Found Dreaming

Is anyone here casting anything?

I have a number of things in my atelier in clay that I am almost ready to make molds from. A flurry of casting activity should soon follow.

Richard

I have about 6 things to cast But I went into January mode. Winterized everything and brought all the liquids inside and shut down the shop. Now it's 70 degrees and I'm sitting inside.
I'm going to go talk to the local glass blower tomorrow and see if I can make a glass ball for a cane. Plus, I've ordered parts for my CNC machine and I'm looking at some software for making g-codes for some more complicated patterns.

I went to the Glass shop yesterday and made a Christmas bulb. He wouldn't let me do a small custom piece. All I wanted to do was a small half dome for the top of my cane. I thought I would get the glass piece and then cast the Bronze head to hold it. Now I'm going to use a small crucible I have, to melt glass and make it myself.

Glass blowing! I'm afraid of it. Afraid i would get hooked. Looks fascinating.

Richard

I really like it. Don't need another hobby. The initial outlay of cash would be prohibitive... meaning my wife said "Don't even think about it". But I do plan to play with small amounts in my foundry furnace.

Glass blowing is interesting ....I have a few small casting coming up for people that run a few small shops out in the local historical village , like the printer shop, they restore old printing presses and need some bronze bits recast..... The wheel wright has also asked me to do some casting out of ally but they are not ready yet as they want to be here to watch

I originally got into casting to make parts for old printing presses. I had already been casting lead type and dingbats. Now I've gotten totally away from printing and sold all but a few small presses.

I'll take a few photos next time I'm out there Jerry

What type of printing press did you do the castings for

I wanted to do a lot of things but never actually got any done. They were a little complicated for just starting out in casting. I had planned to cast a handle for a C & P Pilot press and table brackets for a Pearl #11. Both are long narrow castings and made of Iron.I see a lot of little table top presses for sale that are missing the ink disk, that would be a tricky casting and require machining on the surface. Years ago I made gripper springs for Pilot presses. I bought some .125" music wire and made a bending jig. Then I tempered the springs. They came out really good and I sold about 80 of them. I just found the leftovers in the garage, I have about a dozen left.
At one time I had over 30 presses from 2" X 3" up to 12" X 16", a Linotype, a Ludlow, and 2 big paper cutters.