That's what brought me to your videos - looking for info on making a propane tank foundry to melt metal. Saw your video on making your 55-gal. drum foundry, Then saw that you were using it to cast sailboat prop blades and was hooked on your SV Seeker project.
You are on the right track for sure! Having worked with investment casting for over a decade I would suggest using a slurry dip and dry on your wax. After multiple coats add thicker material (with fiberglass) follow with your insulating coat. Be sure to dry between each. I can't speak for foam as I haven't dealt with it, but the wax does a great job. You are doing a great job with what you have done so far! Can't wait for the finished product vid!
I love watching this project. Great to see all the processes start to finish. If only I lived in America, but probably for the best because I'd be there everyday.
The orientation of your pattern in the mold makes the rim of the part all the way around, equally the highest point before any breathers. It's difficult to efficiently evacuate air to a high point in this orientation. Orienting the pattern anywhere between 1-90 degrees on the X or Y axis makes for the highest part of the pattern a much smaller area of the rim, and putting your breathers directly on that spot makes for natural air flow up and out. My experience is in casting plastic resin in silicone molds but I've done some lost wax as well. Loved seeing you stick to it and make it work! I hope to make it down and contribute before you're done.
Congratulations on getting a good one at last! you deserve it!. A word of caution, when you lift the crucible out of the furnace, put it on sand or firebrick, not on the block paving! If the block paving stones have a concrete core, they could explode and fling the crucible in the air with horrible results. I saw this happen whilst installing some large compressors . we were soldering terminals onto the ends of large cables (150hp compressor motor) and using a solder pot. The solder pot was put down on a concrete motor bed to cool after we had finished, and a few moments after I walked away, the concrete exploded, shelling a thin sliver off of the motor bed, and throwing the solder pot in the air. The two guys I had been working with were burned by molten solder, not badly luckily, but had to be taken to hospital, and a few weeks off! The thought of that happening with bronze is a nightmare., Phil
+SV Seeker thats good news! some of the ones we have in the uk are concrete cores, they must be proper clay brick. love the way it is coming together. phil
You are hitting on a process I eventually used. Lost foam with 60# bronze castings but very fine surface detail to 36 grit sandpaper! We coated the poly foam pattern with a furnace repair product to give us a fine surface it also hardened the sand a bit, the casting sand was a fine grade utility sand with bentonite mixed in. Very simple and a cope and drag not needed! We did the pour at night but the plume of thick black smoke was drill overwhelming! The piece was art metal so one off was ok, otherwise a traditional pattern would be in order.
I am very happy for you that you finally have a usable capstan ! Lost foam is pretty much all they uses these days when doing complex, high volume casting for car parts. I'm not sure what they use for sand, but it is not plain beach sand.
Hi Doug, congratulations for you and Paul. First good one, go for more! Today i note the new video introduction and end, nice. You use the same PID that I installed in my pellets stove this autumn. I agree with the idea of lost foam with humid green sand. Love arrive from my work and see one of your videos.
I have watched all your video's since you started this project, very informative! I would give you 100 out of 10 for dogged determination!!!!.9(fan from England.)
I closed the RUclips app and just before it closed I saw that there was a new video from you. I hoped that it wouldn't be a casting video, because if it is I will watch it straight away, even tho it's 2:47 am and I want to sleep! :D Well here we go!
I've been following all of your videos and love this project. I am trying to talk my wife into stopping by on our way to Key west this year so I can help in some way.
That's where ya pat each other on the back, have a cold beer and a shrimp or two off the barbee, oh just have a buritto and a beer call it good..lol..I felt the karma flowing in anticipation of popping open the casting block and it was purdy awsum ..congrats on a New Mission completed..99% is good !!
Nice pour! Looks like the direct lost foam is a bit hot for bronze. (It can work well for aluminum, if you don't mind a finish a bit rougher than rammed green sand.) Your idea of a thin dip over foam should work well, as long as you provide plenty of venting for the escape gasses. You might consider tilting the mould slightly, with a beefy vent on the highest edge.
always an fascinating process!! had an idea you might consider...might require a small-scale test on the order of the one you did here... goes back to the idea of using just a thin layer of investment and a pouring cup made of sodium silicate. What if you use the sodium silicate sand around the ENTIRE foam mold instead of an investment? pack it around the foam a couple inches deep, harden it up, then pile more beach sand around that to give it support should anything break through....... seems like it might solve a couple different problems in one go (and be reasonably easy to do "in the wild"...) or maybe a combination of them all....thin layer investment, backed with harden sodium silicate sand, then beach sand what do you think?
great to see a successful pour do you only need one of these or more and maybe a silly question but is there a reason that it is hollowed inside and not a solid block ?
