The International Hobby Metal Casting ezine.
Brought To You By:
Col Croucher, administrator of: www.myhomefoundry.com
Australia.
Number: 88 - March 2011.
Hi There.
Crikey, has it really been two months since the last ezine, sorry if you have missed my ramblings & other chronicles... much water has passed under the bridge since then. The lack of January & February ezines... not making excuses but unfortunately I have been involved in many projects as well as some time consuming family commitments which seemed to suck up any available spare time... believe it or not, that's my excuse anyway.
Hobby metal casting is still happening in a big way, more and more people are discovering that it is indeed very possible to cast high quality parts for whatever you are creating.... right in your own backyard.... if you don’t believe that, then you have been living under a rock for to long.
I believe that mastering the art of metal casting really puts the finishing touches to your metal working skills, if you enjoy working with any kind of metal, you're sure to love what metal casting has to offer.
I am amazed at what happens at our web site, yes we do take note of the visitor stats, we have quite a number of daily visitors, most people download the freebies and then disappear never to return again... while others are very appreciative of the free stuff we give away. How do we know that? Well, they simply email us to tell us so.
Others become valued customers by purchasing our ebook package, you know, the hobby foundry tool kit package... a great package of ebooks so full of info you may not know where to begin... No BS info.
On the odd occasion we receive an email from someone explaining how they want to begin casting air-cooled cylinder heads, small engine cylinder blocks etc, heck, look, it's really great to be so excited and passionate about your hobby, but hey, lets just back up a little shall we, we better talk this through... here's the facts.
In the first few weeks you aint gunna be casting cylinder heads, nor engine blocks... it could be a year or so before you gain those special skills... But at the same time I don’t want to quash your dreams.... start with simple things first... Rome wasn’t built in a day, week, or month, you need to take your time to learn what it's all about.
But once you learn the skills, it is just fantastic to think that you can walk out to the shed or workshop... make your patterns, ram your moulds, melt the metal and pour.... and bingo, you have a quality casting ready to machine and finish... the object you cast could be worth a lot of money to you if you consider just how much it would cost to have a "one off" custom casting job done commercially.
I know for sure that metal casting has helped to solve hundreds of project problems for me over the years. It was around 1985 when I first started to explore and learn about metal casting,
that’s twenty six years ago... quite a long time, and there are still plenty of things for me to explore with metal casting. But it is one of THE BEST PRACTICAL Skills that I have learned in my whole life.
From time to time visitors to our web site send emails to use asking us to teach them everything about hobby metal casting... like they want to do a crash course on the subject and end up being instant experts... well almost. they are generally disappointed when I explain to them that metal casting is a skill that you learn over a period of time, it is not something you can pickup within twenty four or forty eight hours... it's just not possible, yes, you'll grasp the basics but that's about all.
Over the years we have read some amazing success stories from many people who have taken up the challenge of hobby metal casting, the many products and items that have been cast by ordinary people who applied some hard work and dedication with the skills they have learned to succeed.... and amazingly, others tell us it's just too hard, but give no reasons why, perhaps they might think differently with some one-on-one coaching tuition.
Col
How Basic Can Basic Get?
Just how basic can basic get? When it comes to metal casting that could probably mean beginning with the simplest and most unsophisticated methods and equipment.
For all of the years that I have been "sand crabbing" there is one very big regret that I have... And that regret is never taking a photograph to record the very first basic, and I mean very basic furnace I built. So, the other day I decided to build a replica just to show you how the journey began.
It was certainly nothing flash, a few old household bricks placed on the ground and arranged in a small circle, a short length of 2"Dia steel pipe, some home made charcoal for the fuel, and a borrowed (From my wife) electrolux vacuum cleaner... the barell type that has two outlets... one for sucking, one for blowing... and one day, in my excitement to get the furnace going I accidentally left it on suck for a minute or two before I realized the error.... Oh my gawd, it just about destroyed the old vac.... the wife was not to impressed either... & I ended up buying a new vacuum cleaner for the house cleaning... a smoked out vac does not make the house smell very nice... this was the first embarrassing moment of my first venture into hobby metal casting.
OK, back to the charcoal furnace, the construction was made from old house bricks arranged in a circle and stacked about three high... no mortar, three high is enough to hold a decent bed of charcoal fuel, but before the charcoal went in a short length of pipe was placed on the ground to act as the blower pipe, the melting vessel or crucible was made from a scrap piece of steel pipe capped one end & about 5 or 6" in Dia and about 8' high...crude, but it worked. I no longer have the steel crucible as it self destructed pretty quickly through corrosion.
The Simple & Basic Charcoal Furnace.
