The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
July 2007. Volume: 04. Number: 45.
Well here we are again, we are well into July and running late as usual, I apologize, I've been pretty busy on several fronts,
I hope you have been busy with your projects also. Besides being busy with projects, there have been some recent late nights since the Tour De France started a few days ago, yep, I like the sport of cycling, I used to road race many years ago, still ride the bike to keep fit, but aint as fast as I used to be. And there's plenty of late nights now that the F1 GP events are in full swing, but of course it's pretty easy to nod of to sleep in the recliner only to miss a spectacular crash...thank heavens for video replay!
The F1 GP cars display some awesome technology, you just wonder about the technology behind the metallurgy, how does
an F1 engine hang together for so long... (well most do anyway) screaming away at up to 18,000 - 19,000RPM....
(and you thought your car was going pretty hard at 6 to 7 thou RPM on the tacho.?)
It would be a great experience to have a tour through an engine manufacturing facility such as Cosworth or Ilmor in the UK, or Toyota (Japan), Ferrari, Renault, BMW in Europe etc. Imagine the perfect engine block castings, and the thousands of other items that would be required for this cutting edge, high tech motor sport.
Speaking of which; following is an extract from the world car fans web site.
"Although the crankcase and the two separate cylinder heads are only three out of some 5,000 individual parts that
make up an F1 power unit, no other single component in a car involves a more painstaking development process and
requires greater competence in process technology than the engine block.
Click here to read the whole story:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/news.cfm/newsID/2030728.001/country/gcf/bmw/bmw-formula-one-technology-cast-in-one-mold
Read more here also:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/News.cfm?NewsID=2030721.001/country/gcf
OK, enough of the grand prix F1 cars.
Thank you to all the Aussies who gave us such great feed back after the Echuca Steam Rally last month, the weekend
was a true success and it's great to see a few more blokes here in OZ taking up the metal casting challenge, I can see there
will be quite a few more mini hobby foundries churning out all manner of aluminium and bronze castings soon.
Welcome also to all of the new ezine subscribers, if you are new and reading this we hope you enjoy learning and
reading about hobby foundry, once you begin to do your own castings you will be hooked on the craft, especially when
you realize what can be achieved with some pretty basic but well built foundry gear... welcome aboard, and trust you will enjoy the journey.
Our own articles are limited this month but we have sourced some great reading for you, please visit the links further on in the ezine, there's some really interesting articles on all kinds of subjects that relate to foundry work.
Do you wonder about the following?
1: You want to cast metal but you are not sure where to start?
2: You want to build your own hobby foundry gear, but you are not sure how to go about it?
3: You wonder how long will it take to get eveything set up?
You could do what our customers from over 45 countries worldwide do.
Use our ebooks to learn about hobby metal casting. Many of them now have the knowledge to produce their own metal castings by employing the knowledge and equipment described in the home hobby foundry ebooks.
They come from all walks of life & they really enjoy the art of metal casting, if they can do it you can to.
Our ebooks provide a great learning experience and guidance. To secure your ebooks, visit the:
ebook library Page.
Hobby
Foundry Tips & Tricks
The
tools of the trade, from L to R; Hand ramming tool, hammer to rap the
mould box, bike spoke used as vent tool, flat steel mould screed, old
paint brush to sweep loose sand off mould, combination spanner as
pattern rapping tool, mould board and pattern. Left top: Graphite for release
powder, small funnel to create pouring cup in top of sprue, completed
mould, draw spikes, water spray container... that's about all you need.
Reproduction antique furniture
bronze door handles, originals were used as patterns, they were simply
pressed (tapped) into well prepared green sand, the reproduction
detail, if you can see it is quite amazing, the smallest details are
quite well defined.
RTV 525 is the material to use if you want to
recreate perfect reproductions from old parts, it is easy to prepare
and use, no special tools are required, just patience and some careful
work. The mould above was used to reproduce an MG oil filler cap for a
vintage 1949 MG TC engine.
ers and bronze tappets.
Bondo
reproduction patterns, these parts were made in an RTV mould from
ordinary automotive body filler material, which is sold worldwide under
several different names, this material, once cured, is quite strong,
the patterns will withstand normal moulding in green sand as well as
other moulding methods. The parts are exact repro's of the orginal
parts. You can learn much more about these and other methods in the
hobby foundry ebook package, your metal casting knowledge tool kit. The
patterns above are used in the production of vintage MG Aero screens,
blue primer surfacer paint has been applied to the patterns.
Matthew Morkin
Houston Texas.
I live in Houston Texas. My father is James P. Morkin. He has been a master pattern maker for almost 35 years, and I have been working in our family business for thirteen years. I am 26 years old, and recently married to a lovely lady name Desiree just three months ago. I have been in the foundry business for half my life minus the two years I spent in university studying Biblical Greek.
