Metal Casting Zone

Hi guys, im from Argentina, here is not easy to find good casting companies. I want to make some small proyects at home i want to casting in aluminium some blades of Swords, i mainly work with Iron, i have forge and a few tools, but never do some casting.

I really want to someone point me to the right direction, i just want to create some molds so i can create diferents size swords blades, where can i get info about that? will be great if can be made at home. because i think that 50 blades (just 10 pieces per size) will be not enough to create an production in some company!


Thank in advance
Jose Luis

Welcome. I don't really know much of anything about making swords but I thought that they were hammered and not cast?

some aluminium alloy ones are made via die casting.

THey are made for martial arts. and finished by hand.

im not sure that the finish you would get from homemade moulds would suffice. unless you were prepared to do a lot of machining. you could cast the handle!!

If you have iron working experience maybe you could make your own dies. I would be very curious to see the results. I don't know how those are created. I don't think that casting iron for the die is very feasible with a home set up because of the temp needed but I am sure someone here has that ability.

I want to casting the blade (a little bigger), and then finish it by hand, fixing imperfections, polishing...

This could be a little crazy but...
What about lost foam. You could easily work up a bunch of blades in foam if you buy the correct thickness of sheet foam at the hardware store. Cut the the shape of the blade and then cut the bevel in. could be a cool way to do this but would work best for fairly thick blades.

mctc wrote:
This could be a little crazy but...
What about lost foam. You could easily work up a bunch of blades in foam if you buy the correct thickness of sheet foam at the hardware store. Cut the the shape of the blade and then cut the bevel in. could be a cool way to do this but would work best for fairly thick blades.

well i can try it maybe i can build some kind of template / jig to make the blades fast from foam.

What kind of foam are used for taht job?

i want to use that way instead just start from an piece of aluminium, because in that way i can save more material.

(Sorry for my english), hope taht understand me.

Thanks

entiendo tu ingles.
I use that pink insulation foam they have at the hardware store for putting up in walls.

Foam selection thread:
www.metalcastingzone.com/metal-casting-forum/lost-foam-casting/lost-foam-experiment

Check out the lost foam forum for discussion of ways to cut the foam.

Are they a ceremonial sword? Do you have any pictures?
The white, beaded foam burns out the best but the blue and pink foams have a better surface finsh. I'm working on something now to cut the foam to shape and coat it with paint or varnish to use as a pattern. I think if I'm careful with it I can make several pieces in greensand and not damage the pattern.