>Do you even melt, bro?I did my first casting today, I'm totally a foundryman now. My first two melts earlier in the week I made some ingots, just melting soda cans. >>2783890Yesterday I made my first flask from a spare fencepost, and some greensand from sifted playsand and a mix of sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite. Yard marking calcium carbonate as parting powder, worked great. Designed a little ashtray in Fusion360 and turned it into a pattern. I did a pretty bad job but I was impatient and really wanted everything ready to do this casting today. Rammed up fine, might've been a little dry, but just barely. Worked out okay though, very happy with the result after a brief cleanup.Do you scrap? Stack? Do you sell signs on Etsy? Do you sand cast? Investment casting? Do you like huffing zinc fumes and snorting silica powder? Show me your furnace, show me your castings.Sand and jpeg compression don't get along.
hat my foundry covered all winter with a mortar tub. had a look last week and fucking mice nested in the fiber blanket layer, tore it all out into the burn chamber.its unironically ogre and i didnt test my 40kw syphon nozzle once
I'm not one of the nuts who cares about pushing garbage off of page 10, but I am autistic enough to wonder why you didn't continue in the thread you were already blogging in.
>>2785927I considered it, then I drank a few beers and made an aluminum ashtray, so here we are.
>>2785931your gate design is trash by the wayyou have a step down from the gate to the part bottom which is not bueno, especially for aluminum.locate the gate deeper than the cavity so it has to completely fill up before it can even fill the mold cavity, that gets rid of a lot of velocity. professional foundrys even use ceramic filter between gate and cavity. easiet way to achive that is put both gate and part at the split line, and have the funnel and ashtray both in the cope, casting it upside down so to speak
>>2785935>and have the funnel and ashtray both in the copefucked that one up, the funnel is in the cope obviously but the gate in the drag
>>2785935>your gate design is trash by the way>I did a pretty bad jobYeah when I first put the pattern in the flask I realized how fucking stupid that was, but it made it easy to fit into this shallow flask. I just rammed another, gonna go fire it up and pour one.
Oh no, the sprue collapsed as I went to pour. So I just poured through the fat feeder in the middle. Got the job done, but noticeably worse than the first one, way more porosity on the surface and plenty of sand stuck here and there. So instead of the file and sanding sponge, I just hit it with the bench grinder, wasn't going to try polishing the turd.
Just how difficult would it be to make a silicone wafer using eBay parts and stuff from the hardware store?
>>2785999Easy as fuck. You can just squirt some silicone onto a flat surface and smooth it out, wait for it to set, there's your silicone wafer.
>>2785935I decided to see how "big" I could go despite my shallow flask, while still filling entirely from the bottom. Shitloads more that could be done of course, but this was a fun and simple attempt. It's on the printer now, I'll cast it tomorrow morning. I don't know why I'm still making ashtrays.
man just wants to castdoesn't care whatjust castcastCASTCASTCASTis it possible to do something like the nasa chainmail you can 3d print or is that too defined?i've always wanted to do shit like this (yeah no excuses)
>>2786020>is it possible to do something like the nasa chainmailAbsolutely, but challenging. A resin printer and investment casting, maybe vacuum casting. It'd be some work to sprue it well and have it work, but yeah I think that could be done.
>>2786007careful anon. small flask might work for low density shit like aluminium, but if you ever move on to heavier stuff then you need a heavy and weighted flask, otherwise the weight of the liquid metal will push the sand up. bottom feeding is definitely the way to go, just make sure you calculated the gate cross section to match the funnel and feeder
>>2786007I said fuck it and made it a double. Went pretty good. A little small, feels like a hotel ashtray. Time to build a bigger flask.
>>2785924You are the guy burning motor oil with a leaf blower right? I think your project is neat and part of me says that I should try it but another part of me says 3rd degree burns
>>2786342Do it. Leather gloves, leather boots, leather spats, leather apron, respirator. It's a riot, highly recommended.
>>2786347>Leather gloves, leather boots, leather spats, leather apron,You joined a fetish club...
>>2786399It's hot, sweaty, fumes and gases abound, you handle everything with special tools, you are guaranteed to get dirty, fuck-ups can cause collateral damage, and you deeply regret the mistake of touching something with an ungloved hand. I can see the similarities.
Figured I should do a sand rammer, that's what the internet people do. I've been using an ice-cream scoop, just felt natural. I've never felt more prepared to pound sand.
>>2786342Here you go buddy, I burned myself today. I brushed up against my iron stirring rod after using it to mix salt into the aluminum when everything was about 1300°-1350°F. It just brushed away a layer of skin, doesn't even feel like a burn. Hurts less than a bee sting. Pepsi for scale.
