/diy/ - Do It Yourself

And for the rest of the setup I would get this cheap all-in-one machine.
Is this a good idea?

>>2777665
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCI_FPDQA-U

>>2777737
I've seen that. Not a fan of that microwave setup. To be honest that cheap ebay kiln looks like a spaceship next to that.

>>2777665
do you not have a oven to out it in? it's fucking wax it practically melts at room temp if you use the right stuff.

>>2777757
it's not the wax, it's the investment material that needs to be heated correctly

>>2777665
also IIRC when casting silver jewelry we didn't burn out the wax, the hot silver did that job. for melting you need a crucible and tongs, you can melt it in your back yard with some bricks and a fire. then hot metal goes in the mold, you used vent lines right? and wala you are done.

before you jump to lost wax casting you might try sand casting aluminum since you clearly never took a shop class.

also get the right wax. also the scale is meme.

>>2777759
>investment material
could you fucking just say metal? and correctly means "hot enough to melt" which is backyard stuff when you're working with silver. you are working with silver right? sorry, you are imagining that you might one day plan enough that you'll grow the balls to actually try to do actually something, with silver, instead of trying to figure out which meme apartment kiln will also bake cookies, right?

>>2777761
investment material isn't metal you mong
>Verification not required.

>>2777764
look you mong, you sculpt in wax you cast in PLASTER you dump the hot silver and you are done. you don't need to fucking call it investment material you don't own a fucking sintering printer stop using meme words.

>>2777761
>>2777764
>>2777776

kek. why do homosexers squabble so

>>2777665
>>2777666
These setups are great for what they are. I do not recommend the all-in-one Kaya-Cast unit though. I do absolutely recommend the 2-in-1 vacuum casting setups, but get a small furnace separately. Electric furnaces don't last forever, and swapping shit like coils and ceramic wool is usually easy, the big all-in-one setup just makes that job harder. It's also why I like the Chinese kilns, they're plenty good enough for what they are and with most it's really fucking easy to replace the ceramic fiber board they line them with. You can build a better kiln for less money, but I really don't think it's worth the effort. Same for the electric furnace, the cheap Chinese ones are an even better value than the Chinese kilns.

>>2777761
> using silver?
I thought I’d try using tungsten first

>>2778164
>Electric furnaces don't last forever, and swapping shit like coils and ceramic wool is usually easy, the big all-in-one setup just makes that job harder.
you are right
>You can build a better kiln for less money, but I really don't think it's worth the effort.
yeah once you count in the time spent building it you can't really justify not buying the chinese crappy one and then maybe replacing stuff down the line

thank anon

I use a TableTop, it has an internal size of 6"x6"x6", and it's programmable so you can set the burnout program and go do other shit instead of babying it and increasing the Temperature every few hours.
https://pmcsupplies.com/programmable-tabletop-hi-temp-2200-f-electric-burnout-oven-kiln-for-3d-pla-resin-and-carvable-wax.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwqpSwBhClARIsADlZ_TmQdep8QIFBeL8VbVQcXOHlxbCQwJQ3g0iKuNdtDXIJY8-qrPbtb3kaAkZVEALw_wcB

As for melting the metal? I typically use an acetylene torch, but those electric ones definitely work well

>>2778425
Just for a little perspective for niggas considering building their own, look at the TableTop unit that anon linked to at pmcsupplies. It's a perfect example of a typical Chinese desktop-sized burnout oven/kiln/furnace.

It uses this temp controller, $95 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DC3KNS0/
Similar from Aliexpress go for $50-$70. It's not just a plain PID controller like you see in the cheap kits, those are for furnaces, they're useless for kilns/burnout ovens because they lack ramp and soak functions. Add another $60-$100 for the wires/connectors, elements/coils, K-type thermocouple, solid-state relay, heatsink for the relay, 12v transformer/psu, a small 12v fan to keep the relay and PID controller cool, and a plug socket with built in fuse and power switch.

They're usually lined with 1" of ceramic fiber board insulation (made of 0.5" layers), with 1" of ceramic fiber wool insulation in the door. The layers of 0.5" ceramic fiber board make it easy to create slots for the coil. It's roughly ~450 square inches of 0.5" ceramic fiber board and a single 8x8x1 piece of fiber wool, all together about $50-$80 on Amazon, maybe a little less from China.

Depending on your cheapness and patience, you're in for around $160-$280 so far, not bad. The actual hard part is the housing. If you already play with sheet metal, great, but if not it gets more prohibitive. This thing isn't that well insulated, and the fiber board lacks structural integrity, it pretty much needs to be a steel shell. If you want a more DIY accessible method, you can use angle-iron from the hardware store and omit the sheet metal, but you're switching to 1.25" thick firebrick for the exterior layer with the 0.5" ceramic fiber board for the interior. This significantly increases the price, the size, the weight, and the labor needed.

If you've got some shit on hand and the right tools you can go pretty cheap, but the $500-$700 Chinese ones are a solid value if you need a small burnout.

>>2778901
yeah not everything makes sense to DIY
best bang for the buck would be getting a damaged one off of craigslist or something and changing/upgrading the internals.