Anyone have a good use for used investment? I have several buckets
of wet investment saved up from lost wax casting. Is it useful in
gardening or anything that anyone can think of? How do most people
dispose of their old investment? Can I plaster walls with it? 
Scott
Is it useful in gardening or anything that anyone can think of? How do most people dispose of their old investment? Can I plaster walls with it? :)
No, it won’t work on your walls. After it has been fired it won’t
harden again. Don’t save it up. The more you have, the harder it is to
get rid of. I try to dry mine out by lining a big plastic colander
with several layers of newspaper and dumping it in there for a week
or so and then just put it out with the regular trash. My garbage
hauler hates it when I save it up for two reasons. It is heavy and
there are special rules for disposal of slurry.
Anyone have a good use for used investment? I have several buckets of wet investment saved up from lost wax casting. Is it useful in gardening or anything that anyone can think of? How do most people dispose of their old investment? Can I plaster walls with it? :)
Even virgin investment is kinda soft for wall plastering, used would
be worse. Dry it out and land fill it, no sense in paying to bury
water. or use it as clean fill in the back yard where it can be
covered with real dirt.
Nasty neighbour cross the street ?? It doesn’t sound like you have
enough yet for the passenger compartment but a car trunks requires
less. If you are lucky it will set up before he even notices that the
back end of his car weighs a few hundred pounds more than stock 
I’m not advocating any illegal or nasty acts, but even the nicest
people some times have bad day dreams
jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand
it can be a useful soil conditioner in the garden.
Google: gypsum soil conditioner
jesse
Before we moved out here I used to dry it out and put it in the
trash. Now I dump mine in the compost pile. Don’t know if it does
any good, but I’m rid of it. I like Jeff’s idea with the neighbors
car, probably not very legal however. But a nice thought! : ))
Hans Allwicher
http://www.hansallwicher.com
Investment is mostly gypsum and silica. I expect you could bury some
in the garden where you have a problem with clay. However I usually
tip off all the water from my quenching bucket and dry the used
investment in the sun until it is a damp paste. I then scoop it into
a plastic bag and dispose of it with the household rubbish. In this
state it is quite innocuous. Under no circumstances tip significant
quantities down the drain.
All the best
Jenny
Now I dump mine in the compost pile. Don't know if it does any good, but I'm rid of it.
There’s a couple of things a bout putting used investment in the
garden. First off, if we were all good citizens we’d recycle it - it
can be baked
and used again as investment. That’s just FYI because it would be a
big deal to do that, and far from cost effective. But it’s a fact
that it’s possible. As for the garden, plaster is pretty much
sterile - it has no bacteria good or bad, and it has essentially no
nutrients that plants like.
I could be wrong in some way, but it, not potting soil or fertilizer,
that’s for sure. It might fluff up your soil or alter the texture,
yes, but too much of it is going to starve your roses…
There's a couple of things a bout putting used investment in the garden.
And for me, there’s another consideration I can’t quite get out of my
mind. Used investment, like new investment, still containes
respirable crystaline silica as a major componant. When it’s wet, or
all set up, that’s pretty much contained. But once you add it to
soil, if it dries out, then it’s again a dust that can be kicked up
into the air and breathed in. This isn’t house dust, folks. I’m not
sure I’d want to be putting it in my garden, even if that is outside
and thus ventilated. Were I out there with the tiller, or just
pulling weeds, in hotter drier weather, I’m not convinced that
investment in the compost wouldn’t then be a hazard… Now, tiny
dilute amounts likely are not a problem. No doubt such stuff is
already in normal dust. But using this as an additive, intentionally,
to soil or compost, could give you much higher concentrations of
crystaline silica in your soil or environment that would normally be
there, I would think…
Peter Rowe
…and John Donovan sayeth:
it can be baked and used again as investment.
This is true, and in the days when I ran the QC department at Kerr
refractories division, we always dried and re-used Satin-cast – but
we didn’t reuse it for jewelry casting, because the cast surface was
never as good the second time around. It was fine, however, for
industrial casting. Blessed be…
I’ve often wondered, as I pitched out a bucket of used investment,
if anyone has found a way to refine it cost effectively?
Mark
Been following this problem about used investment, and the only
thing I want to add is that it should never be spread around your
garden. It does nothing to improve your soil, and certainly is not
helpful to your plants.
As an avid gardener I am very particular as to what goes into my
garden.
I compost all vegetable matter, save fallen leaves and compost them,
use various mulches but never never would spread used investment
around. I contacted my garbage disposal company, and they said to
just dump it into a heavy plastic garbage bag and put it out with the
rest of the garbage.
Alma
If interested, you can check out the URL below about the contents of
“standard” investment mixes… The ONLY problem (but it is a problem
to me) is the crystobolite that is formed “during/after” the burnout.
It is not in the investment to any amount until you burn it out in
the kiln. Otherwise i would be great for the garden. So, I o
do no use it in the garden, or flower beds, but if/ when I live(ed)
on large acreage’s, I did scatter it over very wide areas to keep the
“concentrations of the crystobolite” down… Crystobolite is what
makes the burned investment less that something I would want in my
living area…
John Dach
A little bit of careful reading is called for here. The cited
article states that investment is composed of a binder, a refractory,
and modifiers, and that the refractory is composed of quartz and
cristobalite. This is correct, and the cristobalite, as an integral
component of the investment, is there from the beginning. I hope
this clarifies matters somewhat. I certainly do agree that residue
would not be the best “investment” for gardensoils.
Blessed be…