CCF MkII
Whats a CCF, and what happend to the MkI version?
Introduction
In the fall of 1998 I built my
Coffee Can Foundry. It worked much better than expected and served as a
proof of concept test.
After the success with the CCF MkI I decided to move up to bigger and better
and embarked on the CCF MkII project.
Procedure
The MkII isn't really a coffee can foundry. The shell is a festive holiday
popcorn tin about 10 inches in diameter and 11 inches tall. This was lined
with a layer of castable refractory insulation approximately 2" thick. I
used a recipe found
here to make my own
refractory insulation.
The Raw Materials
The first layer of refractory in the bottom of the foundry body.
My crucible
It is a 6" length of 3" diameter steel pipe with a steel plate welded on one end.
The foundry fired with charcoal with the cricuble in place and loaded with chunks
of scrap aluminum.
Even with the fire inside hot enough to melt aluminum (1200 to 1400 degrees F)
the insulation is effective enough to keep the paint on the outside of the can
intact. In fact, I can touch the outside of the foundry BRIEFLY with my bare
hand without injury.
Results
The first melt poured into simple troughs in the sand.
The resulting ingots were about 8" long