Hi everyone,
I am very keen on buying a Kaya cast machine but I have a problem… I work in the basement (one window looking onto the street) of a shop and I am concerned the smell of the burnout will be an issue. Additionally, another jeweller I know who does their own casting warned me that it could be dangerous to have it in a basement as it’s a fire hazard. Does anyone have any advice or tips on what to do? Getting a machine would be hugely helpful and cost effective for me but obviously not at the cost of safety or making my surroundings smell!
Your question is a complicated one with a lot of variables. The question that I ask myself is what would happen in a worst case scenario, like if the house burned down because of an unforeseeable molten metal accident. Would home insurance cover it? Also is a state, county or town permit required. I have one friend who reached out to her insurance company and city for permission to build a home jewelry studio in her attic. It took about a year for her to jump through all of the hoops that they required.
I’ve been super lucky in that all of the places that I’ve lived in for the past 30 plus years have had a shed not connected to my house to turn into a small jewelry studio. I’ve always told my insurance company about what I do. They haven’t cared as long as it wasn’t inside the house, but they were very concerned if I wanted a jewelry studio in the house.
Lots of folks in the forum have studios in their homes. Let’s see what advice others have to give.
Jeff
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You don’t tell us how you will melt the metal that you are casting. If you use an electric melting furnace or induction furnace, you won’t have an open flame. If you use a casting torch and the usual gas cylinders that go with them you will have a possible fire hazard that you need to plan around. As Jeff suggested, this should include contacting your home or apartment owners insurance agent. Handling whatever fumes and dust that come from this operation will require a hood and ventilation system. Since you have a window, that can be the destination for the ducting or you can cut a hole in the wall. I work in my basement too and have reduced my open flames down to a 1 lb. camp stove propane cyclinder and a portable butane torch. I have a 900 cfm blower and two small blowers that ventilate different parts of my shop through holes in the cellar wall. Take your time planning this out and don’t skimp on the safety requirements. Good luck…Rob
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We have a basement studio. The walls and the floor are all cement. We do vacuum casting with natural gas and oxygen bottles. Our vacuum casting machine was home made. Our casting spot is next to the flask burn out oven. Both are on a thick metal topped table and just below a window. We have a pretty strong fan in the window. The burn out fumes are toxic. Thus the fan. It was from our old furnace and works great. For safety reasons we do not program our burn outs over night. We start the cycle in the early morning. We are both pretty DYI kind of people. In certain jewelry circles my husband Timothy Greens’s nick name is Macgyver.
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Hi Rob, thanks for your reply. I have an electric furnace. With a ventilator, how long does the burnout smell last?
Jo…Is you NG at street pressure or boosted. I have a NG tap right next to my bench, but I can’t do much with it at street pressure. I have looked at G-Tec boosters, but have yet to justify the expense. Thanks…Rob
Ours has pretty good pressure.
The reason we don’t do the overnight burnout anymore is that one year just before Xmas we programed our kiln for an overnight burn out. When Tm got downstairs early that morning to see that the kiln was glowing red hot. The program technology failed. We repaired the kiln damage and replaced program. But now we always do a burn out during the day.
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molten metal ,inverstment, wax fumes are all bad to breath