Making an Aluminum Foundry

More about our trip to Louisiana:

Saturday and Sunday were our last two days there before we headed back home. We were able to help David out with a home improvement project. He has finished most of this backyard project but we helped him with gluing on the capstones. It needed to be dry so we were racing some very ominous rain clouds. And David kept having to go back to the store to get more glue. But it all came together and we finished. During this project, we also enjoyed walking around the neighborhood since the weather was reasonably warm and briefly sunny.

We used the blow dryer to dry off spots that had gotten wet.

That night, David and Scott, Talmage and Susanna finished making the aluminum foundry. What is an aluminum foundry, you ask? It's a place where you melt aluminum and then pour it into molds.

OK. Scott writing here. A few years ago, Talmage ran across a youtube video posted by the "king of random" showing how to make a metal foundry. (The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSoWxG30rb0 .) We did it just to see what it was like. I'll spare you the gory details. But it was pretty amazing.

We used lump charcoal because someone suggested it could reach a higher temperature than charcoal briquettes. I don't know if that's important or not, but it made a LOT of sparks at first.The temperature was so high that flames were shooting out of the vent holes in the top of the foundry. We made a hole in the side and used a metal pipe with a blow dryer on the other end to blow more air into the fire.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, the aluminum was hot enough that it melted. Then the challenge came of pouring the melted aluminum into the molds without anyone getting hurt.

We tried to make a few simple sand-cast molds, but the results were less amazing than we hoped.

We got to go to their church on Sunday morning and then enjoyed the afternoon at their house. Sunday night was our last evening there. We were sad to go but we were sure to take lots of pictures.

It was sad to say goodbye but I'm really glad we got to go. We took off the next morning bright and early. Talmage woke up sick that morning and spent the rest of the trip feeling nauseous. We stayed in Tucumcari again and then got home Tuesday evening, just in time to go back to school Wednesday morning.

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