blue pig

[dallen]

well I fired up and decided that I would melt some iron or anyway see if I could still do it, plus I had some stuff I got from Jammer back in the great beyound or anyway like back in the spring. So what i did was to ram up the same pattern that I poured last week in a mixture of I don't actually know, it was a whole bunch of keys I was suppose to destroy (their destroyed little brother), a hunk of I know yellow brass (anyway it was yellow) and a couple other bits and pieces.

Well today I can guarantee that it was all Cast Iron and a little FerroSilacon, not much just a little and some fluorspar. first time I have had the honor of having some around to pop into the melt. For those that do Iron this is my first with the fluorspar or for the chemical minded CAF2 done a number on the slag, its been a while since I melted any iron but I do know there was a marked differance in how the slag behaved, it was a lot easier to deal with and I didn't have to chase it around the crucible.

Anyway for those that like videos heres one I did, the first little clip if you watch you can see the slag bubbling in the Crucible the iron is just about ready to start collapsing into a molten pool in the crucible.

http://youtu.be/2JtLowKYk9o

[Harry]

No problems with the petrobond David? That shed in the background looks like it is wants a roof coming off this side to give you a covered area to work in

[dallen]

yea I been thinking more like the front, but you know how it is with money, other things are in place that need it first, but I do have me a little allowance that I spend on my casting, just ordered me up a couple books from Abe, best place to look for knowledge. If you can't get someone on the internet to tell you what you need or want to know theres always Abe, hell of a lot better that Amazon but I do buy books there also. Cheap to, which fits in with my grand scheme of things.

Well that was a little video that I did yesterday when I fed the pig. I casted the same part that I did the other day in that mixed up pot of brass that didn't some out so good. I took pictures of the part but haven't gotten around to posting them due to the foundry boss making me wash dishes, and finish modifing a 1" lathe tool I got off evil bitch to a dovetail cut in the side of it so it would fit on my 12 inch lathe. But will post them this afternoon.

[dallen]

well I been working on this damn thing off and one all weekend, and to get it to work I finally had to load firefox, I mean to tell you this new windows 7 crap and IE9 suck big time.

Well heres the part that I poured in that video sorry I cut the sprue off before the picture.


Tiny shrink cavity in the middle of where I cut the sprue off, the round spot about the size of a dime.

Heres the same part from when I poured it the other day, using a mixed up alloy of keys and some brass and I don't know.



The cast iron part the dividing line was all there until I knocked a chunk out so the metal would flow into both sides. but I packed the groove with some sand that what made up with material close to what Harry had sent to me. Actually it was Quikrete find silica sand #1965-55 that I mixed in in I think my second batch of petrobonded sand.

[Nudge]

Cool looks like it was easy to cut too

[dallen]

cut the sprue off with a dull nail bitter blade in my sawzall, when I was cleaning it up in the mill the body of the casting cut really nice, there was some hard white iron around the edge in the flash that you would tell when you hit it.

Most Cast Iron will have a skin that can be a real bitch to get thru and cut, so far I have been pretty lucky in that the actual parts that I have poured I was able to machine, some of the ingots that I have tried to cut the skin off of to see how the iron looked are a different story.

I cast a back plate for a six inch chuck and when I machined it I used a black ceramic carbide bit and it was like cutting brass, but the stuff sure can dirty up a lathe, you sure want to put the skirts on the old thing when I do C/I the graphite in the iron turns everything black that it touches.