Dutch Oven in Bronze!!!

[GoatBoy666]

Guys and gals,

I am in the lucky position, (due to workplace), of being able to have use of metal casting facilities.

Hadnt really considered its uses till a conversation with a co-worker sparked an idea.

Im thinking of making a smallish dutch oven from bronze.

So my questions are;

A) is bronze any good for oven? Or am I wasting my time.

B) does any one have specs of an oven, e.g wall thickness, lid thickness etc etc

I need to make it in wax first to scale. Havnt ever owned one so a few dims and some pointers on design would be gratfully recieved...

Thanks Goat

 

[Chips]

Lost wax casting then?

Brass will be expensive, but should work. Good heat conductivity.

 

[durulz]

Won't bronze be a little too soft?
I wouldn't have thought it'd melt (there's no way it would get hot enough) but it would get plenty hot enough to soften the bronze substantially

 

[GoatBoy666]

Exactly Chips, lost wax casting. I work at a Uni in the fine art and design dept so bronze cost is minimal.
Also had same thoughts on bronzes resistance to high temps.

Hence I started the post for some good advice...

Thanks Goat

 

[Wayland]

Medieval pots were often made of bronze.

If your cooking fire is hot enough to melt bronze why am I bothering with this lot just to melt enough to make a bracelet?

 

[hedgepig]

Well presumably they use such stuff in the bronze age

 

[Mike Ameling]

No problems using bronze. Some people might worry a bit about some of the copper leaching out if you cooked some acidic foods in it - just like a copper pot. But if you keep it very clean (no green crud showing), cook the food, and then don't store that cooked food in the pot, then you should be OK. That green crud (verdigres) is what gives you problems.

Here's a pic of an original medieval bronze pot, but with a long handle cast as part of it. They called it a "frypan". I have a bronze pot like it without that long handle (just the iron rod bale) that I sometimes use. But I am looking to find one of these. So if you get to casting some of these, let me know!

As to casting up your own "dutch oven". And interesting project, but not that practical given the availability of the cast iron ones and their cost. And with the cast iron you would not have the worries about copper leaching from the bronze. So your casting ability would be better spent casting up something more ... unique ... than a dutch oven. Although, that bronze dutch oven would work/function pretty much just like the cast iron versions.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands