Metal Casting Zone

Hello all, I am new to the forum and am currently building a Gingery gas style furnace but using a "Brute" style waste oil burner. I just finished the lid last night and I was wondering about the plausability of using permanent molds for my home casting to produce supercharger brackets for my vehicle. Link: This guy here seemed to do it without too much trouble, and I have a welder at my disposal.

No one?

the forum has been pretty dead lately, as far as the mold goes it would be a bit of work to make a permament mold for a one of item. You might want to look at sand casting or lost foam. But if you have the time and materials a permanent mold would be great.

Well, I was looking to produce and sell them, but since it would take so much effort to get a permanent mold right, I think I'm just going to build a CNC router to cut foam with since I could then make damn near anything I wanted. Thanks for the reply.

I am new here too. I am casting pistons in a permanent mold. I use a simple vertical furnace of my own design with a offf the shelf weedburner. I get a full pot melted in about 12 to 15 minutes. No refractory stuff to find which in the past i found impossible to find at any builder's suppy etc so i came up with this furnace design by trial and error. It works so well i never gave the other a second thought since.I was posting on the intro section but figured it was time to move on in here. I use a hand made steel mold with a baked sand core.
Don

Here is my last cast. You can see the mold seam in the photo but it is quickly gone when machining. I also tried sand casting. Finish is much rougher and repeatabilty is zero. permanet mold they are all the same. Pouring another one this morning after breakfast.
Don

Another good one!!! I am baking the sand core for the next one right now. I filmed everything both video and still start to finish. I am hoping to pour 4 more at least today.
Don

I saw your finished piston in your photos, looks like it came out great.
I used to have a Dodge Aspen station wagon with a slant six. I thought that engine would run forever, but I got a little knock in it and then threw a rod through the side of the block.
It was a cool wagon, 3 speed standard on the floor with overdrive. I was a little hard to drive when I broke my right arm.

I finished all of them today. I poured 8 so i would have two spares. Here is where I use my slant six.
Don

Here is one finished. You would not know this was homemade. One thing though is I need to increse the size of my mold and fix ALL the imperfections. I am just missing my target size if I want a totaly machined surface and I do. Still I am happy. I have now made several pistons that look commercial. Three weeks ago it was just a forgotten dream. Now if I need something I will just whip up a mold and sand cast it (I had success sand casting bearing holders before and that is what got me back on track with this project) or permanent mold cast it. I would really like to learn lost foam process too. Maybe that will be the next try. I also wonder do people use baked sand molds or just baked sand cores. I got pretty good at making baked sand cores for these pistons. (Inside cavity of the skirt)
Don