Hi,
i have been using Matts Casting Flux to prepare my crucibles…i am curious to know what you all use? Is there a better alternative for fluxing crucibles?
julie
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I just use borax shaken out of an old restaurant salt shaker…Rob
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Matt’s flux is what I’ve used for quite a while, but I used borax for many years when I first got started.
In between my borax phase and my Matt’s casting flux phase, I used a black casting flux by Swest (they went out of business a while ago).
They all seem to work equally well for casting and preparing crucibles as far as I can see.
This isn’t what you asked, but my big leap forward in preparing new crucibles is to put them in my kiln and preheat them to 1000 F. Then spread the flux around with my torch. That makes the whole process go way easier. It took me many years to figure that one out!
Cheers!!
Jeff
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what kind of borax do you all use?.. cheap 20 mule team laundry borax? or a dehydrated preparation?
laundry borax bubbles up when heated and makes a mess…Also had problems with sticky build up.
Any suggestions?
Borax out of a box that I bought years ago…Rob
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house hold laundry borax like 20 mule team or prepared dehydrated borax?
I use pure powdered borax that came with one of my casting molds. Try using less borax. Just sprinkle some on, then torch, then a little more till you have a nice coating. I think I had bubbles when I first started and it was from too much borax to start.
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dehydrated borax from supply stores costs more… laundry borax is pretty cheap… not dehydrate, bubbles up before it glazes… may be just using small amounts in increments would not make a mess. thanks,
laundry borax is decahydrate… both penta and deca have a lot of water… bubbles up with heating before becoming glassy… Borax “dihydrate” has the formula Na 2B 4O 7·2H2O, which is actually anhydrous, with the correct formula Na 2B 4O 5(OH) 4 . It can be obtained by heating the “decahydrate” or “pentahydrate” to above 116-120 °C. Anhydrous borax is sodium tetraborate proper, with formula Na 2B 4OH. This is the stuff that is ground up to make dehydrated borax flux…water is driven off by heating at a less than 200C… I guess that one can make up a batch by heating it at 450F in a pan in the oven, cooling it, then breaking the borax glass off and putting it into a pepper mill… never tried it… could be worth doing for a home experiment.