Found Dreaming

It may take a few pours to figure out what is wrong but when you do all of your castings will improve and as you keep at this you will only increase in you knowledge of casting and how to solve the problems that it throws at us.

nothing better then the feel of freshly mulled sand or the smell of molten metal on a sunny afternoon.

The cups are nice, I have been using a straight 1 1/4" cutter, just pack a 3" piece of pipe and push it through. I pull the cups when the metal just gets solid then use my tongs to pick the standing piece off the top of the flask before it cools enough to freeze in place.

Also, I have been using only one sprue out to air in all of my castings for a long time now. I still use blind risers when the need is there but by only having one opening through the top of the mold I only need one cup per pour and I reuse these as long as the sand holds up in them which can be quite a few pours.

With petrobond you dont have much for venting issues since the volume of gas created is nothing like greensand so no real need to have a riser at the other end of the part unless there is a feed issue you want to deal with.

I would say do one a lot hotter than you think you need to be and see how it comes out. If it fills then you know where the problem is and you can start dialing back on the temp. I had one part I was making awhile back I kept having short pours on and it just killed me because it was a big mold and a lot of work. I began running the pours 100* over what I was pouring at and the problem went away and I saw no other problems from the extra heat so from then on it was hot for that pattern.

Like david said, keep it up and keep track of any change you make and when it works do it that way

Tomorrow is Sat, my pouring day ill get some more practice in on my covers.. I have found the weekend is the only real time I have to pour, week nights are just too short, I did make some pedals last weekend, I had some hot sand and some left over melt so I grabbed a McCulloch Kart pedal (rare as hens teeth) and gave it a whirl I casted two of them came out good for a first try on those, Ill take the polished one clean it up and turn it into my pattern.

That pedal came out very nice!

good looking job on the pedal there Jeff, I know it really sucks when you want to cast and like me I get home from school that I started and only have like an hour before its too dark.

but if it doesn't rain this weekend I'm gonna melt some cast iron and pour it into some sand, hopefully

DA

Thats the best, I love grabbing something and tossing it in a mold like that. Very satisfying especially when it is something that will break easily (plastic or a poor design) and you can quickly make a better part than the original.

Thanks guys!! im finding I love to just see what I can make its a lerning process and having a blast doing it!! Im a self taught sort and its been great here with the positive influence I have gotten..

I think most all of us here are self taught, well at least we have been taught through the guidance of others before us who have shared their knowledge on the internet... guess that makes us net taught.

Nothing like doing for learning though and you are doing great.

Oh the smell had some fun this weekend, I also figured out my problem The lip was making a easy path for the melt to just fallow around the part so I took a hole saw and cut a hole in the flange for a restriction.

More pics, more pics!!