Finally did some casting today!

[Jammer]

Got outside and did some casting yesterday and today. Made some 6" letters for a sign my son wanted to finish. It was an old Aluminum sign from the phone company where his granddad worked. It was missing an I and 2 N's. The N's were tricky but we got them to come out. Had the metal a little hot as usual and the has some rough surface, but a little sanding and it looks pretty good.
Also did a Lyman Lead mold in Ally just for fun. It only took 3 tries.

Poking the melt, who can resist?

[Harry]

Nice, good to see you getting at it. The molds look sharp.

[Nudge]

yup, aways good to see a new casting it means we are getting off aur butts and doing other things than work.

[Jammer]

I should have shown the back of the letters, they are hollow and about 1/8 of an inch thick. They have some tabs at the end for bolt holes.That was causing some problems with the sand sticking.
The shiney mold is a copy of the cast Iron original, sand wanted to stick to the rough Iron. I didn't have enough venting and the bottom of the molds didn't fill. Finally vented it and put extentions on the sprue and riser.

How can I tell if I'm ramming the sand too much or not enough? I was ramming pretty hard but still seemed to have some areas where the same wasn't very tight. Then, on shakeout, it all seemed very hard like clay soil clods.

[dallen]

How can I tell if I'm ramming the sand too much or not enough? I was ramming pretty hard but still seemed to have some areas where the same wasn't very tight. Then, on shakeout, it all seemed very hard like clay soil clods.

Jammer;
Just found this post of yours, nice job on the lead mould. How tick do you think that lead mould is, 1/8, 3/16 inch, it wouldn't take much to make one out of some 1/4 inch plywood and pour it in C/I then you could pour just about anything in it up to Cast Iron without melting or cracking if you were to preheat it.

Your using GreenSand right, the clay like clods are from the Bentonite drying out from the heat of the molten metal I would see the same thing when I would shake out the casting using it.

Are you using anything besides arm power to mull the sand with, the loose spots maybe from there not being enough of or an even distrubution of the water in the sand.

I saw a tremendous differance in the way my greensand handled after I got my muller to where I could mix or fluff the sand with it. I was also amazed at how little water it took in the muller v. mixing by hand.

[Jammer]

The original is Cast Iron, about 1/8" thick. I hope to make one with cast Iron when I get around to melting some for the Shot Put.
For the sand, I couldn't find my auger to mix the sand so we did it by hand. Used a beater in the electric drill and mixed small portions separate and then all together. It seemed fine but I don't think I was pressing it around the patterns tight enough. The sand was a little loose down at the base of the patterns.