today's casting

[sasquatch]

Interesting posting, know zip about casting , so find this enjoyable reading.

[dallen]

(12-04-2012, 05:10 PM)sasquatch Wrote: Interesting posting, know zip about casting , so find this enjoyable reading.

Sas I'm no expert at doing this, but have been messing with it for three or four years now and learn something just about everytime I make a pour. From what I have seen John aka Doubleboost is the goto guy for Brass and Bronze info, enough of that.

The mold that I posted the photo of Monday night didn't do so good, I messed around with the mold and as can be seen from the photo I removed the parts that were being used as the pattern and I guess it chipped loose the edge of the mold. Anyway when I did the top half and pulled them apart to remove the pattern there was a long strip down one edge that had chipped loose. Nothing that can't be fixed with a little filing but something that shouldn't have to be done. So for this particular part I think I will go back to the regular sand for molding them in, I have that process down pretty good where I only have a minimal amount of cleanup to do on them.
will post a photo later of the parts poured in the Sodium Silicate sand mold.
DA

[dallen]

casted a little brass part for a pistol I have been working on, new trigger guard it was a little rough so I milled some of the flash off before taking the photo. sorry but I'm not the greatest carver so I made the pattern a little on the thick side, cause I was making it from some homemade machineable wax.

[DaveH]

DA,
'Home made machinable wax' .... Mmm that sounds interesting
Nice trigger guard

DaveH

[dallen]

Home Made Machineable Wax HMMW, lets see I melted about 30 to 40 of those blue plastic tops off of 5 gallon water bottles into a pound of paraffin wax, I recommend if you do it that you do it outside on an unburnable surface.

[doubleboost]

(12-06-2012, 04:02 PM)dallen Wrote: Home Made Machineable Was HMMW, lets see I melted about 30 to 40 of those blue plastic tops off of 5 gallon water bottles into a pound of paraffin wax, I recommend if you do it that you do it outside on an unburnable surface.

Interesting stuff
A bit of advice if you are wanting to cast small brass bits.
You would be better off using bronze
Much more stable than brass (safer as well in the fume department)
I made my self ill with the zink fumes from brass i will never melt it again.
A good sorce of bronze is car gear box selector forks and blocker rings
A trip to a gear box rebuilder should do the trick
John

[dallen]

most of the yellow stuff that I melt is old bushing our of oil field equipment, theres no transmission rebuilder around here thats going to give you that type of stuff. and zink doesn't bother me to much as all my stuff is outside and all I have to do is stay upwind, but your right I got sick from welding galvanized water pipe one time, its no fun.

biggest bronze pour I have done was helping a friend pour propeller blades for his sail boat, took 75 pounds to make each pour alloy was NiBrAl.

from the way the stuff I poured this morning was ringing when I filed it I think it may of been some from some bushing out of a Drag Line that a machinist in Florida gave me a couple years ago, sure poured nice, stuff ran like water.

[doubleboost]

Bushes and gear wheels will be bronze
Nice stuff to cast and machine
John

[dallen]

(12-06-2012, 06:38 PM)doubleboost Wrote: Bushes and gear wheels will be bronze
Nice stuff to cast and machine
John

John
your right on them being good casting material, but if I gotta pay for them I might just as well go to the foundry here in the city and buy Sprue's and Runners to cast with, or to the scrap yard and pick thru their stuff. But for no more then what I do in Brass I think the pile that I have will last me a while.

Here's that part on its way to being cleaned up still have a ton of sanding to do on it.


David

[DaveH]

David,
Coming along nicely

DaveH