Dark art

 

I wanted to melt clean copper offcuts from the making of peace doves; but the computer or electrical switch in the furnace cannot handle sustained temperatures over 1100 degrees. In melting pewter I have noticed that copper and brass will melt at a lower temperature when added to the molten pewter.

I had set the furnace at 1025 degrees and still the copper had not melted so I added a couple of imperfect peace buttons I wanted to remelted - presto the copper almost immediately melted. But as you can see from the opening photos  and the photos below, the metal is coated with black when poured into a mould and cooled.

However the black is only a sooty coating that polished off with a wire brush revealing a brasslike metal rather than copper looking as you can see below

I have repeated this experiment and found that the melt will take place below 1000 degrees so that is good news - it just means I will be making a metal amalgam - bit of fun experimenting.