Hi..you can pour your investment/plaster into a metal drum just bigger than your pattern..this will prevent it from falling apart..that would be called a casting ring...also if you can heat your mold to 750 deg c (1400 f) that will burn out all the carbon and also give you a much cleaner surface finish...a hot mold will also help with your mold filling in thinner areas as the molten metal won't cool as quick when it flows through the mold..ps. you can line your metal drum with a thin fire blanket piece before you fill it with investment to ease removal after casting..I've been casting for more than 25 years but not to the size you guys are doing...hope this helps...
Its been a bit since I was in art school, the sculpture folks used some thing called "egg shell" to cast bronze. I wounder if that is the same un... 30 stuff you were playing with in your #9 video. If it is they coasted the wax with a couple of thick paint layers. Then put lose sand around that to support the sculpture for heating/burn out and poring. This is lest investment and readily available, also cheaper. If I remember right they uses the same ceramic wool wired together to encloses and support the sand.
+SV Seeker im a diecaster by trade and ive casted that shape a few thousand times before you want to pour the metal down a runner that goes to the bottom of the cast and fill's the cast from the bottom to the top and have a big riser in the center top of the hub area and vents all the way around the top rim area also if you can get some fiberglass mesh works well as a filter to pour through,the runner should start of quite thick and taper because the top will work as a riser also that runner split into a C shaped runner so it filled the cast at the bottom rim from both sides,if you need more info i could perhaps email you a diagram or something
Hey how long did it take to smelt that brass? you don't have to be on the money just around about will work. it's been raining a lot around here , so I can plan a brass smelt without worrying about rain. My crucible is about 1/2 the size of yours I would guess. I got a 10 -12 kg crucible. If mine being smaller would take a little less time to smelt, right? (I don't know much about the other low melt metals yet. Just aluminum and how to make alloys)
Is it a capstan or a warping drum? I though this was for the end of the winch. Also am I right in remembering that this is for line, whereas you've built the wildcat up in a previous video?
bloody awsome you made one! I'll bet thats a relif to get the process to work for you. Do you loose much metal with each atempt or are you able to melt vertually all the scrap back into another atempt? also you said this capstain is for chain? I've only seen them used for rope myself usually the chain goes on the gypsy which is more a sprocket type thing with groves and dimples to match the chains profile. I'd think chain would not grip a capstain drum, maybe you ment rope? great result Douge and Co!!
+Dan fish Hi Dan. We loose about 4 pounds out of 70 when the metal is in small bits. The more surface area the worse it is. Rope and steel cable will be typical but chain works too. I would like a gypsy on one of them but that will wait for another day.
+SV Seeker ah thats not too big a loss then I did think you must loose a fair bit as crud and coruption. I guess you are talking small ish chain with many wraps on the drum I was picturing big chain which would not work. its all good stuff! our capstans were steel btw and very large but I suppose steel casting is not for the back yard but it would be cheaper!!
I was thrilled by this gas cylinder system with digital gas flow and temperature control. Could you tell me the name of that installation so I know what to ask to buy. I also bake molds for bronze casting, but I don't have that system, so I have to stay up all night and be on duty by the stove to regulate the temperature, which is very exhausting.
Hey Doug, Why so small ? for being an anckor winch, won't I need to hold more chain? What size of chain are you using? I love the progress. I'm working on a couple 12 volt hyd. units for you still. I think I can give you at least 1 complete & many, many parts. But I will try for more. Thanks
Pack silicated sand in a 1-2" layer around the foam core, CO2 or air cure it then surround it with sand and cast. I suppose you could add a burnout step to empty the cavity if the foam might cause gas bubbles in the finished product.
Hats off for you Doug, Job well done & your improving your work very well! I will gave ya a like & a share & 2 thumbs up & best of all 5 Golden stars :)
cool with the PID controlled valve... Ideally you would want a flow controller, rather then a valve - it wouldn't click that heavily... but hey, it works!
A PID controller is a proportional integral derivative controller. It basically looks at the difference between your setpoint(value you want) and actual value and uses the difference, change in difference, and total distance changed to control (in this case the gas?) things.
