Pewter Casting: Third Time's a Failure
(I have notes for the 2nd time we cast pewter but haven't posted them.) This time what we wanted to do is to burn out the wax and melt the pewter at the same time, with everything all together in the kiln. Like that, the molds would be clean and at more or less the same temperature as the molten metal. It might result in a better casting, and would be more efficient energy- and time-wise, too. But of course it wasn't. First, we loaded up the kiln with our molds and the pewter in a crucible as well. But we needed something to catch the wax from the molds. So we used this aluminum food tray, figuring that since the temperature would be very low, it would be all right. It wasn't. Hole in tray My dad joined us that day so we put him to work fashioning a new tray out of sheet metal. That worked. With our pieces on little stilts, the wax dripped out fine, as you can see. But somehow the pewter in the crucible didn't melt. There it is below the tray...