>>2786658>pink dildo
The weather was terrible yesterday, worse today, no casting with 20mph+ winds and 50mph gusts. Hopefully nice enough tomorrow to try new pattern, this one should be fun.
I love burning oil.
Made more flasks, almost. The new ones don't have guides/pins or anything. Tomorrow I'm going to cast some, obviously. Made a Canadian ashtray for some fag I know who fucking loves maples leaves, turned out kind of shit but it'll get the job done. The grips panels turned out excellent, including the little undercut on the left hand grip. Doing whole patterns as plates is just so fucking nice, so much more convenient than dealing with loose patterns. Insert pattern, pound the drag, pound the cope, done, love it. Tomorrow, one pattern to cast, then back to melting more cans. I've thousands to get through.
This fascinates me but I’m far too afraid of getting burned to do it myself. Thanks for sharing OP.
Aw shit, here we go again.
>>2788590One bucket down, one to go.
>>27885911 dozen wittle ingots, each around 180-220g.
>>2788596Pretty shit, but 100% usable. I like 'em.
>>2788598This makes me happy though. I still have a shit load of cans to get through, probably another 8 buckets worth. Will I get another 48 ingots? Guess we'll see~
>>2788601based ingot autist
>>2788601nice ingots
how many times can you smelt aluminum before it becomes shit?or does it just shrink in quantity each time?
>>2789001As long as it's not contaminated by some other metals it's easy to scrape off the dross.
>>2786399https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uOBveFKdGs
>>2789001You lose a little bit every time, some gets scraped out with other impurities, some is lost to oxidation, but there is no limit to how many times you can melt it. It doesn't denature or degrade.
Today, I made a little pot, around 12oz/350ml.
>>2789093It didn't go well. Tomorrow I'll smash it with a hammer and re-melt it.
>>2788601What can these be used for? Easier storage of materials for future projects or something else?
>>2789165Just that. Melting cans is inconvenient as fuck, it takes a lot of time and a lot of dross scooping. So I do a lot in a big batch and make ingots, then I can use those as material for other projects. Everything I've posted in this thread was cast from ingots which were made from melting cans. There are people who actually like melting scrap and whatnot just to make ingots and collect them, that alone is a their whole hobby. The ingots really have no other value, scrap metal recyclers don't like mystery bricks, it's aluminum so they're very lightweight, and being mixed alloy from cans they're quite soft and weak, you could stick one in a vise and and tear it in half with a hammer.
>>2789095did you forget to vent
>>2789165brain see ingot happy chemical
>>2789172Why don't you get better alloy like scrap car parts? Any auto salvage yard would sell broken parts they're scrapping anyway.
>>2789284I already have a pile of aluminum bits and bobs like intake manifolds and control arms. I've been doing this for less than two weeks, I wasn't going to start with the good stuff. The cans are free, my fuel is free, and I enjoy the process, so melting down shitloads of cans for little projects is fun. I'll save the better alloys for when I'm making shit that actually matters and actually has to be good, but this is perfect for making trinkets, gifts, and simple tools.
>>2789310>but this is perfect for making trinkets, gifts, and simple toolsthats where youre wrong, can alloy is made for cold forming and not casting.you are cucking yourself clinching to those and since a pour is a lot of prep work and success by far not guaranteed it is idiotic to refuse to use a proper casting alloy
>>2789316>thats where youre wrongYou're mistaken. I've already been happily and successfully using it for trinkets, gifts, and simple tools. Post your castings or enjoy your larp.
>>2789327now go fuck yourself>>2785925 but im done for now with the hobby>and successfully >>2789095 why you think that happend
>>2789333Wow, that looks almost as nice as some of my castings.
>>2789334those ridges are 0.1mm layer lines from the pattern
I love it when things fit perfectly the first time. These grips were done at a thicc 0.24mm so the layers are extremely obvious. Knocked it down with a file and 60 grit to give it a consistent and smooth texture, feels great in the hand.Jannies: It's obviously a plastic toy, not a gun, don't have an aneurysm.>>2789344Why is yours so porous? Is that a feature of the casting alloys you prefer? jk I'm just giving you shit nigga. Post more castings, that's what the thread is for and apparently you're the only other person on /diy/ who isn't afraid of "hot" things. (Apparently 1200F is hot to some people) I'd genuinely love to see more of what you've made.