If you burn out your mold upside down, the wax will not only flow out but also burn once it has. This reduces your fuel and speeds the process. I understand wanting something you can get anywhere, but fancy casting wax is traditionally paraffin, some bee's wax, a tiny bit of rosin, and dye. Bee's wax candle stubs are cheap/free at a lot of churches, and that's the important part. Paraffin + bee's wax is easily molded by hand, yet stable. YMMV. ;-)
Thanks for the tips. We considered burning it out upside down but decided it best not have to flip it over once it was hot. And it made a rather big fire last time we did that too.
PID, I went through all the Rockwell Automation stuff years and years ago, even before Rockwell sort of streamlined it in a user friendly package, we had to use high dollar limited lot special Analog device ic's , add in all the supporting logic to scale it all, and do the math +/-16k something something and don't even mention all the jump's/examine/ sub's to get it to even kind of work right let alone other special logic code needed to support a basic PID, I have to admit these new controlers out today do it so well and they are so cheap they really are that cat's meow to running and holding set points!!
+Swanny383 , I remember running ITT's and EGT's and Tq transducers for aircraft avionic's that just the chip to do just basic scaling and calculate to a simple 8 bit format put it on the data buss in the late 80's early 90's were $ 30- 40 for a single basic dip 14 pin chip, and some of the more complex phase x/y/z sincro stuff was well over 3-400 a chip, and we used to have to wait months to get them, and they were limited lot pieces, but today a very high end controller with USB support/Software complete with multi chan I/O's is well under 1K even a basic bare bones run by itself with LED displays are now dirt cheap, It's not red neck at all!, People take for granted really how awesome and easy these new controls are. shit some of the better controls even have learn funtions.
For that block, I think 48 hours would be the minimum. I think we went 72 or longer because we'll wait for weather and schedules. And I don't think we ever burned a whole tank of gas but that would depend on the size on the block, the insulation of the furnace, ambient temperature etc.
+Sam Carlson It's Ultracal 30, not concrete, and we did not allow a layer to setup in the bottom. We added a wooden bottom instead. The crack is the result of pouring in the metal.
In high school jewelry class we put the hot plaster molds after casting into water and the plaster just boils off the casting. No sledge hammering needed. Except the day I was sick and my teacher cast my project for me and I had to dig it out of cold plaster.
Sooner Keith It doesn't dissolve the plaster or whatever the mold is made of. It breaks from the temperature differential. In my case it was plaster and it just powderized in the water from the heat flash boiling the water that touched it.
Sooner Keith It is similar to torching wet concrete (Wet as in set but wet from rain or whatever) and it breaking thin chunks off. Or like hot glass shattering in cold water. Plaster is really soft and porous so it works great but I am sure if concrete is hot enough it might do the same, maybe not to powder but small enough chunks that it is effective. But svseeker was using plaster for those large molds wasn't he?
Sooner Keith They used the sand molds for the aluminum window things. But those molds were made in halves so the molds didn't have to be broken to remove the part. Gypsum slurry would be plaster. Looking at Wikipedia gypsum plaster is plaster of Paris which is what we used in jewelry class. The Plaster of Paris we used was brilliant white, We also used some other plaster that was less expensive. I used it for making a mold of my finger which I used to make a wax copy then made a mold of the wax in plaster of Paris. The finger cast plaster was dull and grayish and had a set time of about 30 minutes. I sat there with my finger in it for quite a while. It might have been a lime based plaster I am not sure what it was.
i work in a cast iron foundry and for the cast iron, if its make hole like that, its probably because you dont have any razer or because you casted it to hot but for that i would bet to hot.... in cast iron, no razer result in a bigger hole like a kind of cavity
Very cool and great job. I enjoy watching the learning process showing us you're as human as the rest of us.
your patience and persistence are amazing
one thing I have learned from your videos..there is more than JUST one way to do things. great video, I'm glad it's finally working.
Great set-up... cool. Looks like you have nailed it now. Great result Doug.
very cool, your casting videos always make my day better Doug.
wicked. the final product is more than workable for sure. congrat to you and Paul on this success.
You sure are mastering all the skills - that was a great result and you seem to have plenty of ideas about how to do even better. Great stuff👍
+Norman Boyes Never a master, always a student. Masters are students that got tired of leaning. :)
That's what brought me to your videos - looking for info on making a propane tank foundry to melt metal. Saw your video on making your 55-gal. drum foundry, Then saw that you were using it to cast sailboat prop blades and was hooked on your SV Seeker project.
