Musket V-Twin

This is a cool story.
This guy made his own patterns and cast his own engine.





Some photos here:
http://www.musketvtwin.com/process.html


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That is cool. The pictures indicate he used original factory patterns and had a foundry cast them however. Still an intriguing project and great machining.

 

Nope, he made his own patterns.

I know because he took them to a foundry, and the foundry guy left them near an open window and they got rained on and ruined (they were made from wood).
It was a huge setback for the guy, and he had to remake some very elaborate patterns again.
I would have been tempted to give it up at this point, but I am not really a "give up" type person, so I understand where he is coming from.
Nobody ever succeeded by giving up.

Word to the wise, make permanent patterns in aluminum or some other durable material, and NEVER send original patterns to a foundry.
To do this, you need to use a double shrinkage allowance.

Edit:
My wife and I toured the Hershey's factory up north about 2 years ago, and one thing I saw on one of the displays is that Hershey went bankrupt 7 times before he succeeded.

Edit:
This is his photo, not mine, of the pattern he made for the engine block.


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I have to agree with Pat on the idea of not sending original patterns to a foundry. One of the reasons I moved over to casting my own stuff was the damage the foundry did routinely to my delicate wood patterns. This is not because they are a bunch of boneheads its just that they are used to working on a pretty coarse pattern type that was made with rough handling in mind. In addition they are usually using resin-bound sand which hardens like concrete and so patterns pull from it with more difficulty. They are looking at the clock and have a lot of big draw spikes, hammers and prybars....

Additionally I have heard tales of patterns being completely lost. The commercial foundry I once used did temporarily loose a couple of 1000 pound patterns that got on the wrong truck. I took the ten harrowing days to track them down. Otherwise they were out thousands.

Denis

 

I think this is the kind of project that attracts many wild-eyed, ill-informed novices to the idea of aluminum casting, only to later cause them drop it once they figure out what goes into it.

If I were wearing a hat, I'd take it off to this guy because he has certainly pulled off a significant feat of reverse engineering.