Tuck does amazing things, the old fashioned way, just looking at the pictures of his shop which is a former high school metal shop are awe inspiring......
I’ve been on both ends of the actual casting process. Pattern making, and finishing the part. But never the sand ramming or alum pouring. He seems to have it down pat. But hey, don’t make Tuck too famous yet. I need to see if he will cast a few parts for me in trade for some old sheetmetal.
There are tons of home casting videos on youknowwhat. Safety always. The art and science of casting is literally thousands of years old. The actual equipment is simple. The type of sand and binder used can make a huge difference, coarse sand = less detail Finer sand = finer detail. The amount of work put into the pattern can be crazy, nearly like body work but again is directly responsible for the quality of the final result. Solid parts are easy. Casting hollow parts with cores gets intricate quickly. Adequate gating is essential, including a reservoir to prevent shrink defects on large parts. Large thick to thin transitions should be avoided. True story. A part of my engineering courses was a foundry class. The lab had industrial quality equipment. For a project, I made a mold pattern to replicate an antique 2-armed coathook missing from a piece at my parents. Turned out well, but it looked like a womans upper anatonomy.
Cast aluminum projects always grab my attention and there’s no shortage of them here on the hamb. the two things I see most regularly discussed is the “shrinkage” rate of your mold vs product. Which I’m sure has variables in how you’re actually making your forms etc. the second which I believe tuck actually commented on in another thread is the shape of the mold in terms of radiused corners etc to make it all play nice. Seems very straight forward and anyone with a mind for detail and ok making a few scrap pieces first would get it figured out fairly quick.
Shrink is minimal and easy to figure out- the two most important things are draft angles on your pattern and where you put your sprue and risers.. I poured 3 covers yesterday and they got better each time the last one being the best. I’m going to make some minor changes to the pattern and pour a couple more. I might take the time to make a drill guide/jig in case o do a small run. I had someone ask me why didn’t I just mill the parts on my Bridgeport? - I think the best thing about casting is being able to mass produce the parts. I can mill one pattern and then cast a dozen parts in one day. I made my own foundry when we did this at the high school and we made our own sand… you mix fine play sand with bentonite clay and water to make your own green sand. The home made foundry we made our own refractory cement using planer shavings and we fired it using McDonalds French fry oil! We used a harbor freight touch up gun to atomize the oil which we reduced with diesel. this setup I have is a reverberatory foundry- pours out the bottom- no crucible required so it’s really nice casting like this on your own. the other part of casting is needing wood working tools or a 3d printer and @Ryan you have all the wood tools to make some Bitchen pattens! Thanks for the shout out!
Saw this on Instagram. So glad you posted this here @Ryan and @Tuck . Can you tell me more or point me in the right direction for more info on the furnace/foundry?
Ryan, As you have probably seen I have been casting aluminum and have been showing/selling on the Hamb for years now. At one time I tried to make a go of it full time but found it way too labor intensive. I still cast but consider the proceeds as hot rod hobby money. I could probably make similar wages at any part time retail gig, however it is super cool to cast your own parts. I've sold to guys all over the world and it's a thrill knowing something I made is on someone elses car. My background is in product design so all the stuff I cast I have designed in 3d cad. I have a 3d printer to make the patterns. Tuck shows you don’t need to go that route and his method has been around forever. I also see that Tuck is using petrobond sand which is sand bonded with oil. Lots of guys starting out use green sand which is bonded using water. That process tends to produce a more coarse surface. There are plenty of videos on how to make your own kiln. I started out that way but quickly decided to buy a small ceramic kiln which will go up to around 2,000 F*. I typically pour at around 1250 F* It can take a while to heat up but for me that isn’t an issue and I pour outside year round ( I live in western NY). This is a hobby you can start out without investing too much money and over time invest in a used kiln and sand muller to recondition the sand. Like has been mentioned here you can get pretty fancy with cores and such. I try to stay with simple open and closed molds. Pics of what I make can be seen in my albums here. Attached are a couple pics of the equipment I use. Feel free to ask any questions, glad to help out. Dave
50 years ago in 8th grade, in woods class there was an assignment to make a pattern, we learned about draft and shrinkage. then the next semester we could take those patterns we made in woods and try them out in metals class. the school city shut down the industrial arts program at the schools or they re-located them to a career center. years later i attended an auction the city had for all the used equipment. all of it was 3 phase but it brought back memories
The foundry I have is called a Mini Mite and unfortunately I don’t think this company survived Covid. You might be able to find one used. You can make them or buy one with a crucible off the interweb- I don’t have any experience with any outside of the one we made from scratch and this mini mite.
Like @silent rick I learned how to sand cast in school forty years ago. My middle school was built in the late 1940's, so a lot of the equipment we had had been used for casting various airplane and tank components during WWII. I agree with what Ryan said; it's up there with developing your own film.
My muller is also a Mini Mite. I found it on Craigslist years ago and had to fetch it from a few states away. Industrial auction sites might be a good place to look for one although there are videos out there on how to build your own.
