/diy/ - Do It Yourself

The bricks for the firebox are a clay/silt mixture from one of my dry stocktanks. They undergo a great deal of cracking as they air-dry. That doesn't matter, they'll be mortared with the same material.
They don't have to look good or be fancy, they just have to hold a fire.

The bricks for my forge will be slightly better. They will be a sand/clay/silt mixture to reduce shrinkage and cracking. After air drying they will be fired to set them good and hard. The forge will experience much higher temperatures than the distillation unit firebox.
In the distillation unit, wood will be burned at a natural pace.
In the forge, charcoal will be burned with air injection to reach a white-hot state, so these bricks must have no cracks, and definitely no moisture. Cracks will worsen under such extreme heat, causing them to crack and crumble worse. Moisture could cause an explosion, so these bricks I will craft much more carefully.

The rail ties are for a longer term goal. My rail line.
I intend to construct an 18-inch-gauge miniature rail line for hauling waste material, charcoal, and water away from my house to more convenient locations on my land, and for hauling in wood, stone, and earth.
Granted, I could just use my truck for these things, but damn, how cool is the idea of having your own private rail line? My motives may not be entirely rational, but holy shit that'll be awesome.

Of course with a rail line, there is the possibility of automation.
Eventually, I intend to construct a power-plant that will be used to power a series of greenhouses for growing foodstuffs.
The problem is, the location of the greenhouses is far removed from any convenient source of power and water.
It will be cheaper to construct an automated rail line to fuel these things than it will to have grid power run to the location, and another well drilled.

The powerplant will consist of three stages.

1)preheaters. These will be constructed of black hoses spiraled on circular concrete pads dyed black

2)parabolic mirror trough heaters, these will be black iron pipe set in parabolic troughs

3)main heater, this will be a charcoal fired unit, to compensate for whatever is left desired by the previous two stages.

These three stages will drive a steam engine that will produce what modest power I shall need for the greenhouses.

The rail line will be a single line, with a turn-around loop at each end, and a depot situated at some convenient location.
There will be two engines. The one meant for automated use, and the one meant for manual use.
The automated one will haul charcoal and water to the site, the manual one will be for hauling earth, stone, and wood back in, which I will have to collect manually.
They will be charcoal fired steam engines. I see no need for anything fancier.

Fixing a Miele W963 washer (well, already fixed it), it didn't heat up because of a burnt out heater, it measured zero Ohm and that means "i am very ded. big surpise not"

Any more washer mechanics on
>>>/diy/?

>Smithing general
Oh fantastic, I meandered over here from /v/. I saw a post on imgur where they made a cast metal sword from cans, and for some reason melting things into ingots appeals to me. I don't really have any metallurgical experience except for shop class from high school like 8 years ago.

For fun, I was thinking of doing it on a budget too, drop $20 and make or scavenge everything myself. People suggested classifieds to get free wood (and/or scrap); I live in a rural town of about 400 people and don't have my own vehicle so I don't know how feasible that would be, but we can set aside a spot in the backyard for this project, I'm sure.

So far my shopping list includes an apron, gloves, goggles, and maybe one of those fume masks or whatever. I can probably grab all that from a dollar store for under $8.

>>51
I just finished doing some metal casting from scrap cans recently. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

Melting down aluminum is just about the easiest thing you can do. It melts at 1200F, which is easily achievable with some charcoal and an air blower.

The most important item you'll need to buy is some sort of crucible to melt everything in. I used a cheap stainless steel pot which ended up failing on the second melt. Resulted in a pretty substantial puddle of aluminum.
I'd suggest getting a thicker pot or something made from ceramic to melt in.
Also add to your list some sort of ladle to skim out any impurities from the metal.

This website
>http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/
has a lot of good information if you can stomach the 90's era layout.

>>52
Yeah, this looks like a good site to read over in the meantime. Bandwidth caps a shit, so I can't really watch videos, so this works for me.

I just cut 60 cans down the middle so I can wash them off, I guess. But it's winter, so I can't really do anything physically productive at the moment.

>>53
If you're looking for really low budget, I made this work with a rock kiln and scrap wood. A word of caution if you try this, rocks will explode at the temperatures you seek, especially if heated up quickly on a cold day.

Used an old steel tin like what coffee used to be packaged in, pair of pliers with long hollow metal rods fixed around the handles, dinner fork for skimming, and high-fire ceramic mold for casting.

Fashioned and sanded bricks could substitute for the ceramic. Just remember that metals are fucking dense and will solidify around anything when cooling. Avoid cracks and keep contact surfaces smooth in the mold.

I've also made throwaway molds out of cured wood before. Not recommended. Depending upon the wood, gas will evolve and the mold can crack or explode. One use, maybe more if the shape isn't too detailed and involves a small amount of metal.

Plenty of other techniques you can look into as well. Sand casting is probably your best bet for cheap:

http://reprap.org/wiki/High_Temperature_Metal_Casting#Moulds

Good to hear you're keeping safety in mind. Always comes first.

>>13
>>12

I've been tossing the idea around of tasks, that don't really need to be done quickly, powered by low power sources e.g. small solar panels or turbines.

For instance, on your rail system you have something loaded up but you don't need it to reach point B for a few days. A mini solar panel and very highly geared motor could probably do the job intermittently and eventually.

Or a log processor. Fill up a large hopper and come back in a week or two, a winter supply of wood chopped and dried with no significant energy input.

The effort and expense implementing the system probably doesn't make sense for all you're saving. A gallon or two of diesel?

Anyone plans on making a Bridgman Furnace for casting?

>>105
Thanks for the .pdfs. They look interesting, especially as I have been glancing at blacksmithing. I took a small introductory two years ago.

I think that there aren't many people here, as stated by my post here: >>>102

>>106
Sorry, make that >>102