We had a massive hurricane called Katrina, which displaced me from New Orleans back to Houston and thus back to the Pattern Shop. In the year of 1993 my father left the largest pattern shop in Houston Texas and opened the doors of his own business called Economy Patterns working out of the family garage. We started the pattern making business with a shop smith band saw, a 24" disk sander and a spindle sander (which is about all you need to have a very good hobby pattern shop).
When I started there my first job was running leather fillets, sanding, painting and the cleaning of patterns, I split my time after that playing football (the American kind) lifting weights and working in the shop. In 1994 we moved to a larger location and my father quit his job as a scale model maker and devoted his full attention to the family business “Economy Patterns”.
We mainly built patterns for oilfield equipment and valves. Our main customer is a local steel foundry. We make valves that are so big you can lay down in its core box and some no larger than your hand.
Sometimes we get some neat fun stuff like aftermarket motorcycle and car parts. I can remember one day we had a 800bhp Harley Davidson top fuel dragster in the shop that we were redesiging the air intake tube, and then on my bench I had an actual 11bhp 1903 Harley Cylinder. My father made a new pattern and I was doing some fine sanding around the fins. We actually re-issued a working full-scale model of the 1903 Harley Davidson for the centenary in 2003 using the loss-wax moulding/casting system. We built every thing from the rear struts to the cylider to the engine cases. But the coolest stuff we actually worked on is unfortunately classified; I am not in the position to tell because it was for the U.S. Government.
In most of the pattern shops in the states there is a grading system, or scale for the type of work that you do. You generally begin as a pattern makers helper, as a helper you do basic tasks like cleaning, sanding, and demounting old pattern jobs out of flasks and mounting boards, learning how to do finish work, and working with bondo.
Basically the helper is there to do the basic pattern work, so that the skilled people who build patterns can just build and make patterns. When I was just sixteen years old I became a pattern finish-man. A finish-man must be able to take an unfinished pattern from the pattern maker and.well...finish it.
This includes running fillets, running bondo radius, primer finish the patterns and painting leafing aluminium lacquer. You also begin to work hand in hand with the pattern maker at almost all levels of pattern making. Basically you are actually doing auto body quality finishing work on wooden patterns, a good finish on a pattern equals a good finish on the casting. Most if not all who start in the business work out or as a finisher or helper. You tend to stay a finish-man for a long time, a good finish-man can have a pattern looking equal to a pristinely painted hot-rod. My time as a pattern finish man extended for about six years.
I entered my apprenticeship under my father two years ago. He has been my main source of knowledge & learning, he has been a great mentor, and I have also learnt some skills from a machinery handbook.
The first pattern I ever built was the drive pulley for a 1903 Harley. The casting was poured in steel. It turned out really good. The last pattern I built was an arm for some kind of pipe mover. Mainly my day-to-day job these days are repairing and revising/converting older foundry patterns that were once used for green sand moulding over to the more modern sand moulding methods currently used.
The honest truth about pattern making as I know it, is that it is hard work to make a living Pattern Making. You go home tired, covered in dust, but as you now realise it is in my blood.
Matthew Morkin.
Houston.USA.
Note: Unfortunately time prevented the inclusion of some photos of patterns produced by Matthew.
Interesting Links To Visit:
When you think about all the different metal castings produced, do pianos come to mind?
The Beale Piano Factory Story.
Australia.
Extract from the web site:
Beale started his business career as an importer of German upright pianos. A few of these imported instruments survive,
and are named 'Hapsburg Beale'. The Beale piano factory was established at 47 Trafalgar St Annandale, and grew to become
the largest piano factory in the southern hemisphere in the early 1900's.
To read the rest of the story and look at some old foundry photographs:
Click here: http://www.overspianos.com.au/beale.html
Take note of the lack of safety gear used in these times, no gloves, no face shields etc, and this is working with molten cast iron, imagine the heat radiating from the ladle during the pour!
Interesting.
Have you ever head of Ingvar Dahlberg?
You must read about his incredible creations, he is one very talented
engineer, this will blow you away.
The
Internet Craftsmanship Museum Presents:
Ingvar Dahlberg.
Model engineering that includes a complete 1910 Mercer T35 Raceabout in
miniature: Be Warned, you
could spend hours, and hours looking at this online museum, it is
really interesting, I'm sure the projects on show will be a source of
inspiration for
your own goals.
http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Dahlberg.htm
Magnificent
Machine. LLc.
A Veteran Owned Small Business.
Brady McCormick is an all-round expert who works with all kinds of
materials. Brady recently purchased our foundry ebook package plus the
pattern ebook, my curiosity got the
better of me, and I inquired about his business name "Magnificent Machine", after
exchanging a few emails we decided to feature
Brady’s web site and let you read about some of his creations in this
edition of the ezine, feel free to visit and view the different
projects he has
built, and if you want something special designed and built... Brady
will welcome your email or phone
inquiry.
Click the links below:
http://www.magnificentmachine.com/index.html
http://www.magnificentmachine.com/gallery.html