You are on the right track for sure! Having worked with investment casting for over a decade I would suggest using a slurry dip and dry on your wax. After multiple coats add thicker material (with fiberglass) follow with your insulating coat. Be sure to dry between each. I can't speak for foam as I haven't dealt with it, but the wax does a great job.
You are doing a great job with what you have done so far! Can't wait for the finished product vid!
+Wirednoodle We have already done some work in that area. Might go back to it now that I have a burnout kiln. ruclips.net/video/nynoSOvqLIc/видео.html
Really pleased your getting it sorted. Must have been really frustrating for you all. Well done.
I wont lie, I have learned a lot by watching your videos. Thanks for documenting your engineering expertise!
I love watching this project. Great to see all the processes start to finish. If only I lived in America, but probably for the best because I'd be there everyday.
The orientation of your pattern in the mold makes the rim of the part all the way around, equally the highest point before any breathers. It's difficult to efficiently evacuate air to a high point in this orientation. Orienting the pattern anywhere between 1-90 degrees on the X or Y axis makes for the highest part of the pattern a much smaller area of the rim, and putting your breathers directly on that spot makes for natural air flow up and out. My experience is in casting plastic resin in silicone molds but I've done some lost wax as well. Loved seeing you stick to it and make it work! I hope to make it down and contribute before you're done.
+TechnicallyMagic Right on. That is what we did on the last one.
Congratulations on getting a good one at last! you deserve it!. A word of caution, when you lift the crucible out of the furnace, put it on sand or firebrick, not on the block paving! If the block paving stones have a concrete core, they could explode and fling the crucible in the air with horrible results. I saw this happen whilst installing some large compressors . we were soldering terminals onto the ends of large cables (150hp compressor motor) and using a solder pot. The solder pot was put down on a concrete motor bed to cool after we had finished, and a few moments after I walked away, the concrete exploded, shelling a thin sliver off of the motor bed, and throwing the solder pot in the air. The two guys I had been working with were burned by molten solder, not badly luckily, but had to be taken to hospital, and a few weeks off! The thought of that happening with bronze is a nightmare., Phil
+Phil Whitley Thanks. And that is not always true. I have spilled 2600F NiBrAl on those bricks many times and they have never spalled. Even wet ones.
+SV Seeker thats good news! some of the ones we have in the uk are concrete cores, they must be proper clay brick. love the way it is coming together. phil
Very nice setup on the burner system Doug. Have a Great Day ! Peace !!!
Can't wait to see it all polished up.
You are hitting on a process I eventually used. Lost foam with 60# bronze castings but very fine surface detail to 36 grit sandpaper! We coated the poly foam pattern with a furnace repair product to give us a fine surface it also hardened the sand a bit, the casting sand was a fine grade utility sand with bentonite mixed in. Very simple and a cope and drag not needed! We did the pour at night but the plume of thick black smoke was drill overwhelming! The piece was art metal so one off was ok, otherwise a traditional pattern would be in order.
Been around for little over a year now I think. Love to see the progress
I am very happy for you that you finally have a usable capstan !
Lost foam is pretty much all they uses these days when doing complex, high volume casting for car parts. I'm not sure what they use for sand, but it is not plain beach sand.
+theoldwizard998 they use oilsand because they have the equipment to break it down and recondition it a very expensive investment fir the backyarder
After the last video, i REALLY needed this one where we saw you complete that. Thanks for the upload even though it was a short video,
Congrats on the casting!!! and what a nice digital grafics presentation too. Eager for more videos. Health and joy to you all!!
Success so much sweeter after the tough lesson of earlier pours. I reckon you will soon be the experts to consult!
+Jonathan FK .Jones Never an expert. Always a student.
Very cool you finally got it to work out.
Your tenacious spirit is inspiring... Congratulations on the successful cast! I look forward to seeing more.
Doug, thanks for trying the lost foam. Nothing like trying stuff a stranger online advises, Ha.
Your part looks great, good work...
Just goes to show, where there's a will there's a way! good job Sir!
BRO!!! THAT IS EXCITING!!!
its like watching weeks and weeks of work finally paying off!!!! HECK YES!!!
KEEP IT UP DOUG you have almost nailed it
Nice one! Better and better. thanks for sharing
love seeing the progress !!!
