The Hot metal Ezine

The Hot Metal Ezine. The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine. Brought To You By: Col Croucher. Administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com Australia. March 08: Vol 05: Number: 53.
Hello ezine subscriber. We are well into March now, and Easter is nearly upon us, or is here as I finish of the ezine. I began compiling the ezine the weekend of the Australian F1 GP, and in between things I've been watching the Saturday F1 practice session at Albert Park in Melbourne on TV, I usually attend for the day, but not this year, due to other commitments. Sorry that this months ezine is late. My time and resources have been spread pretty thin lately... not enough hours in the day as they say. I hope you are forging ahead with your projects, and they are all going well. I hear of a new workshop & hobby foundry is about to be built around the Hood Sport region in Washington State USA.... and the sooner the better I have been told. Are you building or about to build new a shed/workshop for your foundry work, how about sending in some pictures and a short story to share with your fellow ezine subscribers, everyone has something of interest for others, no matter how small it may be. We are in deep need for more ezine subscriber interaction, I feel that there is not enough input at the moment from subscribers, remember I have always said to you that this is an ezine where all subscribers, yes that's you, are more than welcome to send in articles and photos of the things being cast or equipment being made in/for the hobby foundry, even equipment being modified, it all makes for interesting reading. And please don’t tell me you cant write a small article or story, if you can write out a shopping list, you can write an article.... honest truth. All you need to do then is to email your articles and digital photos to me and we will have some fresh material for the ezine so that you as a subscriber get to enjoy some interesting reading every month. Compiling and editing a monthly ezine is quite a chore as anyone who has had a go at producing newsletters would know... online or offline, several production hours go into each edition. Which leads us to the following ezine Survey Questions: Please Help: Tell me, what do you as a subscriber want from this ezine? Do you enjoy receiving and reading the Hot Metal ezine? Would you be interested in contributing interesting articles? If you enjoy the ezine, would you continue to subscribe if a very small/modest subscription fee was charged each month? (Please copy and paste these questions into the reply form below with your answers typed in between each question.) If the ezine was subscription (Monthly fee) based, we would then be able to pay contributors a fee for articles, it would also help to cover editing - software - and host server costs, we store all of the ezines, and as time goes on the data storage cost will increase. There are many web based ezines where a small monthly fee is charged to cover time & production costs. If we do move in that direction the ability for opting out, or unsubscribing at any time will still apply. The time has arrived where we have to ask, where to from here? Please don't get me wrong, I have had immense enjoyment from editing and producing this ezine, I believe it has provided valuable info & enjoyment to a high number of hobby casting people, and has also been an enriching education for me, I have enjoyed all aspects of it, I hope you can understand where I am coming from. No changes will be made until I get a feel for your opinion. This is number 53, that equates to 4.4 years of ezines produced so far... a lot of hours & work, and with your help we can keep it going for a long time yet. So what is your opinion, I would like to know. Col Croucher. Please use the contact form below to email your reply. Your Name: Your E-mail Address: Subject: Message: After pressing the send button, a message will appear on your screen to acknowledge your email reply. Click the back button to return to this page. Below we have a story about an Aussie who has taken the opportunity to build his own foundry using the information supplied from our ebooks, read the article, study the pictures, here is a self motivated innovator, the kind of stories we like to see.
Gain lifetime admission to the MHF membership area of our web site. Automatic admission Here.	Cast Aluminium quick change diff cover. Read the story below. Rear four bar axle set up and diff casting. Carb mounting plate machined from 32mm alloy plate with ball mill. Louver Die Press. Upper & lower die backing blocks with hardened steel slip in male-female die inserts. Louver die press and finished product. Home built press, air- hydraulic operation. Australian Export Success Story. Holden SS Commodore rebranded as Pontiac G8 and sold in the USA. Current Model SS Holden Commodore. Designed & Built in Australia. Yes, the nose & bonnet of the G8 is different to the OZ version, but it is the same car.
