Welcome to the forum, just north of you in Greely. Very nice work, please continue to amaze me/us with your creativity. The Jack o lamp is a great idea made from something so simple very nice stuff.
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New member - Ottawa area metal caster
- Thread starter Tobho Mott
- Start date
Tobho Mott
Member
Interesting patterns jcdammeyer, looks good, whatcha making? Are those 3D printed? My 3D printer hates me for trying to make it poop out foundry patterns.
Speaking of patternmaking, I saw what has to be one of the most incredible collection of flawlessly beyond restored antique English patternmaking machine tools on the planet this past Saturday at the Great Canadian Rust Junkie Fest here in Ottawa at Jack Forsberg's workshop, aka the Wadkin Temple. Which actually belongs in an elvish village in Middle Earth or something. It's almost too much awesome to bear. Only my 2nd year attending, but I'll be there every year I can going forward.
Greely eh? Small world, wow, in the.few hours I've been here I've found multiple local contacts already. Combustible herbage here who's a 20 minutes drive from my place, plus slow-poke who's apparently about 3 blocks from my mother in law's house! Surprising.
Hello & thanks to all the rest who've popped in to say hi as well!
Jeff
Speaking of patternmaking, I saw what has to be one of the most incredible collection of flawlessly beyond restored antique English patternmaking machine tools on the planet this past Saturday at the Great Canadian Rust Junkie Fest here in Ottawa at Jack Forsberg's workshop, aka the Wadkin Temple. Which actually belongs in an elvish village in Middle Earth or something. It's almost too much awesome to bear. Only my 2nd year attending, but I'll be there every year I can going forward.
Greely eh? Small world, wow, in the.few hours I've been here I've found multiple local contacts already. Combustible herbage here who's a 20 minutes drive from my place, plus slow-poke who's apparently about 3 blocks from my mother in law's house! Surprising.
Hello & thanks to all the rest who've popped in to say hi as well!
Jeff
Those patterns are a combination of wood and 3D printed bits. They were for the Pneumatic Power Drawbar that just didn't work to my satisfaction. Life has gotten in the way for casting my 4th axis mount. It's 3D printed as several pieces, glued together and then fixed up with bondo, primer and paint.
Seems to pull quite well. I've now figured out an approach to gate this. My biggest project was the Gingery Lathe.
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Welcome from the Okanagan.Pics of some stuff I brought to show off when I did a casting demo for the National Capital Network of Sculptors a couple months ago with a friend and former.student who's in tight with the network's current president.
Some examples of wooden and cast aluminum patterns, and some finished castings made from them...
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Cast aluminum matchplate patterns with masters and castings, sand rammer patterns and completed "pound sand" rammer, belt buckles and a brass marking gauge with pattern...
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Original vintage brass foundryman buckle on the left. Middle is an aluminum copy I cast from the original and modified to make a pattern. Right is a bronze one I made for me to wear.
The small bronze castings on top are 1918 Alan Herschel carousel horse stirrup strap holders. Leaning up against the world's least used permanent matchplate pattern for casting wooden horse stirrup strap holders.
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I made another aluminum buckle pattern off the original that I then milled the foundryman detail off of to get a customizable buckle blank pattern. I was working at the blacksmithing school at the time and we were supposed to be able to sell some swag at the school's Comicon booth (which sadly happened a few weeks after they laid me off). Our leather teacher assured us we could get away with selling up to 5 of an item with unlicensed corporate branding on it (not a lawyer don't quote me on that), so I came up with this. Oh well, it went to my neighbour in the end, he is a great neighbour and puts punisher skull on all his cars and bikes, so he loves this thing.
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Lost foam bunny rabbit castings. Just messing around really, but I do kind of like the bronze coat hook bunny head with the tusks and horns.
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More lost foam casting experiments. The pear shaped man is actually a lost Cheetos casting.
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Jack-o-lamp. Definitely not CSA approved. Pattern was glued up from the cut out face sections of 3 styrofoam jack o lanterns purchased at Michels on November 1.
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I really don't mess with the lost foam casting on more than a for fun level, I'm really a sand caster. But it's absolutely possible to make very high quality castings (machine parts etc) using that method, as well as this kinda goofy stuff.
Cast aluminum very small production run matchplates for pattern rappers, sprue covers, and the wooden horse parts I still don't know why I put that much work into. The shoe is just a 3d printed pattern from a 2-off job that came through a couple years ago. Dude was building a custom fancy wooden display shoebox for his client and needed shiny metal shoe silhouettes to inset into the top and bottom of the lid. I never got to see a pic of the finished box.
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I have recent pics from the sculpture project too, will come back with some of those in a while but I gotta pop away for a bit now.
Later,
Jeff
You are one serious metalworker, very impressive.
Respct!