Well that's Ok I thought, this is just mucking around, or experimenting if you want to call it that, when the time arrived to pour, I just made an impression in a sand heap nearby to pour the molten metal into.... which ended up looking like a very ugly looking ingot.
My thoughts were, "that was fun" I want more of this, so the next thing I was focusing on some projects and ideas I had in mind. To cut the story short, the first casting project I did was a set of go kart wheels, two half rims for the back and the same for the front, patterns were made from MDF (Use a face mask to keep the dust out of the lungs). Made sure to put a couple of degrees of side draft on the patterns, then several coats of shellac were applied with sanding in between the coats.
Finally, the day arrived where some green sand moulds were made, the metal was melted in the old charcoal furnace, and over two or three days we had four sets wheel rim castings.... yippee,
success at last... the next job was to machine and finish the Kart project wheels.
The wheel rims are still on the Kart today, and it is remarkabe because the molten metal was not de-gassed before pouring, and the reason is that I simply wasn’t aware that degassing is an important part of metal casting... you can get away with it sometimes. But today I wouldnt dare to pour without at least a small amount of fluxing and degassing.
Now that we've discussed my very basic & agricultural looking charcoal furnace, lets look at something much more advanced... read the story below.
John Xuereb Australia.
This project was designed to be built for a very low cost and to run at very high temperature. The furnace is constructed from a 60 litre Non returnable oil drum as used in motor garages, and is large enough to take a #10 Crucible, it uses solid fuel such as furnace coke, charcoal, (Easy to make) BBQ heat beads etc, it is fan or blower forced, the trolley is made from recycled angle iron from discarded old bed frames. (You would never know).
The biggest cost is in the Refractory Cement used to line the furnace and the insulating Ceramic Fibre, for those on a really tight budget, a 20 litre non-returnable Kerosene drum or a 20 litre non returnable cooking oil drum as used in restaurants and or Fish & Chip shops (Johns idea) could be used without a trolley.
Ed Note:
As energy prices rise worldwide, charcoal & coke may once again come to the fore as a furnace fuel.
Thanks John for sharing your project.
This is an old manual "Copyright 1991" I bought it many years ago as a retirement project. The furnace was built from instructions and plans from a 22-page manual Titled:
"How To Build A Metal Melting Furnace” by J.T. Allowyn and published by "Trendline Publishing Company G.P.O. Box 1889, Sydney, 2001 Australia".
Looking down into the furnace
The furnace side
on view.
The complete mobile charcoal
furnace and blower.
Recently, my wife & I had the
opportunity to take a ride on a paddle steamer which was built back in
1911, wow,
what an experience that was. Below is a short video of the steam engine
in action... I used my old fashioned nokia 6120 Mob (Cell) phone to
take the vid, it is not hard to see how one can become a
steam enthusiast. The P S Pevensey operates from the historic port at
Echuca on the Murray River Victoria Australia. A very popular tourist
destination.
Pevensey
Pevensey
Fail
To
Succeed.
Ever heard the expression "Fail
To Succeed"? Ever felt overwhelmed by the fear of failure? Have you
ever wondered how some people acheive great success? Is it really true
that you can become an over night success?
There is no denying that it is
a challenge to succeed. If it were not, more people would be
successful, correct? For every person who happens to make it to the
top, hundreds, perhaps thousands more are still contemplating the
climb! While a large percentage of people spend most of they’re lives
struggling to get by, there is a much smaller, dedicated group of folks
who seem to have everything going their way.
But, the much larger
"contemplating the climb" group just sit in awe at how life can be so
unfair, complicated and unjust... Understand that nothing will happen
without some kind of effort!
It is a challenge to succeed:
- You need to be a good planner.
- A good dreamer.
- Be able to visualise your future finished in advance.
- You have to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments.
- You have to learn to enjoy the complete process, because challenges are a big part of your success.
We want to share
a short
movie... about the challenges we all have to overcome to succeed! You
may find that you already recognise one or two people in this movie,
click on the link below, turn your speakers
up, sit back and enjoy.
http://www.flickspire.com/m/earlytorise/FailToSucceed
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the Drum On The Down To Earth True Blue Aussie Metal Casting Know How.
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"We'll Save You"
Kick Start Your Journey
Here.
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Our
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Hobby Metal Casting Got You Beat Before You Even Begin?
Get the Drum On The Down To Earth True Blue Aussie Metal Casting Know How.
As Aussie John Symonds Say's "We'll Save You"
Kick Start Your Journey Here.
Products - Services - Or Knowledge?
There is a right way & a wrong way to go about it.
proven, effective sales methods to close more new sales everyday.
Click Here to download your free report.