The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
Number: 76 March 2010.
Do you know what the old time foundry blokes used to call each other? "Sand Crabs" it is quite apt considering that they mostly worked with green sand, some of the best castings have been made using green sand, some people have great difficulty with it, but if everything is right with the sand; IE, the bonding strength, tensile strength, moisture content and it has been conditioned and tempered correctly green sand is really a wonderful moulding medium.
but it is not the be all and end all of moulding, fine dry sand coupled with styrene foam is also a quick method to create a pattern and cast it without having to worry about undercuts, odd shapes, parting lines, and anything else that makes green sand difficult to use for some patterns, the only drawback being the toxic stink of the foam during the pour, but the special foundry pattern foam is less toxic than ordinary foam.
Lately a few emails have been arriving at my inbox asking where to find foundry suppliers in a certain area or region... now I am not sure if said email senders are doing a detailed google search but generally I can find several in the first search attempt... sometimes it is not always the bleeding obvious that produces the best search results eg, when you get a moment type in "foundry supplies + your region" (What ever that is) into google and view the results... then type in "thermal ceramics + your region" and see what that brings up... surprise, surprise did you get a different result, I know I do when I make a search. And as always with many products there are several words that mean the same thing but will most likely produce different search results.
When using the search engines always think about what you are looking for and use different words in your keyword search, remember that not everyone thinks alike, and many times the people who build the web sites tend to use sophisticated wording because that is what they are supplied with from the company product description, but they should also use simple every day language (keywords) to describe their products, that way they are going to get more relevant search engine indexing.
So next time you are looking for something online, get your thinking cap on and start digging around using different words and keyword strings when searching on; google, yahoo, bing, etc, etc.
Autumn has arrived in the southern part of Australia (That's "Fall" to you guys in the north of the globe). Soon the deciduous trees will be a blaze of reds, yellows, russets... autumn colour at it's best, this is a special time of year for a lot of people (me included), the rotten summer heat has gone, the days are balmy, in otherwords a magnificent climate, over night temps settle at around 9 to 12Deg C, with day temps of 26 to 30Deg C... what more could you ask for.
The recent heavy early Autumn rain has virtually spelt the end of any serious bush fire danger, the whole of the north east and many other regions have lush green grass across the rural landscape, which is unusual for late Feb & early March.
Autumn - Winter - Spring is also the time of the year when I like to get the foundry fired up... which reminds me, I have a batch of alloy door hinges to cast and finish of for a client in Sydney NSW, so with that, I will leave you to read and absorb the ezine.
Col.
Want To Try Your Hand At Casting Metal?
You Can Be
Be The Master Of Your Own Game!
Get Some Practical Direction That Really Works! Here & Also Here.
Read Malcolm Murray's story below for more details of what he has
achieved.
The Furnace
The Simple But Highly Effective Burner.
A
Peek Inside The Furnace Chamber.
The First Casting.
Name plate.
Casting.
Backed out or carved
out reverse side of casting, a common method used to make metal
thickness even throughout - avoids shrinkage voids.
(Another Aussie Success Story.)
My first taste of metal casting was in college in the mid seventies where we made screw drivers and cast the handles out of aluminium from what I can remember the castings were very rough but this little taste of casting definitely got me hooked on wanting to cast things, unfortunately it wasn’t for another 30 years before I finally got around to doing something about it. This was when I came across Colin’s myhomefoundry web site, I am the first to admit I am not a expert I have been casting now for about 4 months.
One of the main points I would point out to anyone just starting out is don’t listen to experts who have never done it themselves these guys can put you right off course.
I talked to an Lpg expert who told me Colin’s burner would not generate enough heat to melt aluminium, and I would need to buy some special jet type burners, luckily I listened to the wife who said you’ve got nothing to lose so build it to the plans Colin supplied and if it doesn’t work you can come back and buy the expensive jets.
My only variation I did was putting the jet smack in the middle of the venturi which Colin recommends, the main thing I had problems getting my head around was the burner was so simple, plus the LPG experts words were still ringing in my ears, I had almost convinced myself it probably wasn’t going to work, now I will openly admit that me and fire are not good friends and this thing scared the hell out of me on the first couple of fire ups and it didn’t help my confidence much having a fearful wife hiding around the corner yelling are the flames meant to be that big, another read of the instructions and a quick email to Colin soon had things sorted out, I hadn’t been giving it enough air, now we were up and running and boy does it hum, within 20 minutes of fire up (I have timed it) I am pouring molten aluminium .
So if you’ve bought Colins ebooks & plans, follow them to the letter, THEY DO WORK .
I have over the years enquired about foundry work but found it was bit of a closed shop and no one really wanted to share their knowledge but in the last 10 years I have noticed more and more foundry topics on the net .
You tube has been extremely helpful (just punch in “home foundry”) and there are lots of videos of home casters some of the better ones are by “my ford boy” and “mr pete” (Tubal Cain) they give a indepth look into just about everything the home caster would need to know, there are also lots of other amateur ones showing all sorts of terrible misfortune in the foundry which makes you very aware of how easily things can go wrong .
After watching the you tube videos especially the failure ones you soon learn what you should and shouldn’t use and do , one of the first things I learnt of you tube is you have to have the good sand for a good finish I use petrobond sand and have ordered some petrobond 11 the supplier has told me that I will be surprised at the vast difference on the finish of the casting between the 2 different sands.
