To make a muffle furnace for smelting aluminum on your own, you need to familiarize yourself with its basic elements, after which you can start choosing materials, preparing tools, and assembling itself. But to begin with, it is worth considering its purpose in order to understand whether it is suitable for fulfilling its goals.
Brief description of the muffle furnace
The main purpose of the muffle furnace is to heat the metal. Using such a device can help melt metals such as aluminum or copper, as well as other colored billets. In addition, with its help it is possible to successfully carry out the operation of firing ceramic products, to dry them. You can also perform cremation. It is worth noting that there is a wide variety of muffle furnaces. They can be electric, gas, air and some other types. Also significantly vary in type of construction. They are standard vertical or horizontal, as well as tubular.
The main difference between a muffle and a conventional do-it-yourself aluminum melting furnace is that it has a special section called a muffle. This section allows you to protect the metal that is being processed.
Basic structural elements and materials for assembly
The main element is, of course, the heater. It is best to choose an electric one. Its biggest advantage is that it is very easy to manage. In addition, there are such details as a heating chamber and a special heat accumulator. In order to successfully melt aluminum, it is necessary to provide heat control. This will help make the process continuous.
In the event that you have to melt several different materials, then aluminum itself should be subjected to the process also not once, but several. In this mode of operation, it is necessary to make sure that the heat accumulator also serves as a regulator. This is necessary in order to maintain the desired temperature of aluminum after melting.
In order to make a furnace for melting aluminum, you need to prepare the following materials:
- grinder, wire and metal bucket;
- bricks in the amount of seven pieces;
- safety glasses of a building type, several unnecessary metal pieces;
- hammer and other standard tools.
Start of assembly work
The assembly of a home-made aluminum smelting furnace begins with the following:
- It is necessary to take the prepared 7 bricks, which will play the role of a temperature accumulator.
- Using a grinder, a compartment is constructed on each side of the brick. The result should be the space that will be used for the electric type heater. To increase the strength of the structure, you can take the wire and wrap the entire structure with it.
- As a refractory chamber, you can use a metal bucket that has been prepared. If there is no suitable one, then you can make a camera on your own.
Body assembly
Even a simple furnace for melting aluminum - such as a muffle, for example - requires a casing. In this case, it can be made from a piece of an unnecessary sheet of metal, the thickness of which will be from 1 to 1.5 mm. It is worth noting that here you will need a layer of rust. Another important point concerns the height of the bucket. This parameter should be with a certain margin, since the working chamber will be mounted on a layer of bricks plus thermal insulation. Next, you have to roll a metal sheet into a pipe. This process is quite problematic, and therefore it is recommended to use special rings from the reinforcement.
End of furnace assembly
To complete the design of a furnace for smelting aluminum with your own hands, you must do the following:
- The harvested rings are put on a twisted sheet of metal and connected around the circumference.
- The bottom for the furnace body can be assembled from the same sheet of metal that has already been used for the pipe. It is mounted by welding to the lowest ring.
- It is necessary to make a special hole in one of the bricks through which it will be possible to place an electric heater directly inside the working chamber.
- For the convenience of calculations, you should immediately number the bricks, and then already begin to lay them out. It is necessary that they fit very tightly together. The resulting design of a do-it-yourself aluminum smelting furnace should be very stable.
- A heating coil must also be attached to the bricks.
- To install a spiral heater, you need to make several grooves and install bricks on them.
- Also, grooves can be cut in the right places with a grinder. During operation, it is recommended to use eye protection and respiratory tract protection.
- Most often, the material for the spiral is either nichrome or fechral.
- The spiral must be wound very carefully and so that the turns are close to each other. The distance is necessary in order to avoid short circuit.
- The entire structure should be coated with a solution.
Thus, you can make a furnace for melting aluminum with your own hands of a muffle type.
Small oven
The versatility is that in this case, the mini-oven is assembled from improvised means.
A tin can of canned food, soup or something else will be used as the body of the stove, that is, it is actually ready, unlike the previous type of device. The only thing that is important is to choose a can, the metal in which will be as thick as possible. A hole is made in the lower part of the can through which a hairdryer, which acts as a heating element, can be connected using a pipe. The diameter of the hole must be exactly equal to the diameter of the pipe. It may be square, but then there will be heat loss, and therefore it is better to tinker a bit, but make it round.
As mentioned earlier, a household hairdryer is used as a heater. It is important that it has a minimum of two speeds. Using tape, you can attach a pipe to the hairdryer, which will be inserted into the bottom opening of the can. It is important to check that there is no air loss at the docking point. It is also worth noting that the cold air supply button must be pressed all the time. To do this, it can be fixed with the same tape.
People using these types of stoves were satisfied. Judging by the reviews, the furnaces are quite compact, they are easy to assemble with your own hands. An electric heater helps to raise the temperature to the right level. Muffle furnaces are also good because they can melt large quantities of aluminum at once.