4cylndrfury's Aluminum flask
Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 10:31 am
Well, I had several hours of free time yesterday, and after seeing Dallens flasks, I was motivated to begin my own. I was hopefull that with the time available to me, I would be able to get at lease 4 pieces cast to assemble one single flask side. Turns out my burner had other plans lol...So after 3 hours of cobbling (I really need to fix the high pressure supply line to the nozzle), I got it working enough to get a molten pot, and cast AN OLD PATTERN I MADE. It was a quick an dirty mold, I was just running so short on time, I had to cut a few corners, like screening my sand, and ramming well, and making sure I pulled the pattern cleanly...you know, small stuff .
SO anyway, onto the pics...
Below, you can see the parting line is all messed up where I had to "fix" some sand that came loose while extracting the pattern Here is a shot of the decent surface finish I got, despite the poor ramming. This was all previously ingoted metal, so there was minimal dross This should show a little about how I run and gate...I try to keep them as short as possible. I run my sprue cutter down, its about 1.5" on the end, but is tapered (its an old vacuum cleaner extension that I sharpened the end to cut through the rammed sand). I cut my runners with a melon baller - stole the idea from Harry. I try to keep my runners wedge shaped. And a shot of the interior - you can see the dogs I added to help grip the sand, and ad some rigidity to the somewhat thin flask side. Like others here, I will add an alignment piece when I figure out how that will be done...
now only 7 more to go
SO anyway, onto the pics...
Below, you can see the parting line is all messed up where I had to "fix" some sand that came loose while extracting the pattern Here is a shot of the decent surface finish I got, despite the poor ramming. This was all previously ingoted metal, so there was minimal dross This should show a little about how I run and gate...I try to keep them as short as possible. I run my sprue cutter down, its about 1.5" on the end, but is tapered (its an old vacuum cleaner extension that I sharpened the end to cut through the rammed sand). I cut my runners with a melon baller - stole the idea from Harry. I try to keep my runners wedge shaped. And a shot of the interior - you can see the dogs I added to help grip the sand, and ad some rigidity to the somewhat thin flask side. Like others here, I will add an alignment piece when I figure out how that will be done...
now only 7 more to go