More work...

More Foundry Work...

Nov 2004 (Post Deer Season)...

This area is going to be where I set patterns into sand, and will be a dry location for tools, sand and numerous flasks...

Remember this is essentially a barn, or started out as one...

Nothing fancy here...

The walls got stuffed with plenty of insulation and a couple of sheets of hard board were hammered down...

This is the opposing corner of the same room pictured above...

The area was briefly shown on previous page(s) as benches and the like were being moved in.

The difference here is that it's actually being used and the benches are filled with molds ready for casting.

This is a shot of yet another pot that was contaminated with magnesium.

This image is from the day immediately after the last pot that let loose in the furnace.

Sure I'm pissed off, but I guess I just needed to have it pounded into my head through bitter experience that all this could easily be avoided...

Over a year ago Peter Hald in Denmark, emailed me with clear directions on how to test a suspect alloy for mag...

Dip a cleaned section of the metal in a bowl of vinegar, if it develops a bit of foaming it has mag, no bubbles, than no mag...

This time after having the sense to catch a quick picture, I also had the presence of mind to pull the burner before it filled with what ever Aluminum was out of the pot.

Other wise this day of casting went without incident...

Rather than waste time and effort on typical sand box configs, I thought I'd include this one as it's a bit different.

With the pieces getting larger, the feeders are also getting taller. I didn't have a flask on hand that would work, so I improvised with a 7" to 6" flue reducer that was in the "pile".

This will become a standard now as it worked great and saved me from using too much more sand than needed.

This is a pair of Ball-Cranks or Bell-Cranks for a manual mill that I hope to have operational before christmas.

After trying 3 or 4 times to cast these same items for the original lathe I just had to get a picture...

As is tradition, a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey is the reward for a day safely behind me...

Really any whisky would do, but the CC was close at hand...

The previous page featured a shaking/vibrating rotary tool in the hopes that it would aid in the removal of air bubbles from the plaster before it set-up...

I know for a fact that I saw lots of bubbles rising, but obviously it wasn't run long enough...

All lettered castings had similar defects as pictured here, but this was the most pronounced.

Eventually I'll rig some sort of table that pieces can be left on for several minutes, until all pockets are filled.

Of the standard plaque type castings these are the results of about 8 to 10 days of work.

The spiral pattern that forms the border of the upper left plaque is close to 1/16th" thick, while the groove is 1/8th" wide.

There were several other parts cast that appear in other pages, so were omitted to reduce web fatigue, and not wear them out prematurely...

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