>>2789345>Why is yours so porous?because the part is like 5 cm long? most of those pores are the diameter of a pin needlehere is me scavenging the material. the entire rim was turned into "ingots" (angle iron pour)hottest i ever went was 2200f because i wanted to make something certain, never was interested in aluminium, that was just the proof of concept so to say. Then mice ate my foundry over the winter. There are anons here with far more and greater achievements, i failed midway. will revisit once i have a new shop where i can make a permanent setup
>>2789359>because the part is like 5 cm long?Nigga I was just joking, I've got no criticism for the only other anon to share a casting.Aluminum is all I'm really interested in, but I have a few dozen pounds of junk brass, and even more of bronze, so eventually I'll bite the bullet. Probably just turn the brass into a handful of large drifts, I wouldn't mind a 3/4" - 2" set of foot long drifts. Don't hesitate to share when you get back to it, anon.
>>2789361right is what happens if you dont check tempsleft is what happens when you ram up your mold with a print and still warm sand...
>>2789367Oh damn, seeing the surface left from the overheated pattern is interesting. I've only ever seen it on actual prints before so seeing it reproduced in metal like that is a little surreal.
>>2789368also bent like a banana
>>2789172Interesting. Thanks anon.
>>2786667ah yes, I was unfamiliar with the typical size of a human arm so the pepsi can was very helpful
>>2789327I'm not >>2789316 but switching from wrought alloys to casting alloys will may a night and day difference. But I don't disagree with learning what you are doing with cheap scrap first. I pay about $3/lb for automotive scrap. In truth it's been quite a few months since I've cast anything though so some of the old /metallurgy/ lurkers will probably recognize the picture, been busy playing with the Bridgeport mostly lately.
>>2790220Here's a newer one I don't think I've posted before.
>>2790220I've enjoyed your posts before, I remember Basil's, but not the Madonna.
A couple ingots and couple sprues going in for the initial melt. This thing really gets hot in a hurry. Nice and sloppy, I never want to stop pouring.Here's a bonus, a little fire and noise going from fuel off and sputtering to full tilt and back down again. Turn up your speakers, hear the joy. >>>/wsg/5524187
>>2790942ingots ingots ingots ingots ingots
>>2790947As for the casting, I'll share when they've been cleaned up. Fun stuff.
Forgot the gore update. This would probably be healing faster if I hadn't used the wrong bandage and ripped off most of the scab, oops. Ingot for reference.
>>2790947>a fortune in graphite moldsyikes anon, the professional hillbillies use angle iron pansthe one i used wasn't even that fancy, just a piece with one side welded shut and placed at a slight angle. millscale and rust acts as anti stick
>>2791164>a fortune>$38yikes anon, I can't imagine being so poor
Hey anons, is there a good place to order tongs from? Everything I've seen is Chinesium. I'm looking specificially for tongs to safely lift a crucible and a pair with some sort of retainer for safer pouring.
>>2791654>Everything I've seen is Chinesium.That's why I made my own. They're shit, yet somehow still cheaper, more robust, and safer than the import crap.
>>2785972Are these air hockey paddles? I really don't know what I'm looking at.
>>2789996That's an arm?
>>2791795Ashtrays.>>2791796If you want it to be.
Fucking weather god dammit. I have 3 patterns ready and I want to melt. It's supposed to rain continuously today, and possibly more tomorrow. Guess I'll stay in and crush cans.
Nice day, shame I didn't have more time, only did one pour.
I really love this part, splitting the mold is very satisfying.Bonus Youtube ice block meme: >>>/wsg/5530216
Fresh cast compared to 2 minutes with a file and a sanding sponge.
I'm a pewtercel do I get to post hereHow do I get a smooth finish on casts in silicone?I know it's possible because some parts of my casts look pristine but other parts have a rough sandy finishis it a temperature thing?
>>2793087I've never cast pewter. Pictures, nigga, pictures.
Pick up a spin caster and cast like a real nigga
>>2793413?????
>>2791796it's his weenis
>>2785931why the fuck are you posting here. no one cares about your fucking blog posting boomer ass.
>>2793532>HE DOESN'T MELT
>>2793508https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-I0l5Rh0wg
I like these a lot, I'm very happy with them and will be making many more. Chinese Airshit gun for /diy/
Oh boy is it time to melt? Fuck no, it's been raining for a week, but I'm going to do it anyway like a retard.Mulling sand is fucking exhausting. I wish these cunts on Craigslist would stop asking full price for Harbor Freight cement mixers. "It takes 5 hours to assemble one of these so I'm saving you a lot of time!" Soon though. For now, I do it entirely by hand in a couple of buckets with a mesh strainer and a spray bottle. It's only ~50lbs saturated, it's not a lot, yet.
