdryer you don’t need to be
pumping that much air into it to get the
same temperatures if you’re still using
charcoal to melt your metals and as soon
as you turn the hairdryer off pull the
tube out of the metal foundry if you
leave the tube in the foundry with no
air blowing the heats going to travel up
that too and melt your hairdryer and
you’re gonna end up having to get a new
one now if you made the switch to the
propane conversion congratulations I
hope it’s working well for you but there
are some things that you should know
like if you run the propane tank for
more than about 25 minutes it’s going to
start getting really really cold it may
start to sound like the gas is running
out but really what’s happening is your
propane cylinder is starting to freeze
up a couple of ways you can battle that
is to get a big bucket of warm water and
just dump your propane tank down into it
to help warm it back up again or just
get a bigger propane tank they’ll take
longer to freeze now I want to talk for
a second about styrofoam casting I did
styrofoam casting in my previous
tutorials because I think that’s the
simplest method to get started in
casting but it doesn’t always yield the
cleanest results it’s a trial and error
sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t
it blows me away that this concept even
works at all that you can just bury
styrofoam in sand poured molten metal
and pull out a casting that looks almost
identical but the surface is going to be
rough and sometimes the sand collapses
and you lose your entire project another
thing you need to consider when
styrofoam casting is that styrofoam can
Bend so when you’re adding your model to
a bucket of sand you need to be very
careful about how you add the sand
because putting too much pressure on it
can bend the mold and then when you cast
it it’s going to come out looking funny
if you want to pull the most value in
the most detail from your styrofoam
castings as possible it does make a
difference what kind of sand you use
regular play sound will work great but
if you want even more detail you can go
to the pet store and get up query em
sand which is extremely extremely fine
sand that’ll just be able to get into
all the nooks and crannies a lot better
and help your casting come out looking
really crisp I worked with very very wet
sand all the way to extremely dry sand
and I haven’t noticed much of a
difference between them
some people wonder how long should they
let their foundry cure before they use
it and honestly I don’t really think it
matters I use mine the same day I make
it and it seems to work just fine
one other disadvantage to styrofoam
casting is as you pour quite often sand
will fall into that molten mix which
will contaminate the purity of your
metal so even if you try and buff it up
sanding it and spend a lot of time
you’re gonna know as little specks of
sand start to surface through and you’ll
never be able to get a perfectly smooth
finish now if you really want to get
serious about sand casting rather than
using styrofoam which vaporizes every
time you pour your metal look into green
sand casting instead it’s about 90% sand
5 to 10 percent clay and then just a
little bit of moisture to get it to a
consistency where it’ll hold together
like a sandcastle the cool thing about
green sand casting is you only have to
make your model once and then you can
pack the sand down around it and then
pull your model back out you can reuse
your model in your sand over and over
and over again now a lot of people ask
me to try casting the foam fighter jets
from a previous project but there is a
problem and that’s that the foam is not
thick enough for the molten metal to get
down inside I’ve noticed with
dollar-store foam board your object
needs to be about two to three layers
thick in order to get the molten metal
into all the crevices if it’s less than
two thick your chances are very very low
that it’s going to fill all the gaps now
let’s talk about spalling at certain
times of the year there’s probably
moisture held within the concrete and if
you ever spill your molten metal on the
concrete it can flash that moisture into
steam in an instant and explode spalling
out bits of concrete all over the place
now in my experience these chunks of
concrete fly up to about 5 feet away
which doesn’t sound like much but
remember it’s spewing molten metal at
the same time so if you’re working over
concrete be very very careful that you
don’t spill any molten metal if you want
to be extra cautious then do it in an
area that’s covered in sand when I was
making the mini Master Sword
I failed over and over and over again
metal casting is an art form it takes a
lot of practice you’re not going to get
it right on the first try it’s just a
lot of fun to get in there get your
hands dirty see what works and see what
doesn’t play around at the materials
