You might want to get your own Fedex/UPS account, Fedex is easier. A lot of companies use an automated system to calculate the shipping, it's called "book rate" or similar, so they are tied to it. BUT, a lot of companies will accept a Fedex account number and the bill goes directly to you, which is whatever rate you get always better than book. We do this for our distributors and customers when they ask. The difference is staggering. Our book rate for a box will be $40 and the actual only $13'ish. Tell them it's residential, but you have things shipped to your house because of Corona, your shop hours are weird and you can't find any good help. The name of your company is Bob Smith Art Casting, (Change for your name), your name is in it, so you don't even need a DBA on file, in USA you can be a company just by calling yourself one. Good Luck
Insofar as gathering the pieces for K-Bond, the only difficult piece for me appears to be the oil. I can get all the other stuff. In doing some research, the 2-Stroke smokeless oils are great, but you might want to consider the marine types, less toxic overall, most of the MSDS were blank, no toxic ingredients. Wouldn't drink it. But being for use on the water there are quite a bit more regulations. Compare a land version and a water versions of a product MSDS and you will see quite a difference. Rotary Screw compressor oils, the really high buck stuff was listed as non-toxic as well, Mobil SHC Rarus 32 is is a poly ester type oil and it's listed as non-toxic, but only available in 5-gal. Mobil SHC Rarus 427 is available on Amazon in quarts and gallons, is considered non-toxic, but is a mineral oil base, little different. Of course there are plenty of other oils. The points you might want to consider, is the marine grade and the compressor oils have a lot less additives and other kooky things in general. I think I'm going to go with Mobil SHC Rarus 427, it even has the word "Ashless" in the description. I do know the shop filling with smoke will cause problems, so I'll get a quart, get it hot and see what it does. Good Luck
The smoke (and fire) is certainly one of the downsides of petrobond. The only way around it is to wait. But how fun is that? Pete
I've worked with Petrobond since the 80's , I cannot imagine it not smoking... Oil + heat= smoke and/or fire, i work outdoors casting mostly brass, the Zinc plumb is much worse then the Petrobond smoke , as far as oil I use non detergent 30sae I buy at Oreillys, you have to ask for it, it is seldom on the self $16/gal I use about 3 gallons a year. Now .. But really, what is the big difference about Kbond ??? everyone talks about it with mystic regard, I'm still just seeing petrobond V/r HT1
As far as I can tell, K-bond is just Petrobond that smokes a lot less due to using synthetic oils with their higher temperature properties and oxidation resistance. It's supposed to have a much longer life too for the same reasons.
Spoke with the Rep from Green Diamond today, asked Petrobond and K-Bond, he has heard of both and has customer use both. According to him, they are both yield comparable results, the big difference is the smoke. He does agree Petrobond does smoke considerably more, and customers for whom smoke is a concern lean towards K-Bond or non-petro bonded sand. I mentioned I was in SoCal, he laughed and completely understood why I was looking at K-Bond vs Petrobond. BTW, In SoCal the fire department or Air Quality Management can shut you down immediately and indefinably while fining you $10k a day, you don't mess with them and you don't do anything that might invite them over. For those very same reasons you can't buy/find silica casting sand at the true foundry suppliers, it's not worth the risk to have Cal-Osha come over on a silica issue and face the fines, so foundries have moved away from those types of products. Petrobond silica is still out there, but it's becoming less and less of a silica base due to litigation fears. For even more humor and SoCal, I'm going to test Green Diamond blasting sand, he can't send over 60 mesh, it's not California Air approved, but 30/50 mesh is. Go figure. Good Luck
As for synthetic oil - would something like Bel-Ray H1R work (100% synthetic 2 stroke oil). Reason I spoke of this is people speaking of it not burning (in engines).
can your foundry supply house get the Bentone Clay for petrobond people have been looking for??? to make Petrobond .. or really will they sell just a 50 Lbs bag?, it would probably split into 3 Flat rate boxes, and you could make some people here very happy... Not me, I have a box, and very rarely add a pinch if I spill the oil into the muller V/r HT1
Yes, and I would put money toward the purchase of such a 50 pound bag. Will need to see that one fellow in a few months and get my first Bin of "miracle sand." Bummer that LaGrand is no more, as they sold Petrobond at a <expletive deleted> good price ~ 50 $ for 50 lb!
To answer some questions regarding K-Bond; http://www.foundry.ray-vin.com/k-bond/k-bond.htm VG-69 works just as well as Bentone34, and is much more economical. Bentone 34 is cosmetic grade and VG-69 is for oil drilling. I had a truck driving casting buddy that brought me 50lb bags from somewhere in Texas. It was so cheap he didn't even charge me for it! Chevron OLOA is a synthetic use for food processing equipment. You could probably eat the stuff. It is very thick like STP. Chevron only sold it by the tank car or 55gal. drums, but I got a 1 gallon sample for free and it lasted me for years. I found out this oil (or something similar) was used in synthetic 2-stroke oil. I tried it and it worked. For sand, you want "sharp" sand. Silica sand is what I used. Once mixed, the dust hazard is greatly minimized, if not eliminated altogether. As for using it compared to Petro Bond. It works the same, but smokes a lot less. Among other things cast with bronze, aluminum and zinc, we made over fifty Home Guard Firecracker cannons. Poured using four flasks, wheels first as they needed the hottest metal! Regards, Ray
Way off this thread but has anyone tried sugar molasses and sand? I have watched a few videos of some guys using it and they seem to get a pretty nice finish. They also have pretty thick looking coating on them after casting that just chips off easily. Just curious if anyone had tried this.
So, what we need here is for one of us who lives in oil country to get one of these organophilic clays. That appears to be the general category of modified Bentonite clay we are looking for. I see one company has warehouses in Monahans Tx, Shreveport LA, Casper WY, Williston, ND, and Elk City, OK. Anyone near one of those places? We need to talk ;-) I think 600 pounds of K-bond could be mixed using one Large flat rate box shipped via UPS. The material itself is exceedingly cheap. The problem is that it is routinely sold in 40-bag pallet loads as a minimum order. I’d bet anything that those warehouses occasionally rip a bag or two which otherwise end up in the dumpster. It is rather frustrating to not be able to access this simple raw ingredient. Denis
I don't know about that, I priced some out about 10 years ago and it was around $200 for a 55lb bag not including shipping.
https://www.yellowpages.com/monahans-tx/water-well-drilling-equipment-supplies Jason, Try this link. Regards, Ray