Hey Jeff. I'm new to this forum, and also hoping to get started with some casting. I seem unable to locate on Ontario source for casting material (ingots), not scrap. I see aluminum and silicon bronze at Sculpture Supply in TO but not much else. Where do you source your metal?
Welcome aboard from Calgary Alberta. I did a lot of research on metal casting before I began welding blade smithing and a bit of machining. Casting seemed to give you the most freedom in terms of Creativity, giving you the ability to turn whatever you could carve into metal. I've done a bit of silver casting for jewelry, and casting copper with wax. I still feel it would be a great benefit, as I could use casting, to create more advanced bolsters and pommels for my knives and tools.
Tobho Mott
Member
I've bought Everdur (silicon bronze) from Sculpture Supply in the past. I still have a little. I see it's a lot more expensive now. Tempting to try alloying some myself if I can find the silicon and manganese... Bill Jurgenson told me he used to buy everdur ingots from a company called Alloy Metals, also in/near Toronto.
As far as cast aluminum, I use almost exclusively "wheelium" aka scrap CAST aluminum wheels (or most other automotive castings with some exceptions). They're almost always good quality A356. They're a pain to process no matter how you do it and you have to watch out for truck wheels that are more often forged and machined extrusion alloy. I have been caught out by a set of truck wheels before. But I've also scored a free set of aluminum wheels before. It's worth pointing out that I do test for magnesium if I'm not absolutely sure it's really cast aluminum. The sculptor I'm working with bought several huge A356 ingots from Sculpture Supply. They have to be cut up to use. Maybe alloy metals sells it too, I haven't contacted them yet though. I have also bought aluminum bronze from metal supermarkets. It's a bit of a pain to cast, especially compared to everdur. But it has its applications. I've only used it to make a few axes and some comically oversized spear points. If you peen the edges to work harden them they hold up pretty well. But homemade al-bronze works about as well, and metal supermarkets isn't selling it in ingot from.
Jeff
TorontoBuilder
Ultra Member
welcome from Toronto.
I had already been following you and have commented on a couple of your youtube videos.
Hello Jeff. Welcome from Ottawa. I am toying with casting myself - have propane cylinder made foundry with perlite+cement insulation. Works for aluminium quite well. I always wanted to have iron smelting foundry - not sure if I will be able to reach needed temperature.
Msg #25 in this thread has a damaged photo attachment. Too bad we can't edit our old postings. I'd just replace it.
As a premium member you should be able to edit msg #25.
Ah. I was looking at the top right. What's interesting is I can delete the broken photo. Insert the small thumbnail but when saved the link to the original larger one is still toast.
So instead I deleted the actual photo. Then attached again and inserted it in the same spot. Now it works.
Tobho Mott
Member
Hi! Sounds like a great setup for cast aluminum, have you got a lot of heats on that lining yet? Should last a good while for aluminum casting. Maybe we can check out each other's casting setups some day (once I get my mess tidied up).
I think you'd melt your diy lining getting iron to pouring temperature, but you could probably do copper alloys if you don't push it too hard. I've seen examples of furnaces with a similar lining that people used for years, though theirs also had some fireclay mixed in with the cement I think. Anyhow it's worth a try since you don't have to spend a fortune or even drive all the way to Milton to get more perlite and cement!
I'm still on the road to cast iron myself, but for me as much as I try to diy everything I can, 3200F rated commercial refractory is going to be part of the equation. That and my waste oil burners. I just got my hands on a new Morgan A12 clay graphite crucible too that I've earmarked for Iron, and I'm pretty excited about it (top row far right in pic). It came with a bunch of other bigger sizes crucibles too, high end but the left 3 columns are all nonferrous rated.
Now I have something I can use to pour pretty much anything that's possible for me to handle safely, solo! Might build
But before I can cast iron I need to build those new tongs and pouring shanks for several sizes, and figure out the ins and outs of the right inoculants and fluxes for iron casting... Plus get my old greensand out of storage and figure out how to maintain that alongside the petrobond in a 12x16 shed without just contaminating it all. Fun times ahead.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff.
I had about 20 melts with aluminium without any visible damage to my furnace. Not too many to have good statistics but anyway it holds up quite well. Most significant damage was from opposite temperature - cold
. Few years I left furnace outside late fall and it got a water inside. During winter freezing temperatures insulation cracked, started to crumble and falling apart. I had to rebuild it from scratch.I would be more than happy to see your setup and show mine - and compare who's mess is bigger . LOL
My interest in copper alloys revolves around bronze bushings, bearings and alike. At the same time I can buy sintered bronze bushings blanks and, with some turning, modify them to my needs... so copper alloys are outside of my needs (for now).
BTW - all you photos attachments are missing/broken,
I am interested having having some investment cast parts made. These are prototypes for production parts. The parts are dropouts for bicycle frames. I can provide the molds.
Are you able to create these for me?
I am located in the Ottawa Gatineau area.