that you’ve got and see what you can
create so there you have it guys I
actually I’m still a really big fan of
the mini metal foundry after two years
of using it I still use that one
personally and I haven’t made another
system because it gets the job done and
it works so well and remember that this
is an entry level system if you want to
get really serious about backyard
casting I’d strongly recommend looking
into proper refractory materials you
want to be getting a refractory cement
or Kol it’s expensive but it’s really
good stuff and it’ll last a lot longer
the purpose of this project was to get
you thinking outside of the box and
seeing that you could do
things on your own and there are other
ways to do it as well my friend
Nighthawk and light just dug a hole in
the ground and blew some air into it and
that was enough to melt aluminum the
backyard scientist just put out a
tutorial for making one of the simplest
propane burners I’ve ever seen
also check out the art of weapons this
is a kid who took refractory brick and
made his own electric kiln for melting
metals as well which is very clean and
uses electricity instead of propane or
charcoal so there you have it guys
there’s a few tips and tricks that
hopefully will help you and your
backyard metal casting experiences
thanks so much for supporting sharing
and liking these videos that I can keep
making them and I’ll see you the next
video
talk to you then
with my mini metal foundry because we’re
celebrating a milestone the video on
melting pop cans has reached over
thirteen and a half million views and
over one hundred thousand likes
now when I first made the metal foundry
I had no idea that so many of you would
actually be making this yourselves and
as a result a lot of you have had
questions and concerns and left comments
about failures and mistakes that have
been made and I wanted to update you
through this video about some of the
personal tips and tricks that I started
using that may solve those problems for
you the mini metal foundry is made of
some very basic materials it’s just a
steel bucket with a little bit of sand
some plaster of Paris and some water to
create just enough of an insulating
layer that you can heat up and melt
metals like aluminium brass and even
silver and gold okay now some people
would like to know why did I design the
metal foundry out of sand and plaster
when I could have used refractory cement
chalo wool or other higher quality
refractory materials like that and the
answer is simple
when I design the metal foundry I wanted
it to be relatable I wanted most people
to be able to go out and buy simple
commonly available materials and put
together a backyard foundry that would
work now along with that using cheaper
materials means that the system is going
to break down a little bit faster one of
the most common pieces of feedback I’ve
had from people is that after two or
three firings the lid starts to crack
and crumble and break and that’s not
just you guys that happens to me as well
but I figured out a cool little trick
you can do it’ll make it last about 10
times longer and all you need is a
little bit of steel wool I went down to
the hardware store and found some of the
courses steel wool I could get and when
you unravel the bundle you can see it
rolls out into long strands of steel
which is kind of like a metal spiderweb
and the idea is to push this down into
the plaster and sand mix while it’s
still wet because this metal mesh will
help reinforce the sand in the plaster
and hold everything together about ten
times longer than it would without it if
you want to get even more mileage out of
your metal foundry than try using
stainless steel strands instead of the
steel wool you can get stainless steel
strands in things like brillo pads which
are gonna be a lot more expensive but it
should hold up a lot longer in the same
kind of conditions another one of the
benefits of the metal foundry is it’s
very easy to make over time the walls
will start crumbling but you can just
bang all that crud out with a hammer and
mix up a new batch and in 20 minutes
you’ve got yourself a brand new system a
bag of plaster and a bag of sand
together will cost about $20 but the
cool thing is you can make between two
and three metal founders with it now
some people wonder if you can use cement
or concrete instead of plaster of Paris
and I would strongly caution you not to
the reason is
if there’s any moisture trapped in the
concrete then when it heats up there’s
the potential it could explode in your
face on the other hand plaster of Paris
and sand are very porous so they vent
the gasses off and there’s very very low
risk of that happening at all now the
foundry will reach temperatures up
around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and I
know that because of a melt copper and
if it can melt copper it’ll melt silver
and gold as well but it probably won’t
