The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
August Edition. Volume:05. Number:58.
It seems like it was only a few days ago that I put the finishing touches to and uploaded the July ezine, and now here I am, hammering away again, or should I say taping on the key board to get the August ezine out. For the last couple of weeks there's been little, if any foundry work done while I'm inside tucked away in my office typing, but never mind, once this edition is together I will have plenty of time to go out and get stuck into some more projects.
By all accounts it seems like the July ezine was a big hit... thanks to the people who made the effort to send an email to let us know how much they enjoyed reading what other like minded hobby metal casters from around the globe are doing, it is truly interesting to learn & see what other people are creating with their acquired foundry skills & talents.
And it was nice to have thank you emails from all of the prizewinners, and when I contacted Trevor Desecke to give him the good news that he had won the first prize I think he nearly fell of his chair... he was a very happy chap I can tell you....said that he had not won anything fo r a long, long time, it was an absolute joy for me to tell him about his winning entry and also to present the $50.00 prize to him.
On the forums & discussions there is always much debate about what kind of fuel to use to fire the furnace, one of the most unusual that came to light in the July ezine was the use of coconut oil... amazing really, but it seems to work a treat, if you took the time to read & learn about how Dale Hampshire is teaching the islanders on Vanuatu how to melt and cast metal.
Who would ever think to use coconut oil... a readily available fuel in the islands no doubt, I have heard of similar things being done in the Fiji Islands, (North of Australia) the village people are always very keen to learn, and what better way than to teach them easy to use basic foundry skills so that they can be more self sufficient, all kinds of village micro industries are sure to be borne from these small beginnings.
Congrats to Dale for sharing the knowledge and teaching the craft to the islanders, there must be many isolated places on this globe crying out for the need for just basic technical knowledge & skills, I know that to be true because we often have requests from people living in small countries where credit cards don't exist (Hard to imagine I know)... but they have a computer & Internet access.
Now to this months issue, you will be able to read about the remaining show & tell casting comp entries, I'm sure you will gain much from these too, if you don't get one small seed of an idea of what's possible with hobby foundry then there is something wrong. There is a treasure trove of ideas here, you don't have to copy them, but they should provide inspiration, and may help spark your mind into action and solve a problem you are facing right now.
Take note of Paul Quyle and his self cast replica fist, which is placed atop of on an old style horse hitching post, full marks for imagination Paul, read just how unique his hitching post casting is and how it was created... there is some good basic info here for art casters, like wise for the project that Daniel Postellon featured in last months ezine.
If you are into restoring cars & motorbikes, take a look at Jared Plourde's Model "A" Ford engine timing cover plate-casting project, (Below) a very nice job.
But I wont spoil the reading for you, there is much to learn and absorb here.... so please enjoy.
Col.
What the!
Yep, lucky you called by,
there's a special deal on Right NOW?
The Hot August Special.
Click here Before It's Gone.
Each month we receive emails from people
asking the following questions:
How can I begin casting metal?
How do I go about building the gear I need?
What can I cast?
What kind of metal do I melt?
What type of fuel should I use?
Where do I find the materials and stuff that I need?
How long will it take me to
learn the methods & techniques?
Yes, we get all of these questions plus plenty more.
You could learn the answer's by watching & learning from an
expert...
but they will make it look so easy you might be fooled into thinking
you can achieve exactly the same results the following weekend!
You can spend days, weeks, or months surfing the net gathering the info
you will need, but then you have to collate and put it all together so
that you can understand it all... not that easy if you don't
understand the correct order of the processes in the first place.
Purchase some books - read them - learn all you can -
trial and error can be hard, but a damn good teacher.
Or, you could elect to have a mentor or personal
coach. Learning from a mentor or coach will provide the results you
want in the
shortest possible time.
Weekly access on an allotted time basis with your personal coach will
provide you with
the answers & help to your questions, one on one coaching is the
quickest way to learn any craft, a coach will help to guide you along
the path of the trial and error maze.
Today, people are in a hurry; they crave for quick results &
success in the shortest time possible, and who can blame them when time
seems to be in such a short supply.
How valuable would it be to have a mentor who is available on a weekly
basis to answer questions and help to solve your problems?
Below we have the remaining show &
tell casting comp projects, where you can read more about metal casting
success stories.
USA.
Colin.
Here are the pictures of my first home foundry effort. Since I was 18 years old I wanted to learn how to cast metal and build engines. I am now 52 years old, and this March I produced two crankshaft supports as part of the project to build an Atkinson Engine as described by Vince Gingery. I plan to cast the entire group of parts... base, flywheel, cylinder head and con rod.
I own an old lathe and a bench mill, so I can do all of the machining myself as well.
I selected Gingery's project book because the Atkinson Cycle Engine was different from steam engines and the more typical internal combustion model plans available. The book has more than enough detail, and I felt confident it would be a good choice for my first home built engine. This gave me all the reason I needed to begin assembling my home foundry-Gingery charcoal
furnace, Petrobond sand, cope and drag, crucible, etc.
