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[forsaken1111]

I also fail to see this working as intended, though it's inspired me to attempt the same with iron.  There was a crafts festival in town, and they had a furnace out and you could pay to make a "tile" or bowl by using a packed sand mold.  They would pour the iron, let it cool, and then throw the mold down to break the sand/clay and let the iron finish cooling.

I figured I could do similar using a propane torch and some tin, lead, or maybe iron, and maybe try to make some type of amulet to affix to my chainmail, or perhaps even plates/scales to make some "rough armor" appearing things.  Not entirely sure how to do it, but buried and packed styrofoam may not be the worst idea.  The issue is, you're going to have it rough, whatever you're using, because the dirt/sand isn't going to be smooth, and it'll have a pebbly surface at best.

A propane torch, I don't think would get hot enough. And it did work, it completely filled in the space, but I didn't heat the lead enough.

Be very careful working with lead at higher temperatures, and do it in a well ventilated area. The fumes can be toxic and lead poisoning is accumulative, so will build up over time without you noticing.

[Karakzon]

when casting a mould, you should use wood for the smoother works. Sure, itll burn if you leave it in the air, but thats why you stick it in tight compact earth -just after its rained is a good idea- with just the pouring hole and the top of the wood sticking out/level with the ground. You can easly stick a few bricks or a iron plate over the top -make sure you dont over fill it- to cut out the oxygen supply. The downisde is you need to wood work and dig a hole, the upside is this is one of the easyest ways to forge simple metal tools using natural only materials for a decent amount of quality and little after work.

other than that clay or sand should do the job. ide suggest going with clay if you have a spot to dig it up or can buy some rougth stuff for cheep, since its easy to mold and wont catch fire, sand if your willing to muck about and arnt too botherd about quality. A combination of clay and wood -wooden mold, clay oxygen seal/coating- would be the most ideal without knowing what your doing professionaly.

The key thing is to make the mould out of something that wont burn fast or melt. wood wont burn to a degree that would ruin the mold without the oxygen that is displaced out by the molten metal, and will keep a rigid shape even in extream heat. you stick it in the ground to make sure the mould holds together by the pressure of the earth around it and to dissapait the heat. It is afterall, molten metal.

Good luck. If you want to do anything intricate youll need to learn how to build a small home made forge to heat it up untill its flexable enought to be bent round a hard surface - an anvil classicaly-

[MadocComadrin]

Also for molds, a clay-sand mix tends to work very well as well. I remember watching a series on youtube where some kid casts some iron pretty much completely from stuff around his house/country-side.

[kisame12794]

Check out my Tread for blacksmithing info and ideas. Link is in Sig

[Kilroy the Grand]

Be very careful working with lead at higher temperatures, and do it in a well ventilated area. The fumes can be toxic and lead poisoning is accumulative, so will build up over time without you noticing.

I actually have a gasmask with filters. Works pretty well.

[silverskull39]

I cast an aluminum hammer for one of my engineering classes once. It turned out pretty well, and we used "green sand" for the mold, which is essentially wet sand mixed with a few other things, so I don't think it would be too hard to make if you got your hands on a good recipe and supplier. It works pretty well, but you have to pack it in tightly or you have pockets or leaks, which result in puddle shapes of metal around where your mold was supposed toe end, if that makes sense. I guess that's probably true for most mold styles, but anyway the sand is reusable if you sweep it up and remoisten it, so you'd probably only have to make up a batch every so often.

[CatalystParadox]

I wouldn't be melting very large quantities, and it was just an idea.  I've currently done exactly zero fact-checking on my idea.  But I saw The Patriot and Mel Gibson was melting lead toy soldiers over a campfire.  That's all the motivation I need to set my lawn on fire!

Girlinhat cancels Smelt Lead - job item on fire.

[Minstrel]

I lately saw an exhibit at the museum about South American Native goldworking.

They used a technique to get intricate gold jewellry: they sculpted or worked the shape they wanted the jewelry to be in wax, then covered the wax in clay. Then they baked the clay. The clays hardened into a cast, while the wax melted away.

After that, they would melt the gold in tiny crucibles and pour it into the casts. When the gold cooled, they chipped the clay away and got very intricate and fine gold earrings, coils and whatnot.

I have no idea if it could work with harder metals.

[Dwarf_Fever]

Very nice stuff. Any plans on making some riveted maille as opposed to butted?

[kisame12794]

No. If I was going to make anything more than butted I would weld it.

[spudman2]

Galvanized steel isn't terrible either, but it tends to turn a little white over time and smells like wet dog, though galvy is cheaper than dirt so there's that.

Well, if you wash a galvy piece with dish soap and water, the weerd smell disappears, although I'm not sure about the whiteness.

Also, first ever post, and I've been lurking for a while.  I saw your previous thread, which inspired me to get into maille about a month ago.  Thank you.

[Girlinhat]

Very nice stuff. Any plans on making some riveted maille as opposed to butted?

Riveted mail requires heat and tiny hammers and rivet guns to take an overlapping ring, hammer the ends flat, and then fit a pin through them.  If I'm going through that much effort, I'd rather just get an arc welder!  Riveted was preferred in the dark ages as it gave strength to the rings and was easy to do.  They didn't have arc welders back then, or else I'm sure that would have been preferred, as welding gives more strength than riveting.

But, I've been thinking about soldering.  Does anyone know how soldering strength compares to other methods of closure?  It would depend on the soldering material, of course.  Copper solder on copper rings should be about the same as welding, but with steel it'd probably be weaker than riveting...

[Dwarf_Fever]

As far as I know, solder is by definition an alloy material chosen for lower melting points, thus the strength would be far lower. Lead is, or used to be, a common material used for the alloy.

[Eidolon]

You would braze it with bronze, rather than copper. Bronze is fairly sturdy stuff, but it melts at a far lower point than steel, so it wouldn't be too bad to use as filler, i think. Still not comparable to a good weld, but probably at least as good as a rivet.

Might wanna ask someone with more experience though, if you intend on getting stabbed at.

As far as I know, solder is by definition an alloy material chosen for lower melting points, thus the strength would be far lower. Lead is, or used to be, a common material used for the alloy.

We used to use bronze to braze with in Ag Mechanics... i'm not familiar with using lead, but yeah that would be weak as hell.

[forsaken1111]

'Copper' solder is actually an alloy of tin, copper and silver and has a very low melting point. It would adhere to the copper rings but they wouldn't join like you would get with a weld and the joint wouldn't be very sturdy.