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Old 03-14-2003, 01:26 PM
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Homemade castable refractory

Howdy guys,

I am trying an experiment this weekend and am wondering if anyone else has tried something similar. I am attempting to make a homebrew castable refractory, my mixture is thus: kitty litter (soaked for 3 days in warm water in a styrofoam cooler to reduce it to a clay consistency), wood ash and refractory cement that I had lying around in a bucket left over from something else. I tested the mixture using a MAPP torch (baked it under high heat until yellow hot) and it seemed to hold up very well, it turned as hard as rock and stayed hot for a long time afterward but only heated the front of the part where I hit it with the torch (this leads me to believe that it will reflect heat pretty well). I just finished pouring a mold using this mixture and will wait to see how it turns out, my only big concern is cracking as the water evaporates. Anyone else ever try anything like this before? Results? Different mixture?


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Old 03-14-2003, 01:51 PM
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I USED KITTY LITTER AND PLAY SAND(SANDBOX) WITH A
LITTLE QUIK DRY CONCRETE.MIX TILL IT GOT STICKY .WORKS GOOD .I USED IT TO BUILD MY TIM LIVELY STYLE FORGE.


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Old 03-14-2003, 02:00 PM
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Groovy,

Did you end up with any cracking in the dried form? The reason I ask is that I am using this to cast a cylinder inside a pipe for use with propane, the refractory properties of the mixture appear to be effective but I am concerned about it cracking during the dry process and causing problems. I guess I will find out soon enough..hehe..it's drying right now.


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Old 03-14-2003, 02:11 PM
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now if you have refractory it should be alright that stuff is used
in cat cracking units and heaters in oil refineries.


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Old 03-14-2003, 03:10 PM
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JD mix in some straw, grass clippings or horse turds.

That will help it stick stay together, a little salt added will help it get hard, and then the stuff needs to be fired.

Check out some pottery sites or check the archives at www.keenjunk.com A guy in the last 3 yrs or so posted about homemade refrac.

CAt Cracking that's just plain mean


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Old 03-14-2003, 10:54 PM
dan adams1953 dan adams1953 is offline
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unless a crack is very deep ignore it. if you must repair one make some more mix or thin some left over.
I used fire clay from a fireplace store, two big bags for 15.00. works great.


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Old 03-15-2003, 12:21 AM
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FYI -

I've made up a couple of small foundries using a perlite & fire cement mix. 4 parts perlite, 1 part fire cement. The stuff I've got is good to (pause for a maths break) about 2800F. A 2" layer of that running a charcoal foundry only just starts to hit paper scorching temperatures on the outside. A large bag of perlite costs me about $4-5, 2kg fire cement around $9. Also does pretty well for a tin can forge lining.

I'll be making up another batch today to line my new forge.

Full details on the mix here - http://www.john-wasser.com/NEMES/MakeICR.html

HTH

Peter
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Old 03-16-2003, 11:18 PM
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Try reading this page:

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/refractories.html

Bentonite clay is supposed to be better in the mix than fireclay. You can get it from well drilling suppliers. I got some from a local well-driller. It costs about the same as fireclay.


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Old 03-17-2003, 01:58 AM
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Some cat litters are also bentonite clay. I *think* it was a non-clumping variety that was labelled as bentonite in the fine print. Used it in DIY foundry sand.

Use the clean stuff...

Peter
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Old 03-17-2003, 02:41 AM
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Hey Sweeny!

My ol' lady says i can have some cat litter if i clean out the cat box.
Can't ya just use cat s#*t instead of horse turds and sorta kill two birds with one stone?

...unless the crack is big enough to bury a cat in...just ignore it.

Last edited by hammerdownnow; 03-17-2003 at 02:43 AM.
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Old 03-17-2003, 07:33 AM
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cat poop ain't quite the same. You won't get that pleasing odor with the cat poop


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Old 03-17-2003, 03:54 PM
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Is this for a gas, coal or charcoal forge?

I've been having real good luck with a mixture of KAO wool (high density thermal blanket) and porcelain slip in my gas forge and just use straight wood ash in the wood/charcoal forge.
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Old 03-17-2003, 04:33 PM
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Tai,

This mixture is for use in a small cylindrical propane setup, I had thought about using kao wool with the slip ( I saw that in your thread on the forgbeque), but decided I wanted to fabricate the refractory myself, I think once fired this will be pretty hard too so it should hold up well.


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Old 03-18-2003, 08:28 AM
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Let us know how it works out.

The reason I asked is because the gas refractory is totally diferent than a charcoal forge insulator. Gas requires a much more sophisticated lining than a charcoal forge. Gas heats the refractory and the radiated heat heats the steel. Charcoal heats the steel directly. I experimented with some homemade gas castable refractories and everyone of them sagged or melted at a welding heat. I've had the best luck with the KAO wool and slip, but have often wondered if you could saturate some other material like cotton or berlap with porcelain and get about the same reasults. The fiberous material would burn out and leave a light weight ceramic that could expand and contract upon heating and cooling. One time I made a tuyere tip out ciggarette butts and the slip, which seemed to work fine for that.
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Old 03-18-2003, 10:27 AM
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Tai,

Just an update, the first batch I made did not work out so well, the mixture even after firing was to soft and the blast from the blower from my propane burner ate it up, however.........the refractory seemed to heat up very well, I think I shall try it with a higher content of some sort of bonder (concrete, portland cement, refractory cement etc) and give it another go. The refractory itself got almost white hot and the surface of it melted but did not appear to sag or anything, it just crumbled away a bit from the blast, so I think if I can just get it to set harder it will work (to much ash in this mix I think too).


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