Congrats on the pour!
Hi Doug, congratulations for you and Paul. First good one, go for more! Today i note the new video introduction and end, nice.
You use the same PID that I installed in my pellets stove this autumn. I agree with the idea of lost foam with humid green sand. Love arrive from my work and see one of your videos.
Got a big dopey grin out of me at the end there. Great work!
well done!!!! Great to see you found a way to do it!
Congrats guys! Looking good!!
Great job mate! Looking good and moving forward step by step!
Hooray! Your tenacity paid off! Btw, it's called a thermocouple.
+Fierofreak01 Didn't he write this in the video to correct himself?
+Hans Müller yep, just re watched the first couple of minutes. I must have missed it the first time around... Thanks for the catch!
I have watched all your video's since you started this project, very informative! I would give you 100 out of 10 for dogged determination!!!!.9(fan from England.)
When I get a break from school/work I am gonna have to drive up and help you for a week or 2 on this. Amazing project!!
Great job perseverance pays of 👍🏻
Nice. Good to see you guys succeed!
Congratulations on you success!
You're making great progress!
Glad you got some fruits from your labor on this one.
I closed the RUclips app and just before it closed I saw that there was a new video from you. I hoped that it wouldn't be a casting video, because if it is I will watch it straight away, even tho it's 2:47 am and I want to sleep! :D Well here we go!
I've been following all of your videos and love this project. I am trying to talk my wife into stopping by on our way to Key west this year so I can help in some way.
Fun to watch as always!!
whoa, the red caught me off guard :) , nice upgrade with the furnace control!
+landlockedviking That furnace control method is great, must save a load of gas.
That's where ya pat each other on the back, have a cold beer and a shrimp or two off the barbee, oh just have a buritto and a beer call it good..lol..I felt the karma flowing in anticipation of popping open the casting block and it was purdy awsum ..congrats on a New Mission completed..99% is good !!
Best show on the internet!
Great job guys!
Congrats on getting the job done! :D
Great Job Guys!!!! That looks like you have the basic bugs out of the production!!!
Nice pour! Looks like the direct lost foam is a bit hot for bronze. (It can work well for aluminum, if you don't mind a finish a bit rougher than rammed green sand.) Your idea of a thin dip over foam should work well, as long as you provide plenty of venting for the escape gasses. You might consider tilting the mould slightly, with a beefy vent on the highest edge.
+FXM That is what we did on the second one, and it worked great. Video coming soon.
I actually stayed up at 3:30 am UK and watched your latest video. :)
always an fascinating process!!
had an idea you might consider...might require a small-scale test on the order of the one you did here...
goes back to the idea of using just a thin layer of investment and a pouring cup made of sodium silicate. What if you use the sodium silicate sand around the ENTIRE foam mold instead of an investment? pack it around the foam a couple inches deep, harden it up, then pile more beach sand around that to give it support should anything break through....... seems like it might solve a couple different problems in one go (and be reasonably easy to do "in the wild"...)
or maybe a combination of them all....thin layer investment, backed with harden sodium silicate sand, then beach sand what do you think?
I be damn. been watching you build this boat.. and drove home Friday and saw this thing off the side of 75. didn't know you was in tulsa. cool
Awsome doug final you got it to work. here's to presesvernce
gonna experiment with your temp control system on my smoker. thanks !
Good job Doug
great to see a successful pour do you only need one of these or more and maybe a silly question but is there a reason that it is hollowed inside and not a solid block ?
Finally. Good job.
Love you guys. The naysayers, well, they would not get nearly the satisfaction from a $100 used capstan.
When you go to cast another one, please discuss what steps in the process you changed that made the casting work this time.
I learn as much from your errors as your successes . BTW I miss watching the wonderful interaction with your Grand boy learning from his "Paw Paw"
Hi..you can pour your investment/plaster into a metal drum just bigger than your pattern..this will prevent it from falling apart..that would be called a casting ring...also if you can heat your mold to 750 deg c (1400 f) that will burn out all the carbon and also give you a much cleaner surface finish...a hot mold will also help with your mold filling in thinner areas as the molten metal won't cool as quick when it flows through the mold..ps. you can line your metal drum with a thin fire blanket piece before you fill it with investment to ease removal after casting..I've been casting for more than 25 years but not to the size you guys are doing...hope this helps...
Fuck yea Doug! Seems like this part has been the biggest pain so far. Grats!
