Ram clamp handle

[dallen]

I know my wood carving skills suck, matter of fact they are so bad I laugh at myself when I try to carve something.

BUT I need a handle for the shaper so heres what I came up with, this along with the other two parts so far (have found at least two more) will be eventually cast in Cast Iron.

Anyway the pictures should be self explanatory, remember this is rough but I don't plan on doing to much to it other then some bondo for a fillet and to fill in a couple pretty good size gouges in the edge.







missed the full depth on the joint again but this time I used epoxy to glue it up with wood glue and paper in the split.

DA

[dallen]

what I been messing with today.

some of my molding stuff, and no I don't have a nice sturdy bench to pound molds on, I use the top of my muller from which I can dip sand and spill the required amount for the casting gods on the ground.

the green tub (actually a classifier screen) contains an assortment of pallet tools from the art store, some canoli tubes I use for sprue cutters, a couple regular slicks from Freemans supply, big heavy hacksaw blade I use to strike off flask with. and a cookie can.

whats in the cookie can

my parting dust bags one with regular foundry parting dust the other with graphite, another canoli tube and some screws, plus a pattern for and end plate for my mini mill table.

now back to the handle I started the other day. need to do some work on the dowel pins they hung up with I went to open the mold, reason for the tear at the boss end.



gating worked good no shrinks any place on the handle, part was poured a little cold, handle has that frosted look feels like 300 grit sand paper nothing that won't knock down. but if I was making them to sell it would go back in the pot.

and the pattern in the mold

[EdK]

[dallen]

looks better here

[DaveH]

I think your wood carving skills are pretty good -

DaveH

[dallen]

thanks most of the work on that handle was done with a 6 inch block plane, I had misplaced my spokeshave which is what i was going to do the work with since I don't have a belt sander (its on the list of todo's) the handle looks pretty good even though it is a little on the crude side.

DA

[dallen]

I'm thinking I don't like (actually never did like it) the handle that clamps the ram, so I finally set down and drew up a new one, this one I actually did draw on the cad program I bought back in the spring. which I think will look a lot better if I can get a friend that has a CNC Router to cut it for me.

Anyway what ya think?? I know it needs radius's in a couple places but i figure a ball nose end mill will take care of that

[awemawson]

It'll need to be in bronze to match the other one of course

Looks good to me

Andrew

[EdK]

Looks functional to me David. Go for it.

Ed

[dallen]

changed my mine, this looks better plus the router dude said he needed certain measurements so I redrew the handle.

here it is