Molding Benches

Denis,

Have you thought about fabbing a metal cart to set your large flasks on that you could pontenially use a winch/pulley mechanism to pull over to your pouring area?

 

I made a straddle-cart from a medium-duty garden cart. It straddles the mold, crank hoists it, rolls to pouring area, and then deposits it. All done with a donkey ;-) providing the power. Even so, the donkey is almost maxed out on slippery grass heading up the slight grade to the melting and pouring spot 20 yards from the bench. The cart has been very satisfactory and allows me to gently move delicate molds from bench to pour over slightly uneven ground. If I owned the area in which I work, I would make more improvements like a concrete walkway from bench to pour etc. But, alas, I am a borrower of the area.

Denis

 

Well finally got to take the molding bench for a spin. It kinda sucks, haha. It's a little too high, and despite being all metal with a nice board on top, it bounces too much when molding.
It'll do for now, may add another board on top. It is mostly sheet metal unfortunately. Could possibly reinforce it though.
Here's a saturday's worth of work

 

What are those parts you cast? Looks like you got a lot of work done!

If your cabinet is a bit tall, I see it has maybe 3 inch or so legs. I’ll loan you my angle grinder and cutoff wheel. ;-). Failing that, I have built up short wood platforms in front of my lathe and milling machine—-easier on the my legs than concrete and I like the slightly higher viewpoint.

Denis

 

Denis,
I had not considered a standing platform in front of the bench. That may be a reasonable solution, I have a pallet that my muller came in on that may be perfect.

The parts are a carburetor adapter I make for a niche car group. I have posted a video here of my process.
I've been behind on production for a year and have a lot to make up for, hah. I wish I could make these all day, sadly the market would not bear that

 

Ha! I saw your video a long time ago. Nice to put two and two together. Nice work.

Is it an optical illusion or did the front three parts fail to fill?

 

Ahhh.. name meet face! Where you been on YT??? Nice work!
I left you this on the bell a year ago.
"Who is the scumbag that gave you a thumbs down? Hope he got a bag of coal for christmas."

 

Optical illusion, I see now in the pic. Funny enough, I have made well over 50 of these at this point, and have had zero scrapped castings. (knock on wood!)
One of the first ones I made I scrapped, I hand-tapped it and the threads were a bit wonky, enough that the studs were not square enough to work. So I've been power tapping on the drill press with great success since.

Hah, thanks! I do remember getting that comment, I chuckled. not sure man, people are so fickle. YT is a cesspool at times.
Either way I am hoping to put a lot more up on the tubes now that I have a place to do projects

 

Looking forward to that then! I had a similar a-ha moment too when I realized you are that guy from the video. Nice parts!

Jeff

 

Ahhh Haa ... Rocketman is the YT dude with the old Index Mill.

 

Look! A milling machine for this guy!

 

The Lollypop Guild banned those sometime in the 50s when they started admitting taller members. After Glinda finally seized power she really messed their shit up. Oompa Loompas might be interested.

 

There was a rumor of them riding the train on judy. These weren't little kids after all, they were hard booze drinking adults.

 

How high is your molding bench? Mine is at 2Ft.

 

Mine is on the order of 34” high. Seems to work OK at that height and I am only 5’-7”. Never found myself wishing it was different. For me, 2 feet would seem quite low. A plus on the low height would be ramming with a long-handle ram would be convenient. But I do a lot of detail work on my patterns venting them, chamfering gates, blowing out sand, etc. My back would be bugging me after a short time on a low bench. Compromises are unavoidable on things like bench height, I guess.

Side note: track lighting with LED floods right over the bench (not behind me casting shadows) has been a big improvement. The sand is very dark, so bits of it are hard to see without pretty intense light.

Denis

 

I went with two foot height considering trying to lift 50# plus. Seems at 30+", I wind up lifting with my arms and upper back, not stable. The short stool helps with doing delicate molding operations because, yes, two foot is low.

 

Jackson Mill! Apparently made real close by to Index mills, if not by the same people.

Check out the new mill though:

Combination vertical & horizontal mill. Weird thing, even less info than Jackson mills, hah. Apparently a "Select" 2VHF

Not sure what my molding bench height is. I will have to measure it.
Also, agree'd on the lighting. I have some work to do to bring the lighting up to spec.
I'm just relishing in the fact that I can run the air compressor to blow out molds and not blow a circuit breaker

 

That picture says to me... I'm old, sure, what do you want me to do?
You got air at your moulding bench? Lucky bugger.

 

Ya, lifting 50 pounds is OK sort of. But lifting it accurately and gently is tough. The chainfall and barn door trolley took the pain out of that.

One lesson I learned the hard way about blowing out molds with compressed air is that it can stick and accumulate like wet snow on a vertical portion of mold. I did not see that in normal light and was very disappointed to have a significant filling defect. Now I anticipate it and see it with the bright light and use a tiny spatula to dislodge it before final blowout and closing.

Denis