melt steel steel has a melting point up
around 2300 to 2400 degrees Fahrenheit
so you might be able to use the metal
foundry to help you forge steel but
you’re not going to be able to melt it
down and cast with it
okay let’s talk about crucibles now I
used a fire extinguisher for my crucible
and that was mainly just to show that it
could be done in an apocalyptic
situation I certainly wasn’t
recommending that a fire extinguisher
was the best way to go but it’s blowing
my mind how many comments and questions
I got from people asking where to get
fire extinguishers or that they bought a
fire extinguisher only to find out that
it melted in the foundry let’s address
that issue first first of all if your
fire extinguisher is melting in the
foundry it’s not made of steel remember
a magnet will stick to steel but it
won’t stick to aluminum so if you want
to know if your fire extinguisher is
made of steel or aluminum touch a magnet
on to the edge and see if it sticks I
got my news from an industrial equipment
supplier but that’s not going to be the
typical story for you by far by far by
far by far the best crucible I’ve ever
used is called a clay graphite crucible
and it’s one that I found off the
internet for about 30 to 40 dollars now
it seems like a little bit of investment
but trust me a fire extinguisher isn’t
gonna be any cheaper and the clay
graphite crucible is gonna last a lot
longer I personally put mine through
over 30 different firings and it has
taken a lot of abuse
you see it’s vitrified and almost like
turned to glass on the edges but I put
this thing through thermal shock I heat
it up I cool it down I heat it up I cool
it down I heat it up and cool it down
again and it just keeps going and going
I even cracked the side of it once but
it seemed to just heal itself so a clay
graphite crucible is probably what you
want to go for and I’ll put a link in
the description to one I found on Amazon
that I think would be a good
recommendation for you now when it comes
to making ingots I’ve made all kinds of
different shapes sizes and styles but
definitely by far my favorite are the
mini metal muffins
these ones are my very favorite because
they’re extremely easy to store they’re
very easy to melt and they’ll almost fit
any sized crucible if you make some of
the bigger muffins you’re getting a much
bigger crucible to melt them back down
and it’s gonna take a lot longer to do
now let’s talk about charcoal not all
charcoals are created equal the charcoal
I used for my first firings was the
Kingsford Charcoal which is used for
barbecuing there are ingredients in
there like lime which is specifically
designed to make the coals burn
lower temperature so they last longer so
if you ever switch over to something
like lump charcoal which is basically
just pyrolized wood you’re gonna find a
massive difference in the way it
operates the first thing I noticed about
lump charcoal is it emits a shower of
sparks so you definitely want to make
sure you’re wearing long sleeves you’re
gonna end up with little sparks burning
your arms the other thing is it burns a
lot hotter in the early days I had one
of my steel fire extinguisher crucibles
in there and it actually got so hot that
it melted the steel and all the aluminum
leaked out so if you use lump charcoal
it will burn a lot hotter it’s very very
powerful stuff but you need to watch it
more carefully use a lower setting on
your hairdryer you don’t need to be
pumping that much air into it to get the
same temperatures if you’re still using
charcoal to melt your metals and as soon
as you turn the hairdryer off pull the
tube out of the metal foundry if you
leave the tube in the foundry with no
air blowing the heats going to travel up
that too and melt your hairdryer and
you’re gonna end up having to get a new
one now if you made the switch to the
propane conversion congratulations I
hope it’s working well for you but there
are some things that you should know
like if you run the propane tank for
more than about 25 minutes it’s going to
start getting really really cold it may
start to sound like the gas is running
out but really what’s happening is your
propane cylinder is starting to freeze
up a couple of ways you can battle that
is to get a big bucket of warm water and
just dump your propane tank down into it
to help warm it back up again or just
get a bigger propane tank they’ll take
longer to freeze now I want to talk for
a second about styrofoam casting I did
styrofoam casting in my previous
tutorials because I think that’s the
simplest method to get started in
casting but it doesn’t always yield the
cleanest results it’s a trial and error
sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t
it blows me away that this concept even
works at all that you can just bury
styrofoam in sand poured molten metal
and pull out a casting that looks almost
identical but the surface is going to be
