The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
Jan 2008. Volume: 05. Number: 51
Crikey, the Christmas-New year break seems but a distant memory, I hope that you enjoyed the festive gathering with family- friends etc, and however you celebrated, I hope you had ball.
But it is incredible just how soon reality strikes, and in no time flat it's time to get back to work to pay the bills and generally take care of things. So, what are your plans for this year? Have you got any exciting projects in the making?
Gosh, with all of the financial doom and gloom being bandied about in the BIG money circles it looks like the world economy is sliding downward, the financial gurus are warning us to get ready for the roller coaster ride.
So what does the economic downturn mean for the hobby worker, IE, you and me, do we just pack all of the gear away and wait till things come good again? Or do we keep forging ahead with our hobbies? I mean to say, if it's tough "out there" won’t it mean that things will really tighten up and we wont be able to afford to do what we do... I don’t think so!
Practical people (You) win big time whether in good times or bad times, you know why? because you don’t think like other people, you are creative in mind and body so you (We) do things, and think differently to the average Joe down the street. By being resourceful and being able to build things will mean that anything you do can be done at a pretty low cost, and that is where you win, you get to stretch the dollars much further than people who are unable or don’t know how to go about doing things... It's all about having the right kind of practical knowledge.
Opportunities abound in bad times, just like they do in the good times, I'm sure you'd know there is a huge number of people in your community who are always looking for someone to make, create, fix or repair things, you could promote your metal craft services to all kinds of people and make some money, which in turn will help to nourish and keep your metal casting hobby alive, yes, even in the tough times you can do it, believe me.
Why not give it a go!
The ezine is short and sweet this month, we are way over due and really there is not much of the month left, I hope you wont hold the lateness of the ezine against me, well, you know what it is like during the holiday season, and we do like a nice break out here in OZ, man all of that sun, sand and sea you just gotta enjoy it.... well, a lot of people do.... but not me, we live in the bush so the sea side does not enter our thoughts, but we do have some magnificent rivers nearby which we frequent when the time allows.
We
love Sam Kekovich, and we Aussies love our Lamb.
January 26th is Australia
day, this is the day we celebrate the founding of this great nation
and what it is to be Australian.
Join our post Australia Day
celebration sale. Even though we are a bit late, but that's OK, we
still love our lamb.
And This Is A Two Day Sale ONLY.
Australia
Day Sale #1.
Australia
Day Sale #2.
Australia Day
Sale #3.
(PS. If you dont live in OZ you
may
wonder who the heck Sam Kekovich is?)
Try
Google.
Skills Of Yesteryear.
See article below.
Things you can make in your hobby foundry.
Cast muffler
cap. Sundial 4HP
Cast thumbscrew clamp
Cast wheel hub and
spokes
Learning
From The Skills Of Yesteryear.
Have you ever walked past something old which has caught your eye, you've stopped, looked, and thought quietly to our self, I wonder how they made that? I know I have, and you often think about some of the processes and techniques used by the old craftsmen from ages past, and how they made the things they did.
There are probably many old castings in your town, street, or on/in buildings near you that were made in the early part of the nineteenth century, most people don't give these things a second glance, let alone even take the time to look at them, but for the astute hobby casting person much can be learned from these old castings. The most common of these old things, such as fire hydrants which are scattered all over cities and towns, are made up of cast iron pipes, elbows and brass handles and valves. There's quite a mix of different skills and foundry techniques involved with the manufacture of fire hydrants.
What about the cast iron cover plates used on sewer pipes, they are flat on top, and sit flush into the pipe cavity but have a neat little bridge that forms a lifting handle, which is formed by setting a simple little sand core within the mould during the moulding set up operations.
Other fascinating things to look at are the ornate cast iron lace work business sign holders that you see in old European villages and many other places around the world. Old sewing machine tables are another great example of beautiful creative cast iron lace work. The original patterns must have taken weeks & weeks of delicate hand carving before they were ready for use in the foundry.
There's an old hotel in the town where I live and the veranda balcony is supported by beautiful old cast iron veranda posts, but the spiral pattern fashioned on these tall veranda posts just beggars me to think how they were made, so I did some research and found some info on how they made cast iron pipes, just how did they make these old posts which featured a heavy patterned spiral relief on them, there's no way that an ordinary two-part sand mould would ever produce that kind of casting because of the pattern relief, in a nut shell, what they did was to make a multi part mould box, which we cant go into much here, but it is an interesting technique.
The close up photographs above of the old Sundial oil engine parts are an interesting study into how old patterns were made, now imagine you had bought one of these old engine but these parts were all missing, how would you go about remaking them? Yes, you could cruise around the swap meets and possibly find what you wanted, but that will take weeks, perhaps months.... it could be a whole lot quicker to just remake some patterns and cast your own parts... even if they were in aluminium.
When we attanded the Steam Horse And Vintage Rally at Echuca way back in June, there were several oil engine enthusiasts who approached me to make spoked wheels just like the one in the picture above, plus several other small cast parts, it was quite amazing the requests that came in..... you only have to show peoplewhat you are capable of doing and they will find a need or product for you to make...that could equate to dollars from your hobby, lots of dollars if you want it.
You may be wondering what the story is behind the old sundial engine...it has been in our family for probably 50 odd years, it was used on the old farm to drive pumps, saw benches, farm machinery etc,etc. I restored the Sundial back in the mid 70s, and it looked magnificent then, but unfortunately, time and sadly neglect has taken it's toll on the old girl, but there is hope yet, a full resto/rebuild could happen again in the next twelve months.
There are still foundries operating today who specialise in the manufacture of reproduction cast iron heritage products. One of those companies in Australia is Billmans foundry of Castlemaine, Victoria. They state on their web site that the business started out about twenty years ago in a little tin shed, (Mmm just like most hobby foundries) and now they are one of the leading founders of heritage products in Australia, visit their web site it is an interesting read. http://www.billmansfoundry.com.au/index.htm
http://www.billmansfoundry.com.au/homegarden/index.htm
Col's Soap Box Rant.
What do you think of spam
emails? you're damn right, you hate em to don't you, and so do I, what
does it say about the mentality of people who send out these useless
bandwidth robbing spam emails which espouse: fake designer watches,
cheap repro
perfumes, and yes, cheap drugs, and of course they are always trying to
flog the old viagra crap.
Over the past couple
of months there's been some idiot nuff nuff, (No idea who or from
where) who must sit at his/her computer all day long just
manually signing up to the free downloads or the ezine on our web
site.... for what reason? Apart from being a total pain in the ass,
luckily the system is set so
after only one email bounce the server system spits the invalid email
address and kaput, it's gone, so why do people do this?
I dont want to bore you
with this, but I think I should let you know what problems can
arise online. The names that this fool uses are about as clever as his
self
perceived inteligence, how would you like a first name like; UgoRplod, jeesiang, ErokgiG, plus numerous
other stupid aliases, all are connected to: gawab.com, or a gmail email
address, I
mean, how dumb can this halfwit human really get, we have blocked
countless IP addresses, but the stupid ignoramus yobbo still manages to
play his fetid little games, well if this idiot has the
mentality of a nat, he obviously needs some amusement at the
lowest possible level, and who ever this half wit is, I hope his
chickens
turn into Emu's and they kick his outhouse down. Now if this coot
happens to be on my list and he reads this, he probabaly thinks that he
has had a win, well he hasn't, he is just a serial pest.
End of rant.... I feel
better already.
PS.
I Just thought I would
let you know what we have to put up with while trying to run a web site.
Col.