Metal Casting Zone

Third time's a charm. Not perfect, but good enough to put the ring and cover together.




The second attempt I didn't make the risers on the top of the mounting ears large enough and got a pretty bad shrink.


Third try I enlarged the risers considerably and covered them with a small piece of plywood with a hole drilled in it to act as a kind of cover to maybe keep a little heat in the riser. Think it worked pretty well.


And this (hopefully you can see it, the risers kept wanting to get in the shots) is the very minor shrink on the third one, I don't know if it is shrink, or I just deformed the sand a bit when i scooped out the riser.

Here's some links to the moldup. I used my 14" flask to do it, gave me just a bit more room to play with. Note from the first try I went to two wider and thinner ingates instead of more numerous smaller ones. Surface finish was pretty good as well, I tried to pour as cold as I dared since it is a pretty thick part.

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t54/OddDuckFoundry/hhrmoldupstart.jpg

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t54/OddDuckFoundry/hhrmoldup2.jpg

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t54/OddDuckFoundry/hhrmoldupcopeddown.jpg

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t54/OddDuckFoundry/hhrmoldupdraghalf.jpg

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t54/OddDuckFoundry/hhrmoldupcopehalf.jpg
Surface quality was quite good, I poured as cold as I dared due to the relatively thick section of the mold. I need a larger clay crucible, though, the aluminum one with the risers weighed out slightly over eight pounds.

Looks great!!! Bet it broke your heart to have to throw sand on to of that pattern.
lookes like modern art, im sure it will be hanginging on a wall long after were all gone.

Believe it or not, A1, that is the exciting part to me. I have never been much for art for art's sake, if a machine is beautiful as well as functional all the better as far as I am concerned. The old patternmakers and machine builders don't get enough credit for the beauty of what is in essence functional sculpture. Look at an old lathe and the curves of the covers, legs, spokes of the wheels and gears, etc. Now those old patterns are sold as "industrial art", hanging on the wall of some avant-garde flat in the middle of New York to be oohed and aahed over instead of being used as the way they were intended. What a shame, really. I suppose at least they are appreciated somehow by someone. Okay, soap-box moment over.

LOL I know what you mean, and i have bought a few of those old patterns off e bay and put them back into service thats where my flywheel came from, but i cleaned it up when i was done with it and hung it up as art also

excellent work. next the cast iron finished product. are you going to do the cast iron or get a larger foundry to do when you have all the patterns done?

A1, says something about the skills of those old patternmakers that you can still use that pattern after god knows how many years.
XL, I will be doing the iron myself, that is half the point of the exercise, to finally be a cast iron capable foundry. My furnace is up to it, I just have to get a crucible that can stand up to iron and a few more bits of safety gear and I'm in business. There are only two other iron capable foundries in the state that I know of, one is a big commercial foundry, and the other is a small operation that does stove parts. They would both probably charge an arm and a leg to do it.

I have to start casting in Iron..... have to see how odd duck makes out first.
and how well his crucible holds up
I did find out one thing though, my kiln does a heck of a job melting al

that will be great odduck to see how you go. i guess its not long now. is there a recommended grade of iron for steam parts??

After a brief hiatus, I got another pattern kinda done and made another casting for the Lombard, this one is the number plate that goes on the front of the boiler, the original is long gone, and this one is based on another original on the Lombard in Ashland, Me. The one in Ashland and the one the museum is re-doing are thought to have been built at around the same time, so Mr. Lynch figured that one number off the one in Ashland would be safe. These things weren't serial numbered per say, so once the number plate is gone it's a matter of conjecture as to what the actual number is. The one in Ashland is #39.

This is far from finished, this is about five minutes after it was removed from the sand. I don't have a pic of the wood original pattern. The biggest pain on this was the lettering, I had to search every font I could find to get even a close match, and then had to cut each individual letter out of 1/8" balsa. I've got to find a better way of replicating letters. This way sucked and took a long time, and I'm still not perfectly happy with the results.
I am going to take a dremel to this, clean it up and do some minor adjustments, and use this as the pattern for the next one (or multiples, I had an idea that selling copies of these would be a good fundraiser for the museum). I am going to try and get the other cover and ring done in the next couple of weeks, and try to cast them in iron by the end of November.

Looks great to me, keep in mind it should look 100 years old and not new so some imperfections may actually be desireable