>>2789361The split-head style mallet which takes pucks (whatever material you like, mine are UHMW, copper, rawhide, and lead) is so useful I have several. https://www.thorhammer.com/product-category/hammers/split-head-hammers/You could cast the clamp halves from brass and some inserts for a very nice non-marring custom hammer (if you miss a strike the clamp portion won't do more damage than your insert).
That was a close one, emptied the whole crucible.
Be glad you can't smell this, I absolutely hate the smell when removing a casting from the sand. I think it's the wood getting steamed, not sure. This casting turned out great, dirty but aside from that I'm totally happy with it. Gotta clean it up and decide if I want to make any changes before I cast another one. It'll be a nice little aluminum flask for casting small junk.As an aside, I finally took some measurements and did some math. The Amazon peristaltic pump tops out at 385oz or ~3.01 gallons per hour, putting peak output in the neighborhood of 345,000-385,000 BTU/hr. At the setting I've been using to melt Aluminum, it's pushing 172oz (~1.34gallons) per hour, so around 154,000-170,000 BTU/hr. I was worried about getting enough heat out of this thing originally, but it looks like it could handle a furnace with almost twice the volume, or heating a 9001 square foot warehouse.
>>2795534This is a very fun idea and it's definitely going on the list.
Love what you do! I always been interested into melting silver coin and sell the ingots. I can get 1$ silver coin for around 5$ containing 90% silver and weight at 26grm, so potentially around 24gr of silver into each of them(i let you check the price of 1gr of silver), should i quit my current job and start melting silver coins instead? If yes where do i start in my new journey?
>>2795730Jokes aside, fuck no. Bring down a silver ingot you've made yourself and see how much the silver and gold recyclers will give you. I'll save you the trouble: it'll be around $5 if they're willing to take it at all.
Anybody ever cast titanium with success? I have just dabbled with Bronze a couple of times.Titanium seems to be bretty complicated.It is just that I can get titanium medical implants that are otherwise thrown away and it just seems like a big waste.
>>2797006As I understand it, casting Titanium is a lot like casting Stainless, it's really not worth pursuing at a DIY level. The temperatures involved are extreme, and the material itself is unstable and highly reactive at those temperatures. The difference between a 2200F furnace and a 3200F furnace is massive. Commercially, it's melted in an arc-furnace under full vacuum when it's cast. At home, I think the most you could hope for is melting a teeny crucible under full argon shielding with MAPP gas, and even then I'd be fairly nervous to do so, it'd be very easy for it to turn into a smoke show.
Good day, but very long, and still not enough sunlight to do everything I wanted. Finally got my hands on a cement mixer, big fat 3-and-a-half cubic foot Harbor Freight import piece of shit. Good god it is loud and obnoxious, the neighbors are going to fucking hate this thing. It has no problem tossing around 100lbs+, the size is great, it's easy to move, I'm happy with it. So to get started I'm making better greensand, I'm graduating from the shitty 20 mesh (840 micron) kitchen sieve to an 80 mesh (177 micron) sifter, and no surprise it's a hell of a difference. I'm glad I get my sand for free because the yield through this finer screen is piss-poor. For comparison, commercial greensand is typically 240-120 mesh (60-125 microns). I'm starting with 20lbs, and a pound each of sodium bentonite and calcium bentonite. I need some heavy balls to toss in the cement mixer, I'm looking for some cheap used shotput and/or bowling balls. Maybe I'll try casting some solid 5lb aluminum balls? For now I'll just toss a box of ingots in there, that'll be good enough for the time being. Tomorrow should be fun!
New day, new furnace lid, new sand, new levels of disrespect for molten metal.
Damn this new sand really made a difference. I need to fuck with it a little more, I think it needs more sodium bentonite but we'll see after a few more rounds of mulling. Mostly I just need more, it's going to be fun digging up and sifting half a ton worth of sand just to sift out another ~100lbs of good fine stuff. Maybe I'll just buy some, but I can only purchase as fine as 90 mesh locally and for an unattractive price at that, not very appealing.
New sand on the left, old sand on the right.
>>2797673Quite the difference. Thanks for sharing anon.
>>2797299>I need some heavy ballsWell shit, I lucked out, a friend sourced me some actual iron balls from an antique ball mill, 140+ years old. We're figuring out delivery now, but I'm probably looking at 50-100lbs worth of iron at a steal of a price, I'm very excited. >>2798010More to come when the weather clears!
>>2797299Try molasses sand: https://simplifier.neocities.org/casting
>>2798954I've seen a bit about molasses sand, looks like an interesting and accessible option. There was an old paisan on Youtube who messed around with it some, and recently talked about his molasses sand mix which included calcium bentonite to improve the hot strength. Excluding the sodium bentonite of greensand prevents the balling/clumping, so supposedly this molasses and calcium bentonite sand mixes readily without mulling. I may try some at some point, could be fun.
i enjoyed reading your blog.