I made the furnace during the winter months whenever I had a spare moment. (I have a pretty busy job as a manufacturing engineer).
I selected the crankshaft support for the first try because it was a simple one-sided form. Which I think would produce a high likelihood of success. I made the patterns to Gingery's dimensions from pine and walnut scraps I have in my shop, I applied body putty to form the fillets.
When I was ramming the Petrobond sand I had no idea how tight to pack it. There was advice in the Atkinson Engine book and in Dave Gingery's Charcoal Foundry book, so I was not completely in the dark. I followed the directions using a dowel to form the riser and cut the sprue in just before I pulled the patterns.
I welded the crucible from a hunk of steel tubing, and when I poured the aluminium down into the mold I was a little surprised how quick the whole thing went. This was in late March. It had been wet, and my shop is in my basement, so foundry stuff is an outdoor thing for me (right now, anyway).
I waited a few hours, opened everything up and was sort of surprised to find the castings are usable! A little light cleaning, so into the milling machine it went.
My next casting was the 8-inch diameter flywheel. Made the pattern, made a much bigger cope and drag. This time I rammed the sand too tight, and the mold was distorted a little. The result was not good so I need to do that one over, going easier and more uniformly with the ramming.
It is a constant learning experience.
Bob Perreault.
USA.
 Castings & Patterns. |
 Castings
in petro-bond sand mould before
shake out.
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 Raw castings, crankshaft supports with riser/sprue still attached.... nice castings. (Ed) |
Here's a good example of using aquired skills and home built tools and equipment to produce low-cost metal castings for your own project requirements. |
Jared Plourde.
Orange California USA.
Model A Ford Engine Timing Cover.
Ok, well here goes, I wanted to make a custom timing cover for the model a ford engine. My foundry is a modified pottery kiln with drilled out jets for natural gas available at my house.
I bought the petrobond sand at a foundry after major frustration with homemade, and green sand. The final finished pic was done by a foundry with my pattern, I got so deep into the project that I now sell these and a real foundry makes and heat treats them with my pattern but the pics show what I can do with my backyard set-up.
I hope you enjoy.
Jared Plourde.
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Paul Quyle.
QUYLE KILNS Murphys, CA.
Hand Carved Fist For Hitching Post.
http://quylekilns.com/home
Dear Colin,
I did this little item just to please me, it was fun. I was born and raised in a central California town that still had several eighteen hundred neighbourhoods with cast iron hitching posts at the street curb. My father was an ex-Army Calvary Officer with a great love for horses. I grew up with horses and horse enthusiasts. When I was in high school I decided we needed one of those antique hitching posts at our stable. I went from house to house where these were located and I asked," Do you want that old hitching post?" I visited quite a few houses and always got the same answer, " Of course, we want it." Eventually I found one house where they said, "Hell No, you can have it if you want to dig it out." I ended up with two with fists as in my photo, and one with just a plain ring. This whole story began more than seventy years ago. These pieces of iron moved with me in 1952 to our ranch in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains where they are still used as hitching posts in front of my home.
(Now to get back to casting). When the casting virus overwhelmed my good sense, I decided I needed a hitching post in front of our pottery gallery. I could have used one of my old posts to do a one off new casting, but to me this is cheating. So I did a drawing of my own hand, carved a pattern, mounted it on a match plate and tried to cast it. I am limited to melting with a propane pot furnace with silicon carbide crucibles. I have had no problem in melting and pouring gray iron, but a number 10 crucible will not hold enough to pour this fist as a solid. So I was forced to make a core mould before I could make a successful casting.
A friend came to admire my work after I got it mounted on a four-inch pipe post and cemented in a place of honour in front of our shop. He looked for a moment and then said, " I have never seen a left handed hitching post before." He was right; all of the old ones are a right hand fist. I am also right handed so I drew my left hand, carved the pattern to match, so now as far as I know this is the only left- hand hitching post fist in existence.
Yours, Paul Quyle.
P.S.
Most of the casting I do is very uninteresting parts to keep our antique obsolete clay working machines running. Auger blades, filter press plates, etc., nothing of interest to most people. Clay is very abrasive, and machines have a continuous need for replacement parts. I gave one class here in my shop for the California Blacksmith Association in simple green sand casting. Every participant went home with a cast bronze belt buckle. At the request of my regular blacksmithing students we are planning a second class soon for Aluminium casting.
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Larry Schnipke.
Ohio USA.
Remanufacture Of Folding Garage Door Hinge Set.
Hinge
These panels are different than many flush panels in that the pivot of
the hinge is buried in the door joint rather the inside the door. I got
some hinges with the panels but I was missing one for this door, and I
have 4 more panels. This makes it worth manufacturing my own hinges. And
what better way to start than with a net shaped casting?
Loose piece pattern: This is the loose piece pattern, 2 per hinge.
Pattern support:
(Not shown)
To avoid having draft on the mating ends of each half, the patterns are
set at an angle on these supports. The red stripes on a yellow
background is standard for seats of loose pieces per Machinery's Hand
Book. This makes it obvious there is a part missing before riddling sand
on the mold.
