Homemade castable refractory

[jdlange]

Howdy guys,

I am trying an experiment this weekend and am wondering if anyone else has tried something similar. I am attempting to make a homebrew castable refractory, my mixture is thus: kitty litter (soaked for 3 days in warm water in a styrofoam cooler to reduce it to a clay consistency), wood ash and refractory cement that I had lying around in a bucket left over from something else. I tested the mixture using a MAPP torch (baked it under high heat until yellow hot) and it seemed to hold up very well, it turned as hard as rock and stayed hot for a long time afterward but only heated the front of the part where I hit it with the torch (this leads me to believe that it will reflect heat pretty well). I just finished pouring a mold using this mixture and will wait to see how it turns out, my only big concern is cracking as the water evaporates. Anyone else ever try anything like this before? Results? Different mixture?