When I got into it in college(ITS dept), ~'75 for a few yrs, iirc; the setup was gas-fired, used oil-sand, we hand-rammed everything. I think the largest cope-n-drag was ~18"x12"x6"(each). Those got heavy. The hot/burnt oil-sand was just dumped into a small barrel & broken up thru a coarse screen, then prior to ramming, was re-screeded thru a fine screen, maybe twice if you wanted a fine texture. There were some proper patterns that required cores(forget what sand was used, but it was set w/CO2 & not reuseable). These castings were usually done for later skills-learning in metalshop. While I never created any wood patterns, I did do a number of foam patterns, which required extra care in ramming. & were a once-use - if you messed-up... ;( . (One got really intricate to house a '66 Toronado rolling speedo assembly). A friend & I did lots of pouring, even for others, as we enjoyed it. We were taught safety, & that included asbestos leggings that went from knee to top of boot(almost to toes), heavy long leather apron tied tightly, heavy leather long cuff gloves(long sleeve-shirts) & face mask, + hat. Kinda hot in summertime. Critical was the pouring surface which was sand - *never* over bare concrete, & good ventilation to suck out fumes. Poured Alum at 1280-1350*F(I think, been awhile, but we experimented w/diff temps, used a proper thermometer, went to 2800*(?) & leads were a couple feet long.), but it came out of the kiln ~1400+ something, cooled off while the crucible got degassed & descummed. I always preferred two-man pour, due to some of the sizes we poured, was also safer. One-man pours were for small stuff. Not sure how I'd accomplish that today, but would like to do it again. Whole thing was enjoyable, as long as it didn't get rushed. Always checked the crucibles & the holders before each use, to make sure some other student hadn't damaged them. Didn't want sudden Alum puddles to step around... If you get the chance, do it. There are a few books written by Dave Gingery on home-casting that lead into diy metalshop equip, all are well written & well detailed. The starting kiln is simple & charcoal-fired, & small pours. Very low-buck to see if you like it enough to continue. . Marcus...
Some friends and I have a business making USA made cast iron Ruck plates. My experience is going from a small hobby idea to a patented product and full production/manufacturing. I did not do any home casting but we toyed around with it. After diving in and researching, with grey iron, it did not make sense. Aluminum may be different...I am not an expert. If you are going for small to high production, there are still foundries to work with here in Texas and can produce parts at a surprisingly low cost. When we made our prototypes, we did it all the old school way with plywood, hand tools and lots of bondo. We were able to iterate and get the look, feel and ideal weight we were targeting. We ran with our home built pattern for a while, then decided to go to a professionally built pattern which was roughly $8k. This pattern saved tons of time in grinding which reduced the cost per unit and increased speed. Tuck hit on the proper draft and other specifics...no need to repeat it. If you want to start iterating in 3D, Solid Works is a nice program. We used this to get our final design for the pattern. The weight we targeting in Solid Works was spot on with final weight of our product and the program has a library of various materials for your product. If you are going to dive into one (or a few) off projects, then home is the way to go with your own foundry. Others in the thread have great comments regarding the home built route.
You make a core box that is the shape is the core and fill it with sand and sodium silicate and then expose it to co2 and it turns rock hard, then you set the core into the mold- afterwords it crumbles out of the mold. It’s the coolest damn thing…
I tried a bit of lost wax casting in university. They stressed it was important to have a dirt floor in your foundry in case you spilled during pouring since molten metal is nasty on a concrete floor.
the cool thing about my mini mite is that it’s almost impossible to spill short of knocking it over, I have it mounted on a cart with refractory bricks. If you handle a crucible then yes you need to avoid concrete or it’ll explode/pop from the aluminum.
When I am heating up my kiln I put a few bricks on top. Any moisture in the bricks is long gone by the time I pour. I use these bricks as a surface to put the dross on after I skim it off. I never had an issue with the dross popping. I also made my own tools for handling the crucibles. One to take them out of the kiln and another to pour the crucible like a kettle.
I can't be more impressed with @Tuck's work. He seems like a guy that just approaches a project with the mindset that "other people do this, surely I can figure it out, too." I love that. Also, check out Crafty B on that social media site that ends with gram. He casts tons of stuff and has put out bunches of how to's on everything from making your own sand, foundry, the whole thing. He also does casting classes, which would be fun to attend.
I hear Crafty B is slowing down his business. His website says he will still make those awesome gas caps but only on request. He makes some nice stuff for sure.
So cool! Casting metal was one of the things I always wanted to learn, but never had an opertinity. I am envious of the skill and inginuity in making parts like this. Way to go!
I would encourage anyone who has an interest to give it a shot. You don’t need to invest a lot of coin to start. Post your progress here on the hamb if you want feedback.
Speaking of sand casting, I watched this the other night. I’m always amazed at what these folks accomplish in India and Pakistan with minimal equipment. Got briefly involved with sand casting when the company I was working for purchased a company in the UK that was making their own rotary vane compressor. Was made from cast iron, and was a fairly simple process. We transferred the manufacturing to the USA, and it took a while to find a foundry. At around the same time, the owner of the company had a business partner who was making parts for the Canadian military. He was manufacturing his own alternators and diesel heaters from aluminum castings he made on site. He had set up the company on an Native reserve near Sault Saint Marie, ON to collect grant money. Went there to check it out. Again, it was a very simple and small setup. If you put your mind to it, it will get done.
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