The video demonstrates building a backyard metal furnace using kaowool insulation and a propane torch. The process involves assembling the torch, connecting it to a propane tank, pressure testing for leaks, lining a metal bucket with kaowool, cutting and fitting kaowool pieces, drilling holes for exhaust and torch entry, and tempering a crucible. The furnace successfully melts copper and aluminum quickly. The speaker emphasizes safety precautions and provides tips for optimizing the furnace’s performance.
This is my backyard metal furnace it took me about 30 minutes to make and I'm gonna teach you how to build it There's lots of videos out there on how to make backyard metal foundries But they all suck most of them are missing an important or crucial step on how to make the backyard metal foundries One of the better ones is by the king of random But he has this torch in it which he doesn't explain how to buy or how to make so this is the complete Cheapest guide on how to make a backyard metal foundry now our foundry is fueled by propane But just putting a propane torch on a piece of metal won't be able to melt it So we need to make something that will raise the temperature high enough to be able to melt metal This is going to be our foundry for insulator I'm going to be using kaowool this stuff looks and feels a little flimsy when it comes to insulating There's nothing that can beat it this stuff is such a good insulator I can literally be holding it with a flame on one side and not even feel the heat on the other a huge warning to When you're cutting it or handling it at all you need to wear gloves This isn't a this might cause cancer in the state of California. This is a this will cause cancer So here's essentially the idea we're gonna take this metal bucket and line it with kaowool drill a couple of holes so our propane torches Can fit inside of it, and then we're going to be lining the top with our kaowool as well bef…
This is my backyard metal furnace it took me about 30 minutes to make and I'm gonna teach you how to build it There's lots of videos out there on how to make backyard metal foundries But they all suck most of them are missing an important or crucial step on how to make the backyard metal foundries One of the better ones is by the king of random But he has this torch in it which he doesn't explain how to buy or how to make so this is the complete Cheapest guide on how to make a backyard metal foundry now our foundry is fueled by propane But just putting a propane torch on a piece of metal won't be able to melt it So we need to make something that will raise the temperature high enough to be able to melt metal This is going to be our foundry for insulator I'm going to be using kaowool this stuff looks and feels a little flimsy when it comes to insulating There's nothing that can beat it this stuff is such a good insulator I can literally be holding it with a flame on one side and not even feel the heat on the other a huge warning to When you're cutting it or handling it at all you need to wear gloves This isn't a this might cause cancer in the state of California. This is a this will cause cancer So here's essentially the idea we're gonna take this metal bucket and line it with kaowool drill a couple of holes so our propane torches Can fit inside of it, and then we're going to be lining the top with our kaowool as well before we do any of this We're going to need to acquire our torch, which is the hardest part I spent hours searching for one and luckily I've linked it in the description for you So where you can afford one for extremely cheap if you'd like to build your torch yourself You can totally do that the only problem with that is building it is much more expensive than buying one the only tutorial online is From the king of random and the total build cost is about $80 Now that our torch is assembled We need a way to connect it to a propane tank for this just buy a propane grill hose when you buy it You'll need to slightly modify it It'll come with an attachment on the end that you're going to need to cut off when you buy the propane torch It'll come with this crimp that you're going to need to slide onto the hose now comes the tricky part Which is sliding this pipe onto our brass fitting this can take a lot of muscle to do now that you've put it On take your crimp and tighten it with a screwdriver now that I have everything attached It's time to screw it on and pressure test it to make sure that there's no leaks pressure test it We're just going to be using soapy water in a spray bottle now You're going to turn on your propane and spray any connection point If you see any bubbles forming in any of the spots where it could leak then you do have a leak and you need to Redo your seals it looks like we're good to go though before we put it inside of our foundry Let's go ahead and give it a test Well you can definitely hear I don't know how well you can see it Now that we got our torch working let's go ahead and get back to the foundry now I was going to link this can in the description, but it didn't arrive with the lid So I'm not going to promote something that didn't perform or did what it said it would have done now unfortunately like I said my bucket Didn't arrive with the lid I already measured it out, and it's 13 inches So let's go to Walmart and see if we can find something that's the same length we finally got our bucket with the lid It's actually half the price at Walmart than it is on Amazon So now it's time for us to cut our pieces of kaowool to match the inside of our foundries As you can see I