The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
Number: 82 - September 2010.
How the past month has flown, that's very welcome I say, because we are now well into spring, (Southern Hemisphere) which is a great time to get out and do things after a long, cold, and very wet winter, in fact, this region has just experienced the worst floods in about fifteen years... not good if you happen to live along the low lying areas... but it is good to see mother nature doing what it does best, climate change or no climate change.
Welcome to the recent newbie metal casters from: USA, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, The Maldives & New Zealand, trust you will all have great success with your metal casting dreams, you will be interested to read Mike's story below, and also view photographs of his castings
Another story we have is about some very old foundry tools, the current owner is looking fir a good home, someone who will treasure and look after these rare old tools, most, of which are hand made... you can read more below.
The Ideal Hobby For Retirement.
Imagine for a minute, you have a dream... you're thinking about when you retire.... you are looking for an absorbing hobby because you dont want to die of boredom during your retirement years... some people play golf three days a week.... potter in the garden for a couple of days... and do very little for the rest of the week... pretty exciting... NOT.
If you are fit and active, why wouldn't you want something exciting to do to fill in the days... lots of blokes make the workshop their kingdom... the place where things are repaired - or designed & built from scratch - the workshop can be an ever increasing place of enjoyment and pleasure for the creative, practical type of bloke.
Well, you are about to meet such a bloke, his name is Mike, he is a hard working Aussie family man with very little spare time on his hands right now, but he decided that while he still has a few years up his sleeve before he retires, he would make an effort to learn firstly about the art of Blacksmitting, then he got bitten by the hobby foundry bug... he has now combined the two metal crafts to make & create things from junk scrap metal.
Like most people, Mike went through the initial trial and error phase, but as it turned out, he proved to be a quick learner, and while he had plenty of bad metal pours, he said they were never really treated as a failure as long as you have learned something from the experience. Now, I will let Mike take over and explain in his own words how he became involved in the metal craft.
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Mike Wallis.
My interest in metal casting and blacksmithing goes back quite a few years, so about Easter time 2009 I started to think… I’m coming up to my 57th birthday and I can retire in about 8 years and if I want to learn something about these two crafts, I need to have something to do during retirement... I had better get cracking.
I decided to go out to the Caboolture historical village as they have a working blacksmith shop and I asked if I could do some learning, their reply was sure thing, just get yourself a blue card so you can work around children (schools do trips to the village) So with my blue card in the hand, out I go and start the learning process, I had a wonderful time learning how blacksmithing is done, I also read what ever I come across.
But casting with aluminium kept raising its head, so I thought I would give it a go using the forge… I had a small steel crucible that had been used for melting lead for sinkers plus an old ally cylinder head which I took to work and cut up into more manageable size’s with a 9 inch grinder with a cutting blade.
Went back to the village blacksmiths shop and melted the ally in the crucible, I had a bucket of damp sand, got a 1½" piece of dowel and pushed it into the sand so I could make a round billet about 4 inches long, the Al melted and by this point I was getting very nervous not knowing what’s going to happen, the ally looked to be a bit pink so I though it must be ready, I picked it up and started to pour, we’ll, it started to bubble up once it hit the sand I then thought the sand must be way to damp, but I kept on pouring anyway
After it cooled I took it out of the sand and boy was it ever rough looking, but hey, I had MELTED the ally “yahoooooooooooo”. After that, I made an ingot mould and proceeded to make ingots just to practice the process.
I also bought the myhomefoundry.com "How to" e-books in the very early part
of 2009, I found them to be very informative, they formed the base knowledge I needed… I still refer back to them when I strike a problem, and I would most definitely recommend them to anyone starting out, they have all the info you need right at your fingertips... you don’t have to go looking and spending days for the right bit of info.
About November 2009 I went along to the Petrie Historical village which is about a 30 minute drive from where I live, and they have a foundry which is open on Sunday mornings, I had a chat to them and they said for $20.00 to cover insurance I’m more then welcome to attend and do some learning on foundry work, So right there and then I handed over the dollars and hung around for a few hours to watch how & what they do.
The following Sunday I was up early and off I went again to the foundry, when they opened the door one person grabbed me and said; “here you’ll be making these”, It turned out to be a pattern match plate with a few trinkets mounted, they give these to the kids as they walk through… looked at him and said “oh, I thought all I would be doing for awhile would be watching you guys”, he said “nope when you come in here you get thrown in the deep end and its ether sink or swim”, “ok” I said “lets start swimming”… they showed me how to mould up, cut the runners and sprues… It was a fun day of learning… the next Sunday it was just me and the head foundry man, He had me doing all the moulding while he watched me like a damn hawk, he’s a very gruff type of person but very willing to show you how its done, we also made a few plaques that they have patterns for.