Persistence pays off.
Its been a bit since I was in art school, the sculpture folks used some thing called "egg shell" to cast bronze. I wounder if that is the same un... 30 stuff you were playing with in your #9 video. If it is they coasted the wax with a couple of thick paint layers. Then put lose sand around that to support the sculpture for heating/burn out and poring. This is lest investment and readily available, also cheaper. If I remember right they uses the same ceramic wool wired together to encloses and support the sand.
Congrats, guys
Nice! I've never seen glowing sand before.
+Greg's Garage That was a first for me as well. :)
+SV Seeker im a diecaster by trade and ive casted that shape a few thousand times before you want to pour the metal down a runner that goes to the bottom of the cast and fill's the cast from the bottom to the top and have a big riser in the center top of the hub area and vents all the way around the top rim area also if you can get some fiberglass mesh works well as a filter to pour through,the runner should start of quite thick and taper because the top will work as a riser also that runner split into a C shaped runner so it filled the cast at the bottom rim from both sides,if you need more info i could perhaps email you a diagram or something
+razzorbladz Could you post a diagram? Would be curious to see a visual representation of what you mean.
+razzorbladz Yes. I think I see what you're saying but sketch it out if you would and I'll share it with Paul. My email is svseeker@ymail.com Thanks
+SV Seeker Thanks Doug!
Well thanks guys Wish me luck with my own casting plans.
Good Luck!
Hey how long did it take to smelt that brass? you don't have to be on the money just around about will work. it's been raining a lot around here , so I can plan a brass smelt without worrying about rain. My crucible is about 1/2 the size of yours I would guess. I got a 10 -12 kg crucible. If mine being smaller would take a little less time to smelt, right? (I don't know much about the other low melt metals yet. Just aluminum and how to make alloys)
Told ya, you'd get it. So happy for your success. Basset hound karma.
Is it a capstan or a warping drum? I though this was for the end of the winch.
Also am I right in remembering that this is for line, whereas you've built the wildcat up in a previous video?
bloody awsome you made one! I'll bet thats a relif to get the process to work for you. Do you loose much metal with each atempt or are you able to melt vertually all the scrap back into another atempt? also you said this capstain is for chain? I've only seen them used for rope myself usually the chain goes on the gypsy which is more a sprocket type thing with groves and dimples to match the chains profile. I'd think chain would not grip a capstain drum, maybe you ment rope? great result Douge and Co!!
+Dan fish Hi Dan. We loose about 4 pounds out of 70 when the metal is in small bits. The more surface area the worse it is. Rope and steel cable will be typical but chain works too. I would like a gypsy on one of them but that will wait for another day.
+SV Seeker ah thats not too big a loss then I did think you must loose a fair bit as crud and coruption. I guess you are talking small ish chain with many wraps on the drum I was picturing big chain which would not work. its all good stuff! our capstans were steel btw and very large but I suppose steel casting is not for the back yard but it would be cheaper!!
I was thrilled by this gas cylinder system with digital gas flow and temperature control. Could you tell me the name of that installation so I know what to ask to buy. I also bake molds for bronze casting, but I don't have that system, so I have to stay up all night and be on duty by the stove to regulate the temperature, which is very exhausting.
I've been watching since part one ;)
Hey Doug, Why so small ? for being an anckor winch, won't I need to hold more chain? What size of chain are you using? I love the progress. I'm working on a couple 12 volt hyd. units for you still. I think I can give you at least 1 complete & many, many parts. But I will try for more. Thanks
+Mike Weiser Hi Mike. That's just a capstan. See the other videos in the series.
Victory! How many more to go?
great vids doug, they are taking over my life lol. awesome brother power to you. cheers atb
Pack silicated sand in a 1-2" layer around the foam core, CO2 or air cure it then surround it with sand and cast. I suppose you could add a burnout step to empty the cavity if the foam might cause gas bubbles in the finished product.
wish you could put out a video every other day.
Hats off for you Doug, Job well done & your improving your work very well! I will gave ya a like & a share & 2 thumbs up & best of all 5 Golden stars :)
yeay! well done...pretty depressing watching the failure but wow you are persistent!
cool with the PID controlled valve... Ideally you would want a flow controller, rather then a valve - it wouldn't click that heavily... but hey, it works!
A PID controller is a proportional integral derivative controller. It basically looks at the difference between your setpoint(value you want) and actual value and uses the difference, change in difference, and total distance changed to control (in this case the gas?) things.
