Cast Alumium Tractor Seat

[mite5255]

I've had a cast Iron tractor seat here for a couple of years and I've been wanting to cast it in aluminum so I can make a stool and possibly sell them, the fact that I do suffer from lower back issues due to being stupid in my younger days has for the most part has stopped me from doing larger castings such as the rocker cover I was trying awhile back. I decided I'll give this seat a try and see how I go
The castin

I glued a piece of MDF to the base so I had somewhere that was a bit thicker to drill and tap a thread to attach a bracket of some kind to bolt to the seat

This is how I hope the stool will turn out, I'll make a round disk and drill holes for bolts to come up where the wheel studs were and weld the seat tube to it and weld or bolt the seat bracket to the seat

I'm now more determined to get some type of crane built, the flask was very difficult to roll and lifting the cope off was a real struggle

[dallen]

luckygen did some tractor seats in cast iron in one of his videos, you may have to get the aluminum a bit on the hot side to have a good pour without any shorts.

if you have a messed up back then your going to need some type of mechanical helper in order to do large pours, when I mmoved my pouring bench I put up a swing arm on the telephone pole for when I need the extra help when pouring by myself. Need to do something about moving the molds from where I ram them up to the pouring bench. but for now the really big molds can get rammed up on the bench.

Good luck on pouring the seat, photo's of both the good and the bad are required.

DA

[mite5255]

The first casting came out ok,as can be seen in the above photos, the thermocouple below ( 1st photo )says I poured at 660 Deg c (1220 F) not to sure its reading correctly I think can go lower in temp as its reading on the thermocouple....2nd photo is the seat that I used as a pattern, I filled every 2nd and 3rd slot with body filler so the metal would flow easer

[dallen]

I would mold it upside down and gate into the outer rim in about 5 places with a large sprue to put a lot of pressure on the flow and have a large riser where your spure is at to stop shrinkage back into the casting one big enough that you could pour some extra hot metal in on top to make it feed. But that's just me.

From the looks of it, you hit the temp pretty much spot on, surface finish looks good.

Mount one on a coil spring out of the front suspension of a car just to be different, and to make people feel a little tipsy when they have couple.

DA

[mite5255]

I would mold it upside down and gate into the outer rim in about 5 places with a large sprue to put a lot of pressure on the flow and have a large riser where your spure is at to stop shrinkage back into the casting one big enough that you could pour some extra hot metal in on top to make it feed. But that's just me.

From the looks of it, you hit the temp pretty much spot on, surface finish looks good.

Mount one on a coil spring out of the front suspension of a car just to be different, and to make people feel a little tipsy when they have couple.

DA

Dave that would mean a bigger flask and I was having issues with the weight as it was. There is some erosion ( 2nd photo ) on the lettering
and the letters there look like shit , I know that if I change the gating I would rectifier that Issue, but till I get a crane this is it, I'll more then likely remove the lettering from the pattern anyway

[Jammer]

That looks pretty cool. I would have to try one with all the slots open for butt ventilation.

[mite5255]

That looks pretty cool. I would have to try one with all the slots open for butt ventilation.

Maybe you should stop eating cabbage Jerry

[dallen]

[

whats up with this photo, this the aluminum or ? Looks burnt.

[mite5255]

It looks to me like the grains of sand were washed out, its a bit rougher then the rest of the casting

[F.C.]

It looks to me like the grains of sand were washed out, its a bit rougher then the rest of the casting

Excessive moisture in the sand at that spot in the mold... uneven ratio of water to sand in the mix. Steam caused from the melt entering that area of the mold will cause that kind of errosion.