Feature Story: Tony Cooke. Metal Caster - Fabricator - Street Rod Constructor. Col. Many thanks for your prompt response to my purchasing your metal casting ebooks. I have started reading the main info package and will begin to draw up my furnace design soon. As I will be upsizing on your furnace design by about 50% and fabricating all components in my own workshop with the aid of my; lathe, mill, TIG & MIG etc, so there will no doubt a couple of questions down the track! I propose to set up a small casting production line under a monorail beam. We have a small business fabricating oil pans (sumps) for early model Chrysler, Dodge & Desoto Hemi engines and have exported with success to customers in the USA. Further down the track we will be looking at producing aluminium components such as rocker covers, perhaps sumps and valley covers etc so will need increased melting and pouring capacity. I have spent some time in the foundry where I served my apprenticeship as a Boilermaker welder/blacksmith some 40 odd years ago and have an excellent source of refractory materials through a colleague who is the local manager for York Linings who our company has worked with several times on cement and mineral kiln overhauls. We are based at Greenock in the Barossa Valley South Australia. Thanks for the Australian foundry supply list ebook I will check out the additional info in this ebook you have sent. I derive a great deal of satisfaction in creating a “one off” or unique item myself, I plan to start with some simple flat type items that will not require coring and then move onto the log style inlet manifolds, which will be, cast from aluminium. I have started to draw up my furnace, which is scaled up 50% from the model shown in the ebook (3-Vol metal casting made easy) I purchased from you. The furnace will be fully fabricated with a shell from 3mm galvanized sheet and will have an internal furnace diameter of around 330mm and a height of 500mm after casting the refractory. If I stay with your burner design will it be OK or will I need to upsize it accordingly? Editors Note; yes, it would not hurt to go up to the next pipe size and perhaps a bit larger jet size). Editors Note: Above show photographs of some of the items that Tony has produced (the items have been cast by others and machined and polished by Tony and his crew). The quick change rear cover as shown in the photos above was cast from a pattern made up from a damaged original unit which was built up with Plastibond and hand finished. This one went back into the melting pot as it had a bad section of porosity and after three attempts the one that you can see on our hot rod in the photo above was finally used. As you can see it turned out pretty well and future castings will have BSRS (Brunskilltown Street Rod Services) in the square nameplate area. The cast aluminium transmission pan was produced by a good mate of mine who specializes in early Hemis and we most likely will handle his casting requirements in the future as he constantly has to weld up flaws in the castings that he has done for him. The adapter plate shown in the Carbs Set-up was made up by myself from 32mm aluminium plate and machined with the flutes ball milled. It is designed to fit on to a supercharger manifold in place of the GM blower and we may cast these in future. The louver dies & press I manufactured myself, the louver die press is used to mainly do the louver pressings produced on the windage trays for our oil pans, and also use the rig to press the swage lines into the sump bodies. We aim to become as self sufficient as possible in our oil pan business mainly for convenience and along side of the decision to begin casting parts, we intend setting up a small zinc plating and iridising electroplating line. Cheers, and thanks for your help. Tony Cooke Brunskilltown Street Rod Services. (BSRS). GREENOCK S.A. 5360 Australia. Holden Commodore. Australian Export Success Story. This article is for all the (Petrol Heads) car enthusiast subscribers, (That includes me) Ed. For six long years, Australian automotive company Holden, spent Millions developing this world class car. Many americans may well believe that the G8 Pontiac was designed and built in the USA, wrong, this new & very desirable car is an all Australian designed, engineered and built machine. For the full story visit here: Click here to read the story. Welcome To All New Hobby Casters. A big welcome also to the many new hobby foundry customers who visited our site in the past month, it seems there are still a lot of people from around the world (Including many from European countries) who are keen to learn about metal casting, and the next question comes back to the ezine again, I wonder what people want to do with their new foundry skills, would they like to share their new experience with others? It is easy to do, just contact us about your article idea and we will help you put it all together... it could also mean some free exposure for your business if you have one. Welcome MHF Members. Thanks to all of the ebook package customers who have joined the MHF membership section of our web site, we will continue to keep building and improving the MHF member’s section. Lifetime Membership is automatically granted upon the purchase of the hobby foundry ebook package (Even when we run special offers)) there's lots of extra reading and learning just waiting for you in the member’s section, I hope to see you there soon. Molding A Secure Retirement. Here is an article about what foundry workers did about their retirementfunds. A 401(k) is OK as a supplement, but if the market goes down, your retirement goes down, too,” says Charles Moore, a line leader in the core room at the New Haven (Mich.) Foundry, a subsidiary of Wesley Industries.......More>> http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/01/0501/feature02.html Would you like to visit a special kind of foundry online? Then: Visit Royalstone Arts Foundry. Ever heard of Aluminium & bronze tiles? ..... More>>. http://www.royalstonartsfoundry.com/tiles/index.html You just might trigger some new metal casting ideas for you here.