Why is nobody dabbling with electric arc furnaces?

SLK001 said:
Ya got to love how this guy is looking into the crucible without any eye protection.
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Especially considering the 2nd sentence from the last.

That's a pretty cool article though. Thanks for sharing. Did you scan that or find it on the internet somewhere?
 
benmychree said:
Find a foundry that does cast iron at a reasonable cost, you will be money ahead compared to the direction you are headed in, not to mention the quality of the results.
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It's not about wanting cast iron parts; It's about wanting to cast iron, and the parts are just an excuse to support the endeavor. Surely I don't need to make an actual logical argument about it. I mean you might as well say "take your engine plans to machine shop, it will be faster and cost a lot less than a lathe and mill."
 
strantor said:
Especially considering the 2nd sentence from the last.

That's a pretty cool article though. Thanks for sharing. Did you scan that or find it on the internet somewhere?
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I am sure that's a staged picture, that he is not running it at the moment. I bet they stuck a light bulb in there because the real arc would wipe the picture out.
 
MrWhoopee said:
That was an air-cooled torch, wasn't it?
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Yeah but I think it is designed with the assumption that shielding gas will be cooling it and I ran it without shielding gas. I didn't think argon would be needed since I wasn't trying to get a nice weld.

In the past when I got close to melting my torch I knew it because the torch got too hot to hold before it suffered any real damage. This time, running the welder at 200A with no gas, the torch was done before it ever got hot in my hand.

After that I started using the stick holder with tungsten electrode clamped in it and that held up much better but still didn't seem like something that would be happy for prolonged use like that.

I just ordered some different kind of electrodes to test in the stick holder; tungsten, carbon, and graphite, each in 5mm and 10mm diameters. If satisfactory results are to be had, hopefully there is a winner among that lot. I might make some kind of custom electrode holder with a heat sink on it or liquid cooling block.
 
Thought about using your welder to drive an induction coil instead?
 
Check out the crucible furnaces that burn waste oil. They will heat up enough to melt cast iron at a lower cost. The heat is hard on the crucible and the furnace lining. Be careful of not exceeding the duty cycle of your welder. When welding you weld for a few minutes at a time. In a furnace it is continuous. Most welders won’t take a continuous load at the higher amperage.
 
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I once considered an old hobby design for electric arc furnace construction using
carbon rods and... an electric flatiron to limit current straight from the wall outlet.
Construction details involved a flowerpot and 'water glass' for mixing high temperature
mortar. Graphite rods with a 'buzz box' welding set would be a lot safer.
graphite rods for sale here
 
If you're really interested in casting iron, look into a waste oil furnace. They are a lot like a regular propane furnace, but the heat output is much higher - high enough to melt iron.

I see that @Nutfarmer has already suggested this. Great minds think alike!
 
pontiac428 said:
Thought about using your welder to drive an induction coil instead?
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I have, and I did find examples of it being done, but none that I found particularly compelling. There were a few categories of them:
  • Simple implementation, just wrap a wire around the toroidal transformer in the welder a few times. Seems to "work" but I dont see anyone making liquid metal with it.
  • More complicated implementation, involving modifications to the welder. Found none that was really informative about the process of going about the modification on any welder. More like "start with this exact obscure Chinese welder and do this."
  • Bogus seeming ones. Smell too much like the videos of perpetual motion machines.
 
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