Hi, I'm a new member living on Whidbey Island up in the Puget Sound. I used to get on backyardmetalcasting between about '03 and '08 and toyed around periodically with casting in greensand, partially because I thought it would be easier and safer than blacksmithing. So about that... Got back into it when my wife saw some YouTube videos, and my idiot mouth spouted out "I know how to do that", to which the response was, "Oh yeah, then teach me." We've been having a go at the Gingery lathe and I've been reading up everything I can get my hands on as fast as I can go, including the usual suspects like the Navy Foundry Manual, Ammen, Campbell and the like. I came here initially to read up on the use of gaggers, soldiers, crossbars, and facing nails, but hung around to check it out. Mid-40s, long time Army, and just a weird encyclopedic collection (with a few volumes missing) of knowledge and hobbies, smithing, beekeeping, knitting... The cats are named after philosophers, dogs for alcohol, and short of cussing, the bees go unnamed for obvious reasons.
Welcome! I never started the lathe but my book 1 charcoal furnace has been sitting neglected out in my backyard covered up and slowly returning to the earth for the past 9 years, ever since I went to the dark side and built a bigger better furnace to run on waste oil using a backyardmetalcasting.com hot shot burner. Been a long while since anyone posted about a Gingery build. Make sure and post lots of pictures as you go! Jeff
The charcoal is going fine, but the casting has been a learning experience, more so since he started with the boss level casting at the beginning (i.e. the bed) and because I can't leave well enough alone and modified it - going a bit bigger, raising it, making it a bit longer, thicker top, ends, and braces to cut down in the tendency to twist, and I tried to get away from the pop gate and use a couple of risers so I didn't have to spend forever and a day hand scraping. Takes a heck of a lot of aluminum though, around 9 lbs with the feed. The first one looked good, could even see the wood grain, but got hot tears - too hot and not feeding the back fast enough. Also forgot to vent the cores and got blowouts on the bottom of, well, the top. Second one was too cold and I screwed up a bit on the pour, so it clogged the sprue and made a hell of a mess. Third time I poured at night, so I could see the incandescence of the metal and use the color to judge the temperature accurately. It went in beautifully, very little in the way of washes or fins...and I shorted it by about 20 ounces or so. At this point, my ramming has improved as has judging temper of the sand, and I'm getting much better molds that mostly don't fall apart when lifted. I also figured out that if I ram the cores into the mold and set it on top of the drag, I could avoid stressing the mold by rolling it twice. I kinda didn't want to cut up any but the second, so I've been making more ingots from busted transmission bell housing which next time, will be weighed in advance.
Some pics, first couple on the blanket are attempt one, the one in the mold, attempt two, and the one where you can see the shrinkage on top and missing bits, attempt three.