In the meantime I had built a forge her at home to do some blacksmithing but with me being a shift worker and I also do additional shifts as overtime, I was finding it hard to do both hobbies plus I don’t get a real lot of Sundays off, I could not justify on the few Sundays that I did have off by going to the foundry at the Petrie with family commitments and all, so I decided to try melting ally with my forge.
I made a crucible out of a 4 inch piece of steel tube and proceed to make more ingots “yep, that worked”. Now I needed green sand mmmmmmm how will I mix it… Now with me being an ex cement renderer I thought, “hey why not mix it in my concrete mixer” So I mixed a 20kg bag of play sand from Bunnings with 2 kg of powded bentonite, mixed it to the same consistency of render put it into a plastic tub to dry … it took a few weeks to dry with it being late summer early autumn but dry out it did.
I then mixed a 2nd batch and tried the sand that I had and it worked, “yippee” but it was still a bit damp…. To be honest I’ve had quite a few cast attempts that didn’t work out, I won’t call them failures, as you only fail when you don’t learn something. I’m now on my fourth batch of sand and I’m still doing a lot of learning and I’m enjoying what I do…. What is also amazing is that when people hear you are casting aluminium they start handing you their scrap, the garage that I deal with lets me rummage thought their recycle bin for any aluminium and any steel that I may need such as sway bars witch I take out to the blacksmith shop at the historical village.
A few of my work mates are now giving me things to cast so I have a few patterns that I can copy. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I have given stuff away to the people that have helped me along the way.
My plan for the future is when I eventually do retire, I hope to have enough experience to supplement my years without fulltime work.
Regards.
Mike Wallis.
NSW (New South Wales)
Australia.
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Editors note:
Of course you dont have to be retired to take up hobby casting, you can start right now!
Mike is certainly doing some nice casting work, it has not taken him that long to go from not so good castings, to excellent castings... well done Mike.
Start With:
The Hobby Foundry Knowledge Tool KIt.
Or The
MEGA Pak.
===========
Here's Something For The Business Person.
Want To Learn About How To Profit From A Subscriber List?
Looking For New Ideas To Boost Sales In Your
Business?
Pair of cast spoons.
Cast Lizard & replica Cross.
\
Cast Aluminium Soap Dish.
Big Australian
Carpet Snake. (Python). Not a cast snake but a real one Mike found
curled up
under the roof!! They are quite harmless though.
My dad was born in 1896 and died at the age of 88. He was a remarkable man. He left school at the age of 13 to go to work, which was not uncommon in those days. But Dad never stopped learning and was one of the most well-informed people I've ever known. He loved everyone and was always ready to lend a hand to his family, friends and neighbors, even to strangers.
Dad was also very strong physically, even though short in stature. He was as committed to this country as he was to God and tried to enlist in World War I. He was rejected for a minor physical reason, so around that time, he began to work in a foundry. He received several award tokens for his work during the war.
However, the working conditions in foundries are always unbelievably hot and dangerous, even in today's world. At that time, conditions were deplorable. Though gentle by nature, my dad was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in. He fought to improve those conditions by helping to get the union established. He was severely beaten for his efforts several times.
But eventually things did get better and he continued to work in iron and steel foundries around St. Louis until he retired at age 65. Even after that, he worked in the foundry until well past the age of 70, for as many months as possible (while continuing to receive his social security).
As hard as the work was, he did learn a skill that he used in his home workshop as a hobby. He used sand molding to make many useful household tools, such as kitchen knives, hunting knives, etc. During that time, he made or bought the tools that you see pictured here.
However, I know very little about the process of sand molding. Dad never wanted me to work in a foundry and would never let me go into inside one, even to visit. And for safety reasons, he never let me watch while he worked at home. Therefore, I cannot tell you anything about the tools themselves except some have names on them like “C.Monk” or “Union”. Others appear to be homemade.
I've had these tools sitting in my garage since Dad passed in 1984. I am getting up there in age myself and none of my 3 sons has any use for them. I just hate to see them beginning to rust. So I am hoping to find someone who could use and appreciate this unique collection of tools before they deteriorate any further.
 How often do you see a rare collection of foundry tools like this?They would be ideal to own as a tool collection, or to use in the foundry as they were intended. |
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 If you would like to learn more about these foundry tools please send an email to Col through the contact page on our web site, and I will pass on Richards contact details. |
Col was kind enough to offer to post this article for me so that I could find that special person who would put these tools to good use. I know my dad would be pleased to see them used and appreciated by a fellow craftsman out there. If nothing else, perhaps there is a museum somewhere that would want them.
Please contact me, (My details are wiith Col croucher) if you are that special person and would like to own and care for these tools.
Richard Hoffman.