rough and sometimes the sand collapses
and you lose your entire project another
thing you need to consider when
styrofoam casting is that styrofoam can
Bend so when you’re adding your model to
a bucket of sand you need to be very
careful about how you add the sand
because putting too much pressure on it
can bend the mold and then when you cast
it it’s going to come out looking funny
if you want to pull the most value in
the most detail from your styrofoam
castings as possible it does make a
difference what kind of sand you use
regular play sound will work great but
if you want even more detail you can go
to the pet store and get up query em
sand which is extremely extremely fine
sand that’ll just be able to get into
all the nooks and crannies a lot better
and help your casting come out looking
really crisp I worked with very very wet
sand all the way to extremely dry sand
and I haven’t noticed much of a
difference between them
some people wonder how long should they
let their foundry cure before they use
it and honestly I don’t really think it
matters I use mine the same day I make
it and it seems to work just fine
one other disadvantage to styrofoam
casting is as you pour quite often sand
will fall into that molten mix which
will contaminate the purity of your
metal so even if you try and buff it up
sanding it and spend a lot of time
you’re gonna know as little specks of
sand start to surface through and you’ll
never be able to get a perfectly smooth
finish now if you really want to get
serious about sand casting rather than
using styrofoam which vaporizes every
time you pour your metal look into green
sand casting instead it’s about 90% sand
5 to 10 percent clay and then just a
little bit of moisture to get it to a
consistency where it’ll hold together
like a sandcastle the cool thing about
green sand casting is you only have to
make your model once and then you can
pack the sand down around it and then
pull your model back out you can reuse
your model in your sand over and over
and over again now a lot of people ask
me to try casting the foam fighter jets
from a previous project but there is a
problem and that’s that the foam is not
thick enough for the molten metal to get
down inside I’ve noticed with
dollar-store foam board your object
needs to be about two to three layers
thick in order to get the molten metal
into all the crevices if it’s less than
two thick your chances are very very low
that it’s going to fill all the gaps now
let’s talk about spalling at certain
times of the year there’s probably
moisture held within the concrete and if
you ever spill your molten metal on the
concrete it can flash that moisture into
steam in an instant and explode spalling
out bits of concrete all over the place
now in my experience these chunks of
concrete fly up to about 5 feet away
which doesn’t sound like much but
remember it’s spewing molten metal at
the same time so if you’re working over
concrete be very very careful that you
don’t spill any molten metal if you want
to be extra cautious then do it in an
area that’s covered in sand when I was
making the mini Master Sword
I failed over and over and over again
metal casting is an art form it takes a
lot of practice you’re not going to get
it right on the first try it’s just a
lot of fun to get in there get your
hands dirty see what works and see what
doesn’t play around at the materials
that you’ve got and see what you can
create so there you have it guys I
actually I’m still a really big fan of
the mini metal foundry after two years
of using it I still use that one
personally and I haven’t made another
system because it gets the job done and
it works so well and remember that this
is an entry level system if you want to
get really serious about backyard
casting I’d strongly recommend looking
into proper refractory materials you
want to be getting a refractory cement
or Kol it’s expensive but it’s really
good stuff and it’ll last a lot longer
the purpose of this project was to get
you thinking outside of the box and
seeing that you could do
things on your own and there are other
ways to do it as well my friend
Nighthawk and light just dug a hole in
the ground and blew some air into it and
that was enough to melt aluminum the
backyard scientist just put out a
tutorial for making one of the simplest
propane burners I’ve ever seen
also check out the art of weapons this
is a kid who took refractory brick and
made his own electric kiln for melting
metals as well which is very clean and
uses electricity instead of propane or
charcoal so there you have it guys
there’s a few tips and tricks that
hopefully will help you and your
backyard metal casting experiences
thanks so much for supporting sharing
and liking these videos that I can keep
making them and I’ll see you the next
video
talk to you then
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