i have been buying scrap copper to melt down and poor into molds, but I am having a hard time finding small scale equipment. any information on copper casting will be helpful.
Mike is right, casting copper isn't going to be easy. While copper sheets can be reasonable easily worked pure copper is rarely if ever cast because it requires a much higher temperature than bronze. Alloys have been invented for a reason and the reason is that they are easier to melt and the final products are better (e.g. harder) on top of it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel and make your own bronze from scratch. Actually starting out with pewter would be much easier as it melts particularly low and you can melt it with a plumbers torch. In order to advice you, we would also know what you want to do as a hobby. If you want to make jewelry you would deal with different quantities than if you wanted to do cast metal sculpture and that again would be different to wanting to make copper bowls or costume armor. Generally, unless you have either plenty of time or plenty of money the best would be if you can find a class for metal casting so you get some idea what you want to do and also learn how to do it and see what equipment it takes. This way you don't have to spend money on equipment you might only use a few times and taking a class allows you to learn faster than learning on your own - particularly as your teacher can help you if you make a mistake and you are not stuck trying to figure it out on your own.
well, you can cast anything , if you get it hot enough, and treat it properly along teh way... its just a process... theres some great designs out there for home furnaces, literally small blast furnaces why use waste oil burners, and a simple crucible... ok, they only melt lead and aluminium... but, Cu is just another metal... theres books on teh stuff.. just google it...and keep looking... and these waste oil burners can hit 2600 degrees... which melts iron... blacksmiths used a furnace and bellows... these days we us air pumps... think of a turbo fan...
The reason you can't is that copper is very hard to cast and produce good results. It oxidizes rapidly and has to be treated to keep air out of it so it is not too porous. It melts at a higher temperature than brass or bronze, so the equipment has to be hotter. You would have to be very determined to work with copper and get good results. This page is a part of my many pages on glass and the link at the top will go to the other metal casting pages on my site. I do not try to melt copper so there will be no direct information, but the information on refractories and burners may be useful for building stuff yourself.