Nice PID control, do you have any info on the valve used?
If you burn out your mold upside down, the wax will not only flow out but also burn once it has. This reduces your fuel and speeds the process. I understand wanting something you can get anywhere, but fancy casting wax is traditionally paraffin, some bee's wax, a tiny bit of rosin, and dye. Bee's wax candle stubs are cheap/free at a lot of churches, and that's the important part. Paraffin + bee's wax is easily molded by hand, yet stable. YMMV. ;-)
Thanks for the tips. We considered burning it out upside down but decided it best not have to flip it over once it was hot. And it made a rather big fire last time we did that too.
PID, I went through all the Rockwell Automation stuff years and years ago, even before Rockwell sort of streamlined it in a user friendly package, we had to use high dollar limited lot special Analog device ic's , add in all the supporting logic to scale it all, and do the math +/-16k something something and don't even mention all the jump's/examine/ sub's to get it to even kind of work right let alone other special logic code needed to support a basic PID, I have to admit these new controlers out today do it so well and they are so cheap they really are that cat's meow to running and holding set points!!
+Swanny383 , I remember running ITT's and EGT's and Tq transducers for aircraft avionic's that just the chip to do just basic scaling and calculate to a simple 8 bit format put it on the data buss in the late 80's early 90's were $ 30- 40 for a single basic dip 14 pin chip, and some of the more complex phase x/y/z sincro stuff was well over 3-400 a chip, and we used to have to wait months to get them, and they were limited lot pieces, but today a very high end controller with USB support/Software complete with multi chan I/O's is well under 1K even a basic bare bones run by itself with LED displays are now dirt cheap, It's not red neck at all!, People take for granted really how awesome and easy these new controls are. shit some of the better controls even have learn funtions.
+Swanny383 Stuff is getting better. :)
How much time and gas you spent for firing the mold,,,great video
For that block, I think 48 hours would be the minimum. I think we went 72 or longer because we'll wait for weather and schedules. And I don't think we ever burned a whole tank of gas but that would depend on the size on the block, the insulation of the furnace, ambient temperature etc.
is it bronze so you don't get sparks?
Enjoying!
+MrTrustafox no iron, so no sparks
Nice casting. I hate the waiting to cool part to find out if it was a good cast.
you did it! nice! i know you would figure out a way :) you always do.. awesome!
Well done.....
Like the new outro.
Did the concrete mold crack along the bottom because you let the base dry before placing the wax investment this time?
+Sam Carlson It's Ultracal 30, not concrete, and we did not allow a layer to setup in the bottom. We added a wooden bottom instead. The crack is the result of pouring in the metal.
Wonder if concrete would work if you poured it around the wax or foam?
+Mark Boys I have read about propeller blades being cast in concrete but it is impermeable and presents new problems.
In high school jewelry class we put the hot plaster molds after casting into water and the plaster just boils off the casting. No sledge hammering needed. Except the day I was sick and my teacher cast my project for me and I had to dig it out of cold plaster.
Sooner Keith It doesn't dissolve the plaster or whatever the mold is made of. It breaks from the temperature differential. In my case it was plaster and it just powderized in the water from the heat flash boiling the water that touched it.
Sooner Keith It is similar to torching wet concrete (Wet as in set but wet from rain or whatever) and it breaking thin chunks off. Or like hot glass shattering in cold water. Plaster is really soft and porous so it works great but I am sure if concrete is hot enough it might do the same, maybe not to powder but small enough chunks that it is effective. But svseeker was using plaster for those large molds wasn't he?
Sooner Keith They used the sand molds for the aluminum window things. But those molds were made in halves so the molds didn't have to be broken to remove the part. Gypsum slurry would be plaster. Looking at Wikipedia gypsum plaster is plaster of Paris which is what we used in jewelry class. The Plaster of Paris we used was brilliant white, We also used some other plaster that was less expensive. I used it for making a mold of my finger which I used to make a wax copy then made a mold of the wax in plaster of Paris. The finger cast plaster was dull and grayish and had a set time of about 30 minutes. I sat there with my finger in it for quite a while. It might have been a lime based plaster I am not sure what it was.
great video
i work in a cast iron foundry and for the cast iron, if its make hole like that, its probably because you dont have any razer or because you casted it to hot but for that i would bet to hot.... in cast iron, no razer result in a bigger hole like a kind of cavity