have actually cut out this slightly larger than the area of the pan This is done intentionally because the thinking is I'm going to be able to put it inside Now when it's upside down this thing isn't just going to fall out as you can see it holds itself up when I flip it Upside down this is what we need to do because no adhesive could withstand the temperatures of the furnace So when I was touching this stuff earlier, it didn't hurt me or harm me at all But now that I'm sweating and I'm touching it and getting on my face. It is really irritating So I would recommend wearing gloves Let's go ahead and use the rest of these scraps to make the inside of our furnace unlike our last one There's no need to make this one larger, so cut it on the inside of the circle I realized I was running out of kaowool So just in case I wouldn't have enough to fill out the bottom I'm gonna use the scraps for the bottom and use my hole pieces for the top. All right now It's time to just cut off our ends And just like that our furnace is done now We need to drill some holes that we can have it exhaust and an entrance for our torch Although I do have a drill some of you guys may not an alternative method is to stutter really hard with a knife to make A little circle, but I don't recommend this because you could get hurt This process is very hard, but I'm making some progress not as nice as a drill, but we finally got it done now Let's go ahead and put one in the side of our bucket You're also gonna want to make sure you cut out that little bit of insulation as well As you can see the nozzle doesn't fit and I did this intentionally in order for it to have the best insulation We're going to unscrew the nozzle and screw back on on the other side that way There's less of a gap and it seals itself off more naturally a quick tip for the best heating When you put it inside of the furnace, you're going to want to make sure it's angled just like this I would recommend propping up the porch on a rock So it's level and also if you come inside the furnace here if you put it in an angle the flame will swirl The nice thing about this hole on top is it conveniently gives you an access port to be able to see your metal as it's Now it's important you have the proper equipment I found this set on Amazon for just under 100 bucks that came with gloves tons and some crucibles But I'm also not going to recommend them because one of their tons came with the missing screw it is what it is I just don't want to promote any products aren't the best now as much as I want to go melt some metal I'm gonna have to temper this first because if I was just throw this in here with some metal this crucible would crack Let me show you how to temper it Now this is completely optional you can grab a fire brick and cut it in half Now you can put your crucible on top to stabilize it a little bit better Like I said, you don't have to do this step Yeah, I hope your ears enjoyed that that was one of the most painful things I've ever done, but I finally cut it Wow, it is still hot in here like 15 minutes after I've turned it off. That's impressive. Okay back to tempering our crucible Now in order to temper your crucible you're gonna put it in and slowly turn up the heat until it's glowing red-hot Take it out and slowly. Let it cool off. You know, it's crazy I can still touch the side of this can and it's been like 10 minutes copper burns an insanely hot temperature of over 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit That's actually a random number. I have no idea Check up on how it's doing Quick check up on how it's doing Red hot right now. Okay, so it's been about six minutes and our copper is already red hot It's a pretty good sign that our furnace is able to melt copper Let's go ahead and melt some aluminum to see how long it takes. Wow. It's already melting. That's crazy fast. It's been about 45 seconds So our backyard metal foundry works great it burns things extremely fast But it can be hard to find metal sometimes now typically the cheapest metal would be tin But that's mainly used commercially. So instead we're gonna have to use something like aluminum I just got back from Walmart and I found this heavy-duty aluminum foil roll. It cost me about $10 So it's not the best deal But it's what we got the tricky part is going to be getting this cardboard out from the inside But because I know a little bit of chemistry, it shouldn't be too hard And I have a hole currently burning through my shirt perfect now our cardboard center is removed now I'm just gonna cut it up into pieces. You guys don't have a sawzall. That's fine. Just use a knife Look how much metal there is thing. Let's fire up the furnace and toss this thing in Before you pour metal you want to make sure you heat up your crucible Before you pour metal you want to make sure you heat up your crucible Here's our first bar, let's go ahead and let it cool off Okay, here we have a mini muffin tray let's go ahead and make some pellets Okay, here we have a mini muffin tray let's go ahead and make some pellets Still very hot I Heard this was only half of the aluminum roll and we retrieved quite a lot of it We're gonna save this for a future project So we made our furnace and we've tested it out What we've learned is it can melt pretty much anything up to copper it struggles with copper, but it can do it It'll just take a little while part about your furnace is it all neatly stores away inside of your bucket ready to be used for The next time as a finishing touch save that piece of cable from earlier to seal off any dangerous fumes You