Patterns in place.
Here the patterns are in place on their supports.
Ready for cope.
Here is the drag ready to have the cope set on.
Finished hinge.
The pin is peened on each end over washers and here is the completed
hinge.
Hinge installed on garage door.
Here is the finished hinge installed on the door.
Larry Schnipke
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Don Stefania.
Australia.
Cast - Machined & Milled Gear Set.
Hi Col,
Am sending some photos of my metal casting projects that I did in the past year. I just bought a digital camera a few days ago so sending photos over the Internet is a new project to me. I hope everything comes out alright on your side. I tried to title each attachment to what it is but it always comes out as Cog Wheels 1.
Any way the first 2 photos is some cog wheels I cut after casting some aluminium discs to various sizes and facing them on the lathe to the desired thickness. The next 2 photos is of a drill base attached to a morse taper for accurate drilling on the lathe.The last 2 photos is of the gas fired furnace I built about 10 years ago.It works well as I can even melt cast iron with it as well as aluminium.
Don Stefania.
Australia.
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Jeff Thorsgaard.
North Dakota, USA.
Well I've wanted to try this for years, so I finally did. For casting in what's called "Lost foam", a pattern is made of Styrofoam, and then either embedded in sand, or invested in plaster, then liquid metal is poured onto it, and the metal instantly burns the foam, and replaces it when it solidifies.. giving a nice aluminum casting! (I should note that with a plaster investment, the foam is actually burned out in a process not unlike lostwax casting.)
I was using what's called "greensand" to mold the patterns in, which simply means the sand is moist, with proper amounts of clay added to sticky-it-up. the pattern is then rammed up as per a normal sandcasting, but the pattern remains during the pour. I have wanted to try this loose sand approach for a while, as it'd save me hoards of time, and would make production of some generic stuff way more feasible. I haven't tried casting in it yet, but will try tomorrow... Seems all the backyard foundry guys all have luck with it, so I'm confident it'll work.
I've got videos of sinking patterns and the like on my camera - will have to put them on my YouTube page soon. They should get there by this time tomorrow. This sand.. you can't put your hand into it more than 3-4 inches without wiggling the heck outta it. but with the air on, it's like a bucket of water! Ultra cool!
I also went to a site online that sells custom plaques www.--------.com/------plaques.html
Entered in all the parameters except for the shape of the whole thing - I think their standard shape is rectangle. Well anyways.. with all very standard options, sans for the Benguiat custom
font - Their price is $210.00. Mine would be $40.00.
(Here's a pic of one I put on a website to show the messed-up paintjob!)
Jeff Thorsgaard.
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Jim Walker.
Escondido, CA.
Art Casting.
http://www.walkermetalsmith.com/index.html
Hello Colin, I'm attaching several pics of a recent casting project. It is made out of lead (about 1 7/8" long) with a screw inside.
My client wanted me to copy a "holder" for his "swinger" clock (the type of clock where the mechanism is in a ball at the top, attached to a pendulum on the bottom. The clock swings, thus the name, on a part that extends out from the holder.) I machined and carved the pattern out of Rockite (a gypsum based fast setting anchoring cement) and used a RTV silicone that withstands around 600 degrees F for the mold. Pic 4677 shows the white pattern & mold, with finished casting (cleaned up just a little). I inserted a brass bushing in the mold to hold the screw (which extends the length of the piece) upright and dead center, allowing the lead to flow around it.
The rest of the pictures show the holder after it was soldered onto the figure's hand, with parts that I machined to complete the assembly. After these pictures were taken, I matched the patina so it had the same aged look as the rest of the piece.
Don't know if this project qualifies, but thought I would take a chance.
Thanks.
Jim Walker.
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And there you have it, all of the show & tell casting comp entries, I hope you have enjoyed reading and learning about what others are creating down in the back shed - basement - on the farm - or in the backyard, no matter where the creating is being done, what you have seen in the July & this months ezine is some of the best foundry work currently being done around the globe. If you missed out through one reason or another, and couldn’t get your projects in on time well don’t worry too much, many people want this competition to continue so we have decided to run another comp in the near future, maybe next year. So start planning now on what you are going to build and enter.... you have seen some of the cream, of the hobby metal casting world, so get the creative hat on and start developing those projects.... the next competition will possibly have different categories to enter.
Thank you to all
who have contributed and worked hard to make this comp a
success. We will have some more news to tell you next month also... and
we will
be contacting each of the entrants individually.
Now, you might want to go over and read through these articles again,
so I will
leave you to it, enjoy learning, and think about what you could create
with some
basic foundry tools and skills, it is not that hard you know... once
you
understand what to do.... ask any of the people who have featured
in the July ezine as well as this issue.
And last but not
least, I hope your fellow country men & women do well at the
Beijing Olympics, I watched the mens road cycling race late this
afternoon and Cadel & Michael Rogers missed out, it was a truly
tough road race. 1st SANCHEZ Samuel of Spain. 2nd REBELLIN Davide
Italy
3rd CANCELLARA Fabian Switzerland.
Cheers.
Col Croucher.