Metal Casting Zone

It appears that the cheap kitty litter in bags at Walmart is 100% bentonite, has anyone tried using this in green sand?
Also, how about using vermiculite in home made refractory instead of perlite???

Sparky

BTW the photo in the last pic is the hood ornament for my 1938 Morris-8. I have one but it is broken, I hope to patch it to use as a model to cast a new one... here is a pic of a similar car- not mine - YET!

Yes, I use cat litter for bentonite, It's worked well for me. I ground it up in an old blender and ran it through a fine screen. That got old so I brought 10# to work and ground it to dust in our ball mill.

Welcome, Sparky! Kitty litter works fine, like Jammer said, grind it up before mixing. Check with feed stores and well drillers, bentonite is used both as animal feed supplement and well drillers use it for drilling mud. Just make sure it is powdered, otherwise you will have to grind it up just like kitty litter. You may need a higher percentage of clay with kitty litter than you would actual bentonite.

I am not at home right now as I am "Snowbirding" in Texas for the winter. I am an absolute newbie here and have yet to cast anything, but, here is my question for today.
At home in Manitoba our farm sits over 65 feet of sand with a topsoil overburden. According to Gov. analysis this sand contains 2% silt and 4% clay. According to that I should only have to add about 2% bentonite - Am I right?
If so I will never be short of sand.
I have a 1/4 yard electric cement mixer, I am thinking a bag of kitty litter with a bunch of round stones should powder up nicely.
Sparky

Sparky, you lucky b@#$%#$. You are probably sitting on top of a natural greensand deposit. I'd try it as-is. Dry it and run it through the finest screen you can get, temper it (add water), and give it a try. You might not need a thing. The analysis didn't tell you the average particle size, did it? That would tell you (with a little help from google) what the mesh is. Anything over 80 would be super.

OddDuck!
i think you just made my day. I can't wait to get home in April to test the sand. I have used it in concrete and also dried it for use in the sandblaster....I'm not sure but I think some of it is about #140. Well! That could save me some $$$, and I can dig it up right beside my shop, would you like a few hundred tonnes????? I have 11 acres of it. We are on the spot where ancient Lake Agaziz once was, hundreds of square miles of sand.......Wow! I may have finally found a use for it..... lol

Sure. How many tons can you stuff in a flat rate box? I'd say 140 would work just fine. If it is that fine you will definately want less clay than more, it affects what is known as permeability, that is the measure used to guage how well gasses can travel through the sand, and you want it fairly porus, to allow water vapor to escape. You get interesting defects if it isn't too good. That fine means you will get excellent surface quality with brass. You lucky, lucky b@#$%$#. All the natural sand around here is about #3 mesh. Glacial till, and granite to boot. I'd have to import the fine stuff all the way from Massachusets. Next you'll be telling me you have a tree in your backyard that grows crucibles...

DUCK you sucker!!!!!
Well I haven't checked my trees because I am in Texas for the moment (getting anxious to get home) but there may be crucibles on them...
Been thinking though, there are a lot of farmers that use 4 inch dia. alum pipe for irrigation..... There are a few of them lying around that are bent, broken, or have worn out fittings, they are 20 feet long, I can probably have them for the asking....If all else fails there are beaches within 100 miles of home that they get silca sand from and bag it for sandblasting.
The other thought is, I am 3 mies from the Canadian Forces Base Shilo(Yes I am a Vet I served there for 16 years). They get thousands of rounds of expended brass casings from 7.62, 9 mm, .50 cal, 20mm, 105 mm and the rifle range has literally tons of copper jacket lead core bullets. Then there is a huge pile of aluminum from napalm bombs, and aluminum sabots from 106 recoilless rifle APDS shots..... Maybe I'll have to start casting engine blocks just to use it all.... I dont know why I am saving aluminum cans..
I have to find a source for degassing and fluxing chemicals yet, but I find there is a smelter and foundry supply house about 80 miles away.
Now I think I will run the sand through my dry washer and see if there is any gold in it before making green sand. Which brings up another problem, I'll have to build something to dry the sand after I dig it up...
take care dude.... Here is a door latch to cast....I'll have to see if I can get into chrome plating...
Sparky

Hi there. I'm relatively new to sand casting but am making great progress. I mixed my own green sand with a big bag of silica sand from Home Depot and a bag of Bentonite clay that I bought on eBay for $5. I mixed 'em up about 8.5 parts sand to 1.5 parts clay. Works very well so far, I'm getting great castings in aluminum. See my gallery for what I mean by "great" - they have a sandy texture. I'm just teaching myself and these are fine for my purposes, not sure what kind of finish you want. Either way, you could probably adapt for varying needs easily. I noticed that the pet store has super fine silica sand for lizards, that might make some nice smooth castings and there are all kinds of old-fashioned "sleeking" techniques I have read about, like dusting the inside of your open mold with fine charcoal powder.

Not sure how BIG you need to go, but I'll be set for life with that 5 pound bag of clay and a 100 pound bag of sand. So far my stuff is pretty small - maybe apple-sized. That's a $6 bag of sand and $5 for the clay. Not bad.

On the perlite, I also got a bag of that from the same Home Depot store and mixed it up with good old-fashioned portland cement as a binder of sorts. It has been working great in my little furnace. I've melted brass twice and many many aluminum melts in a home-made, charcoal-fueled furnace with that setup (also see my pics), and it is working very well, no cracks or blow-outs and the outside of my furnace is ALMOST cool enough to touch - almost. The whole thing set me back no more than $8 total!

Well it is hard to beat your prices, but i got 25 lbs. of kitty litter from Walmart for $2.60. Princess auto sells some really fine silica for sand blasting But my farm is sitting on a gazillion tons of sand so hopefully it will work out. I'll build a screen and sift it for different grades. So far I am just gathering parts and info as I am wintering in Texas. I'll be putting it all together when I get home in April.
Sparky