Ornate Architectural Casting

Here is a recent casting project that I thought I might share with the group. Typically I am working in the foundry on my own and either forget, or don't have an opportunity to take photos. This particular job was commissioned by a local museum, and part of the proposal was that I provide photos and updates of the entire process for their marketing department. I'll admit up front that some of these photos are a bit "staged" but as most of the museum board were not familiar with the sandcasting process, I tried to keep things as clear and straightforward as possible.
So to start off, here is a photo of the portion of the casting I was working on today. It is a support bracket that is part of the larger casting that I am working on for the museum

The original is full of holes that shouldn't be there, and is missing a few bits. The main area of concern was one of the tabs that had been broken off, and a crack running up the backside of the casting.

I cut out a rough shape on the bandsaw, and then shaped the rest by hand

 

Here's a few photos of the ram up

I added the small wooden pattern to the mold

A few more of the ram up

Gates and runners.....

 

Once I closed up the mold I rammed up a pouring basin.

Mold ready to be poured.

 

Kelly,
The original is cast iron, but the customer opted to have the reproduction poured in aluminum.
Here are a few photos of the pour

 

Shakeout...

The casting still needs to be cleaned up. You can see the original next to the new casting below.


I'll need to do some hand fitting, but the finished casting will eventually become part of this...

 

Beautiful. I love old architectural stuff.

 

I love seeing castings like this on the forums. Provides me tons of false hope for my future projects...lol

 

Kelly,
I had to make a few tweaks. The original was over 100 years old, and the museum had specific guidelines on what could be done. Painting or building up the original was out. My work around was for this casting and others where the original can't be modified, is to enlarge the casting by hand in the mold. It is probably hard to see in the photos, but after the drag was rammed up and flipped over, I widened a few trouble areas of the casting to account for the shrink. This of course has to be done in the cope as well. The overall casting was 26"x 12" and was fairly thin except for two bosses that were beefed up to accept mounting hardware. I added two risers to give them a bit of metal to draw from as they cooled. I managed to get this right the first time around, but this is usually not the case. Often I have to run a couple test pours to get the kinks worked out in the pattern.

Dave

 

Here is the finished casting installed. I highlighted the areas I enlarged to compensate for shrinkage in red.

The photo above is taken from the back of the fixture. Here is a photo from the front. The new casting is what is supporting the fire alarm call box in the opening.

This is what the finished product should look like when everything is complete.

These photos were taken in Washington D.C. Baltimore used a slightly different gas lamp for the top of the fixture. I'll be using Baltimore style gas lamp like this one in place of the D.C. style shown in the photos


Dave

 

Thank you for posting those great photos!

Like JV said it gives me inspiration to do better things but a week later I have forgotten all about it.

I have done work like that but it takes the highest possible skills in molding to pull that off.

 

Being the gas light nut that I am... The museums choice for the top is utter shit. The original is more handsome by a long shot.
I know someone that could probably make that, but he's busy screwing with foxes at the moment.

 

I think you misunderstand, the older photos in the post above simply show D.C.'s version of their fire alarm/gas lamp fixture. These fixtures were not purchased as a complete unit, but rather were made up of several sections that could be mixed and matched by the customer. The "original" top is a relative term depending on the city you might find yourself visiting. Additionally, since almost all of these fixtures were cast iron, it made more sense to have these cast in the city in which they were to be installed, rather than purchasing them and having them shipped. This led to variations in what were essentially the same fixtures because each city would customize their "street furniture" so to speak to set them apart from the other municipalities. For this project, the gas lamp used for the top was chosen because it was almost exclusively the only type of gas street light used in Baltimore from 1896-1957 when the gas lamps were removed. Because the fixture I'm working on was installed in Baltimore in 1906, this style lamp is also period correct for the fixture. As the first city in the united states to have gas street lighting and a gas utility, these style gas lamps carry a fair bit of nostalgia for most city residents, and historians. Of course if you just don't care for this particular style of gas lamp, that's okay too.

Dave

 

Oh I see now Dave.... And yup.. I like the NY style better. London has a similar thing with their street lighting compared to other parts of the country.

Do you get to make the Baltimore style top or do you guys have parts and pieces already?

 

Great work - would you care to share how you priced this work - did they balk at the cost - did you feel well compensated for your efforts?

I get requests like this at my production foundry, I tell them just for me to even think about it would be $1,000

It would be interesting to find the original cost, I would guess a few dollars

Amazing and awful what inflation has done.....

 

Of course the price for the originals would have been for several hundred to several thousand for a large city, so they should have been economical.

 

yeah.. original price was probably 6bucks.