On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:36:38 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry Muso
wrote:

Hello again, Peter. I am in good spirits, and I have a high regard
for your opinions.


Thanks. Oh, and sorry for the formatting errors in sending your post. Coding
conflicts betwixt your post and my software settings leads to these odd codes in
the middle of text. Missed this time.


I suspedted as much. I like my trinkets to be as cheap as possible,
by the way.

Nothing wrong with that.


There are those who would disagree. What is practical for one is not
necessarily practical for another.

true. for one thing, I assumed you had some vaguely jewelry related use, given
that this is a jewelry related newgroup. For that, zinc is often a somewhat
poor choice. Not just inexpensive. Doesn't hold up well to jewelry use by
itself. Usually needs a pretty heavy electroplate to protect it from the
corrosive effects it encounters in jewelry use... Much better, for fairly
inexpensive jewelry would be brass, similar copper based alloys, or even silver.
More costly, but most jewelry made of it uses little enough it's reasonable even
for those on a strict budget. And yes, your gingery furnace can melt silver if
you set it up right. Ordinary charcoal briquettes and a blower/hair dryer can
do it. Not large amounts, but enough. Or an ordinary propane torch from the
hardware store is easier and quicker.

If you really want the cheapest prices and still want to do something you can
call jewelry, use pewter. That's essentially pure tin, with a trace of copper
or antimony. doesn't cost much more than zinc. Contenti.com can sell you these
metals, by the way, suited for white metal casting purposes, at prices you might
consider reasonable, and a better use of the pennies, especially if you're
melting them by the pound, as you imply...

You got sum'n again' po' folk? ;-)

Nope. I are one. You're assumption that jewelers are rich folks is usually
incorrect. You know that old saw about starving artists... All too true
sometimes. especially in a recession, when people buy somewhat less jewelry.


Yeah, sounds about right for a Gingery lathe, shaper, mill, or drill
press. And aren't machine tools the king of the tools?

Depends on your point of view. I happen to have higher regard for the ultimate
tools, the human hand and brain. Hand tools in the hands of a skilled worker
are wonderful and versatile things. Machine tools in the hands of a hack are
not much good or even dangerous. It's the skills of the user that make em
kings, whatever the type of tools. The Gingery stuff is fun, though I'm not
sure they're economically worth building. yes, you're building it all yourself,
but given how cheap you can find used tools on Craigs list, ebay, or garage
sales, not to mention the chinese imports from Harbor Freight, I'm not sure the
build it yourself stuff is any cheaper in the long run. But you learn a lot
building them, to be sure, and perhaps that's worth it all on it's own



I'll tell you what's silly, Peter. What's silly is that the Houston
Area Blacksmithing Association offers breeze coke to its members,
labeling it as "forge coke". The quality control of the established
metalworking community does not impress me in the least. There is
nothing lower on the coke totem pole than breeze coke, which is
unblowable by conventional means.

Probably why that local org has it at all. It's cheap. Does ABAMA still have
lists of suppliers on their web site? I'm certain you can find better coke out
there if you need it. Or use other means if your aim is melting metals. Coke
is most useful for the forge. For just plain metal melting, it's going about it
the low tech way to be sure, but not exactly the easy way, unless you're melting
quite a large amount, at which point you're not talking jewelry use any more.
And for what it's worth, what's wrong with ordinary barbaque charcoal for the
melting furnace? Not quite coke, to be sure, but back in grad school, some 20
years ago, we were using a charcoal fired furnace furnace built in an old metal
bucket sort of thing, with a hair dryer blower at the bottom, to work with the
metal casting methods of the Ashante peoples of east Africa. Wonderful
heritage, and capable of extremely detailed castings. Things that sometimes
would even be difficult to duplicate with the usually used lost wax casting
methods of the jewelry industry. Brass, bronze, and gold alloys were the usual
metals used. No prob with those temperature ranges, and it was just ordinary
grocery store grade charcoal briquettes.


News flash -- I'm a po' boy!

Yeah. Me too. That's why I'd prefer to keep my pennies in their more valuable,
bill paying form, with which I can buy more than their weight in zinc fairly
easily.

To high-melt for me.

See above.


the end result would be more difficult to melt. I will be using a
single-burner propane camping stove, not a blast furnace.


true, an open burner stove would be hard to use. But swap it for a decent
propane torch, build a small cylindrical tube furnace with the flame entering
tangentially at the bottom, add a small crucible, and you can melt almost
anything in the normal range of non-ferrous metals. Or go to the scale of your
Gingery furnace and do the same with a propane burner and blower made from a
hair dryer. Some people who use such furnaces for larger amounts might use a
purchased burner head, but even that, you can build yourself. Not that hard to
do. Or use that same furnace design just with charcoal, as described above.
The blower is what gives you the higher temp range...


That is because coke briquettes are not normally bagged in briquette
form, and then offered at the local hardware store. I will be making
my own, of course, though in the meantime, I will not just be sitting
around twiddling my thumbs.

I really don't think you have to have coke unless you're trying to reach the
temps needed for cast iron (as the gingery furnace is designed to do, if I
recall right.). For aluminum or other lower melting alloys, while coke is nice,
lasting longer, if you can't get decent coke, then why bother with the junk at
all. (unless of course it still works, and is cheaper than charcoal...)



Peter, I know that you are a professional jeweler. But I am a
recreational metalworker, and this is a recreational group. I am
under no obligation to meet professional standards here. I am not
begging for leniency. I am simply refreshing your memory, for my own
memory is in good shape.

Agreed. the group does not require any level of standards. Though I'm a
professional, many readers of this group are not. However, be aware that the
group IS specified as a jewelry specific group (need the charter? Go to Google
groups and find an old post of the FAQ file, where I included the charter, or
ask in email, and I'll send you a copy), so the usual standards of thinking
about metal the way jewelers do is usually assumed, even if not required. Thus
the assumptions on the nature of the alloys you might be using, or what you
might be using them for. By the way, the "rec" part in the newsgroup name is
simply the place this group is organized within the heirarchy of newsgroups. All
the crafts, whether professional or not, or in this section of the newsgroup
structure except those that didn't want to go through the formal creation
process, and get themselves set up as "Alt" groups. It does not imply that the
groups are more recreational or less professional. The only definition of this
group is that it's somehow related to the jewelry craft, and that it's
non-commercial and moderated in nature. Beyond that, it's what you and other
readers make it. I'd mention that if your interest is more to the usually
non-jewelry sorts of metal working, including those Gingery machine tools and
the like, you might wish to check out rec.crafts.metalworking. More along the
usual lines for that group, though of course you're welcome here too, if you
like.



One pound would fill up less than one-tenth of the one-quart pot which
the Gingery foundry specifies. I am not a jeweler. I use many of the
same tools that a jeweler uses, though.

See, this is why I'd think you'd want to buy the metal. If you're actually
melting ten pounds of metal at a time, pennies are a pretty costly way to get
it...

I agree. But I plan on sticking with zinc for awhile. I will leave
the gold and silver to you rich folks! ;-)

I wish. Just because I have to buy precious metals to practice my trade
doesn't mean I'm left with loads of cash at the end. Just doesn't work that
way, unfortunately. Especially not with today's metals prices.

But seriously. Try pewter. You might like it. Nicer to work with than zinc.
Cleaner to cast, similar costs.

And at this point, I'm thinking we've beaten this penny horse to death. Unless
we want to talk about bronzing the sucker... (grin) that would take a big
plating tank. Maybe the bathtub could be modified...

Peter