10-07-2021, 04:00 PM
Only those who have spent weeks preparing and days executing the creation of something that could probably be bought at the hardware for twenty bucks, will understand how good it felt to see this come out of the sand yesterday.
It took so many attempts to get the pattern to pull cleanly from the sand that I abandoned the idea of pouring a test piece in ally first. I had a few attempts last week and could not get a clean separation from the sand; spent some more time on the pattern fine-tuning fillets in plasticine. Spent several hours on Wednesday this week ramming, mulling, ramming, mulling, finally got a clean separation and then poured short!!
I must have learned from the experience though, yesterday I applied all the lessons I had learned and got a beautiful clean mould on the first attempt
I scoured the shed for every last piece of brass scrap. Chrome-plated and enamelled bathroom fittings, old irrigation valves, the amount of dross was appalling! The A6 crucible was brim-full and only just filled the mould. For size reference, that's a cut-down 205 litre (44 gallon) drum that I have broken the mould out in.
Fettling and polishing next week.
It took so many attempts to get the pattern to pull cleanly from the sand that I abandoned the idea of pouring a test piece in ally first. I had a few attempts last week and could not get a clean separation from the sand; spent some more time on the pattern fine-tuning fillets in plasticine. Spent several hours on Wednesday this week ramming, mulling, ramming, mulling, finally got a clean separation and then poured short!!
I must have learned from the experience though, yesterday I applied all the lessons I had learned and got a beautiful clean mould on the first attempt
I scoured the shed for every last piece of brass scrap. Chrome-plated and enamelled bathroom fittings, old irrigation valves, the amount of dross was appalling! The A6 crucible was brim-full and only just filled the mould. For size reference, that's a cut-down 205 litre (44 gallon) drum that I have broken the mould out in.
Fettling and polishing next week.
Lathe (n); a machine tool used in the production of milling machine components.
Milling Machine (n); a machine tool used in the production of lathe components.
Milling Machine (n); a machine tool used in the production of lathe components.