Casting SULFUR like metal - What Happens?

[00:00:00]Welcome back to the shop today. We’re gonna find out if it’s possible to melt and  cast sulfur like we do with metal.

[00:00:06]In a recent video. We tried this with salt and we came up with some really interesting  results It’s a cool looking casting.

[00:00:12]So I’m hoping we can do something similar  with sulfur. And it should be pretty cool because sulfur is really bizarre and it  even has two different melting points.

[00:00:20]Mm Sulfur I bought a few different forms of  sulfur here this is 10 pounds of powder. I’m not sure we’re gonna use  that much. I guess we’ll find out.

[00:00:32]Yeah, that looks like a lot Yeah, that smells like farts And this should be like chunks of sulfur Oh, that’s weird looking. Almost  looks kind of gross like flesh.

[00:00:45]Something really interesting about  sulfur that you can set it on fire.

[00:00:49]Which is worth the expression  fire and brimstone comes from.

[00:00:52]Brimstone being just an archaic name for sulfur But it does produce a lot of sulfur  dioxide gas so if you do this, you’re gonna wanna wear a respirator Hey, where’s my respirator?

[00:01:01]You’ll probably be all right You just said it produces sulfur  dioxide. I don’t wanna breathe that.

[00:01:07]All right, I’ll guess I’ll hold my breath  and talk at the same time thanks a lot Sulphur is a super useful element we  use it all the time in our daily lives From the rubber in our car tires to even  pharmaceuticals it really is everywhere But there’s one use that’s hundreds of years  old and I’d be willing to bet not a lot of you have ever heard of and it’s something  we’re gonna be doing in today’s video But first, I’m gonna get some air thanks  a lot man have fun with your little fire All right, let’s see if we can actually cast something so my last video  where we tried to cast salt We made a few of these skulls, which  I think turned out really cool looking We also made a megalodon tooth  a statue and even assault dagger Unfortunately, the dagger  broke apart, but I’m gonna try again using the sulfur something about  a sulfur dagger. Sounds really cool to me.

[00:01:58]I’ll also try casting some skulls and if these turn out all right then maybe we  can make a megalodon tooth also Melting sulfur supposed to be really interesting  because it has two different liquid phases The first is kind of amber  colored and really watery But if you increase the temperature,  it becomes dark, red and really viscous And the temperature difference between those two phased is not very much at  all. I think it’s like 15°F.

[00:02:50]So I’m gonna do my best to try to keep this  in that first more watery phase that way, I’ll actually be able to pour these molds Because if it becomes too viscous, there’s  no way that this is gonna flow into the molds Mmm Sulfur This reminds me of melting butter.  I feel like I’m baking right now.

[00:03:21]Also, the way I’m holding this is kind of sketchy When I first started, the band was a lot tighter Now that it’s warmed up, it’s expanded slightly and it’s not holding onto the  beaker as well as I would like This is taking a really long time. I’m gonna  try to pull this out and then add some powder.

[00:04:16]I just got done pouring all these things  and look how beautiful these crystals are.

[00:04:21]After I poured the molds, there were still  quite a bit of sulfur left in the beaker So I just set it on the table and in a few  minutes I realize that it was forming these crystals so I poured off the remaining  liquid and look what we ended up with These crystals look absolutely incredible We also got some really nice looking crystals that formed on these and what’s interesting  is that the surface is really sticky and it’s starting to develop these lighter  spots that are spreading like a disease All right, let’s open these  things up and see how they look Yeah, it definitely stuck to the sand This is really stuck on there I was just about to give up until I tried  this thing and it’s taking the sand right off Well, I’m really happy with how this turned out I thought it was rude because  I couldn’t get the sand off, but I actually was eventually  able to get it all off of there And it looks pretty good What’s really fascinating?  Are all these little dots here They’re spreading almost like a disease And what that is, I believe is  the sulfur molecules rearranging, and forming a more stable form of sulfur The thing was only casted about an hour  ago, so this is happening really fast And I guess at no time at all,  we won’t even be able to tell Yeah, and if you’re wondering, my  shop does smell absolutely horrible It smells like someone’s been laying gigantic,  horrible stinky farts in here all day.

[00:05:35]And I know what that smell smells like So let’s open up the mold and  see what that thing looks like Well, I just spent about an hour  trying to clean all of the sand off of this thing that seems  to have reacted to the sulfur It’s formed a really hard cross on the  surface. That’s like impossible to get off.

[00:05:59]And I only use the sand because this is what I normally use to cast metal with so  it seemed like a good place to start But I’m gonna try something else now I’m gonna make some molds out of  silicone rubber. I don’t see any reasons why this shouldn’t work because  silicone has a really high heat tolerance All right, we got our silicone mold cast  and ready to go. Let’s see what happens.

[00:06:45]When I also made some open molds All right, I’ll see what this thing looks like Not too bad Nice I like how the crystals formed  right on top. Let me show you.

[00:07:40]There are some bubbles on the surface  and if you look inside the bubbles, you could see where the crystals  have formed that’s pretty cool Right in there, you got a bunch  of crystals right in here too I don’t see a ton of cracks  unfortunately the tip is broken off, but It’s just a tip Yes, got it. Look at that. It looks good.

[00:08:02]All right, let’s see what the score looks  like it’s coming out of the world very easily Look at that that looks great And now the trailer bite. That worked really well.

[00:08:25]All right, so silicone molds are the way to go  if you ever cast sulfur do it in a silicone mold Probably no one else on the  planet wants to do this but me You can really see what I  mean about those white spots This is the one that I cast in sand and  this is the one I just cast in the silicone Pretty soon this one look just like that one I wonder if I can glue the tip  back on with some superglue I guess it worked Well, I think we answered the question you can definitely cast sulfur with  varying degrees of success Now I have no idea what the applications for this  might be. I really don’t think there are any. If you know, let me know in the comments. But I think  the only one would be just making a silly video.

[00:09:12]Also, this stuff smells just rotten For whatever reason, the sulfur  that has been melted and solidified Smell smells quite a bit worse than  just the raw sulfur that I bought It has a rotten smell to it and  actually flies or attracted to it At the start of the video I mentioned I use  for silver that’s hundreds of years old and one that you’ve probably never heard  of and we’re gonna do that right now So what I have here is a piece of  walnut that I carved my logo into And if you don’t already know,  these are my initials S and R.

[00:09:40]So what we’re gonna do is we’re  gonna pour liquid sulfur in here and then shave it off and then  we’ll be left with a nice inlay All right, I just poured this in here and there’s bubbles forming so I’m trying  to pop them with this little.

[00:10:04]Oh, I set it on fire Right now, I’m gonna try to shave off  the excess before it gets too hard There we go, a sulfur inlay It actually doesn’t look too bad.

[00:10:28]This is my very first time doing  this, so I think with some practice you could probably figure out  how to get rid of these bubbles But overall, it doesn’t look that bad It looks kind of white on  camera, but it’s actually yellow It’s just hard to tell on camera I can definitely see why this technique has  been around because it works really well For the amount of effort, this is a  pretty good looking inlay I think.

[00:10:50]All right well I think this about wraps us up I have to say I’m pretty happy  to be done with casting sulfur This stuff is not fun to cast with  and it smell smells like death Unfortunately, this one also broken into pieces I don’t know how that happened. I just set it down in a couple days later it  look like this, so who knows?

[00:11:06]Well, thanks for watching and thank  you to all of my Patreon supporters that help keep this channel alive.  I really do appreciate the support.

[00:11:13]I’ll see you in the next one