It's been raining for almost 24 hours and is supposed to continue for almost another 24 hours. Fuck you nature, I want to melt metal. I'm building up a pile of patterns just waiting on the rain. If I'm lucky I can squeeze in a melt later during the afternoon lull if it manages to clear up enough. Got a new resin printer, it's been years since the last one died. Resin printers are cool but I don't really enjoy the process. Doing this though I've no excuse, so I picked up a Saturn 3. Seems like all that's changed since I was using a resin printer in the past is that the software is even more cucked than before. Resin slicers leave a lot to be desired and all want to charge you for normal features, it's pretty fucking gay, especially the locking out and diminishing of features that existed previously. I wish PrusaSlicer's resin printing support wasn't such trash, it'd be nice to have a free and opensource option that isn't filled with buttons and features that take you to a pricing page. Between PrusaSlicer and UVTools it really seems like all the pieces are there to build a not-shit resin slicer.The iron mill balls are a game changer for the cement mixer, I can mull huge amounts of sand very quickly and easily, works a treat. Next I need to make a screen attachment for the face of the mixer so I can use it to help me sift fine sand. I'd like another ~150-200lbs, but that'll take far too long just sifting it by hand. >>2799091Glad to hear it, thanks anon.
Barely had enough time to rock out the one before the rain started back up and I had to scramble to put things away. This is the first with a pattern off the new resin printer, and it turned out just fabulous. New drilling rig worked great for the front face, but I fucked up and all the rear holes are off by a millimeter, oops. Weirdly, this is the first set of grips I've cast that distinctly warped due to shrinkage. Very slightly twisted, so slight I just corrected it with my bare hands, tiny adjustment. Next I'm going to grab a benchtop belt sander to make for easier cleanup, I really dislike using my grinder on this soft and gummy aluminum. Maybe I'll use it as an excuse to grab a buffer at the same time, not sure. I'd prefer it to polishing with a rotary tool, but I've not experience with a benchtop buffer, I don't know that it's really the tool for the job? So much more shit to cast. Hopefully it's not too wet of a summer.
>>2800546Wire wheels or even just a steel brush are good for shining up aluminum castings.If you use a bench grinder for aluminum, just be sure to dress your wheel often. There's a low but non-zero chance if you build up a bunch of aluminum in your wheel and the wheel will explode on you. And more importantly it will take longer to grind.
>>2795580This is good stuff anon. What pump do you use? And how do you get the furnace hot enough to burn the oil?
>>2800755I get it going with a little handful of charcoal. I use a propane torch in front of the blower outlet and the charcoal gets fully lit in only a few seconds. When I've got some good hot coals, I slowly start ramping in the fuel and stirring the coals a bit. Takes a couple minutes to get hot enough to turn the fuel up the rest of the way. Quick process, about 5 total minutes to get it going, about 15 minutes total to melt a significant load.The listing for the pump I bought is long dead, but it's just the generic 12v "100ml/min" peristaltic you can find all over Amazon/eBay/Ali in a variety of colors. They're impressive, these cheap little shits can produce over 20PSI, but their flow ratings are fucking nonsense. The pair I bought will happily push ~200ml/min of waste oil, close to 300 with water. Here are some examples of the ones I use:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BB7JXQSRhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/256373671485https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806278620257.htmlIf you want to try it yourself, I say either buy the cheapest one you can, or buy one that's actually rated to flow over 200ml/min. As I understand it I'm a little lucky with the ones I got, these little pumps are apparently not very consistent.
Ah shit, here we go again.
Camera overheated before the furnace started to really warm up, but this at least shows going from cold to burning oil.
I've wondered if I'm keeping my sand too wet, so I left it a little more dry for this mold, regrettably. It broke out pretty badly, and nearly just fell out of the flask when I went to demold the parts later, definitely a little too dry.
Just beginning to warm up a bit, ~25% throttle.
Mmmm that's nice.
That's some nastiness, but nothing a file won't solve in short order. Once the sides are smoothed out I'll jig it up on the drill press and get everything finished out.
I want to cast a titanium ring in my backyard. Something simple, with no intricate patterning or anything. But I understand it's incredibly difficult to get it to melt, let alone get any feedstock. What am I in for?
>>2800976>What am I in for?Failure. Ti has a higher mp than iron, you'd either need to build an arc furnace or an induction furnace to reach the required temps
>>2800976>>2797063
>>2793532i care