With all my casting so far I have not had a failure yet (touch wood) but in saying that I haven’t cast anything to complicated putting a lot of this success down to the e books I bought of Colin .
I hope to start making and using cores very shortly, the company I buy my sand from sell cores and the heat treated sands to make your own cores. The company’s name is “Cast Metal Services” 16a Williams st Kelmscott 6111 Perth, the manager Ian Mountford is very knowledgeable and quite helpful .
Well, I hope this little spiel inspires some more people to give casting ago, it is a lot of fun and people just cant believe you have cast something using sand, I have also noticed now that when I see something that has been cast I study the casting & try to work out in my head how they made the pattern & cast it, there are some very clever and tricky characters out there making some of these patterns.
Well good luck with your casting .
Malcolm Murray
Perth Western Australia.
Editors Note:
I have admired the way Malcolm has approached his foundry hobby & the enthusiasm and eagerness to get on with it, he has not wasted any time and has done very well for the very short time he has been casting. Of course, Malc is not the only one of our ebook clients to enjoy casting success, there have been mnay others, and possibly many who've been getting on with their foundry work, but had little time to let us know what they are doing.
The article below might be all you need to find the secret to making the most of the available hours you have each week for your hobby or business pursuits.... it is interesting... read it twice if you need to.
You Really Can Make Progress, No Matter What.
Every now and again, we receive emails from subscribers and others who just want to know what they should do to begin hobby metal casting.
I make a point of trying to follow up with everyone who asks a question about setting up their hobby foundry. Sometimes it takes just a few seconds, other times it takes a few minutes, but I try to motivate them to take action.
Usually, but not always, after my most recent follow up email to "Ted" for example, I received this response...
"Hi Col,
"Sorry, we've been having challenges with all sorts of things...like family, work, outside commitments, other peoples demands, etc,etc... leaving little "me time", so that I can get on with my own projects".
As you can see, for Ted, there’s been a few distractions for him."
The last time I followed up with Ted, he also had several other "distractions "that seemed to be holding him back from starting his hobby foundry.
What I can't seem to get Ted to recognize is that achieving success in your chosen hobby (or anything else for that matter) is not a place you suddenly arrive at, It's part of a more complete process.
And it's formed by a habit. A habit (Daily process) is doing something everyday to progress you toward your desired goal, no matter what. I am not saying that the "challenges" of day-to-day life won't throw you off-kilter... they will, but in the time it took Ted to write and explain why he hadn't yet made a start, he probably could have used that time to make a start!
Just Do It!
Now is the time to start anything; not necessarily a brand-new hobby. It could be starting something new with your current hobby or an interest you have been keen to explore. Maybe doing some book or online research... viewing some "how to" videos... do something that will move you forward.
Now, understand there are a very large number of our ebook clients who have been very successful with their hobby foundry, so if you are one of those successful people reading this letter right now, I’m sure you will agree on the points we have been summarising here. You did not get to where you are right now by gazing out the window all day! I would imagine that you had, right from the outset, a laser sharp focus on the vision you had firmly fixed in your mind.
For the hobby worker, right now is always the time to make improvements. To do more of something that's working; or to stop doing something that's not... it might also be time to re-think things through... a time to pause... and re-jig your priorities.
But when you have a long list of things you want to try... how do you know what to focus on first?
The answer to that is easy. Focus on the one thing that will generate the most results that most closely match the core purpose of your hobby.
Let's say your primary purpose this week is to start building your furnace. With just a few hours dedicated to the project each day would give you a good return on your investment of time & resources. And while you do that, you could also be thinking and planning how to move further forward with other things that you'll need to build or acquire. (The process at work)
You should get your furnace built within one or two weeks of focused effort. (Some people have built one in just a few days). You could start right now by spending just one hour to open your ebooks to see what you need to do to get your project up and running.
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I often hear people say that they can't find even one extra hour to work on their hobby? I say, what about using some of the time they spend idly surfing the Web? Or watching television? Or sitting around doing nothing?
According to a recent communications industry report, the average American (And this probably goes for most western countries as well) spends 1,747 hours watching television in a typical year!
That works out to 145 hours a month! More than six full days in front of the TV every month, or slightly less than five hours a day. That’s a lot of wasted time sitting watching the idiot box as it was once called!
You cannot alter the fact that there are only twenty four hours in a day, but you can change the way you use the available hours. But what you can do is figure out how to use some of those hours to make some progress with your hobby goals.
Do it now. There's really no excuse not to, as each new day passes, that’s another 24 hours you will never see again in your lifetime, old man time just keeps on rolling along regardless... time waits for no man or women.
Col.
You Can Make A Good Start Here:
http://www.myhomefoundry.com/library.html
But Make A Fantastic Start Here:
http://www.myhomefoundry.com/index1.html
New Hobby Casting Members.
The past month has seen many many new people from Aust, USA, Canada, UK, NZ, & South Africa come on board the hobby metal casting train...I would also like to give a special welcome to Teijo Pietola from Finland. Simone Borgonovo from Milano Italy & Sales Pierre from Blyes in France. Congratulations and Welcome guys.