I finally got my sand and tongs in the mail and got my first mold hammered up yesterday. I did this pour with pewter today just for a test run. All in all it went well and now I have some new forms I can trim down, polish up and replicate them with brass (the ones I used to form the mold are brass, just not solid, so they will be going into the melt. I may have over-packed my drag so I ran short of sand in the cope but it still worked out fine. The pouring basin worked very well and I can absolutely understand why it is important to have. Im trying to post pics but my files are to big.. any help?
I usually resize pics to 1032 pixels the long way in Widows Paint or Photos, works out to 25% of original size off the phone. Numbers look good, how does it feel to have some success?
Thanks! It's really nice. To my wife's dismay I'm gonna order up another 10 lbs of sand. She can't wrap her head around why I'm buying sand when we live 20 miles from the beach. I don't try to explain. I'm happy with my set-up so I am gonna do it again with brass next time and remelt the pewter back into an ingot for other projects.
Several of us buy it from petrobondforsale on eBay. Good product, price, and service. If you buy from him let him know you heard it here. Good vendors for this stuff are hard to find. A nice thing about pewter and lead is that they can be melted on a yard-sale hot plate in the garage (or well ventilated area) in a soup can or other disposable steel vessel and you don’t have to be worried about lifting it out of the furnace by the brim. You will see some YouTube guys lifting their ceramic crucibles with channel locks or tongs by the brim. They’re often the same guys wearing shorts and flip-flops. All very bad ideas. Many of us have made our own lifting tools. You can use steel crucibles for melting aluminum too but they eventually leak. Masteryoda uses stainless steel milkshake cups and has good luck. A crucible failure in mid air could be life changing. ‘Nuff said. You’ve made great progress so far PP. Since I started casting a dozen years ago or so, I’ve spent a little money and a lot of time and enjoy a darn enjoyable and practical hobby. Keep up the good work. Pete
Ahh, I have been trying greensand vice petrabond. Been looking for a good source of silica or Teton. Have been buying 20lb bags of greensand from foundry101.com. No issue with it other than a desire to shave costs a touch.
I ordered mine from Amazon but the seller is actually PMC Supplies LLC. Shipping was free which is pretty good considering I ordered 30# of it.
Thanks Pete! This isn't new to me, just haven't done it since jr high. You are correct about lifting crucibles by the brim with tongs. I do it right now but I don't like it. I'm in the market for a good set of lifters for a #6 crucible. That is next on my list.
I was getting ready to say build them don't buy them. Then I realized the tongs and pouring shank I use for my own A6 crucibles and like so much are actually a set of off the hardware store shelf 3 finger fireplace log tongs. Pix here: http://forums.thehomefoundry.org/index.php?threads/lifting-tongues-and-pouring-rings.898/#post-20840 Many other probably better ideas in that thread as well. Mine were a decent fit unmodified (and they were on sale!) but similar tongs might benefit from the fingers being bent a little bit one way or another for a more secure fit in both liftout and pouring grips. Not for use with anything bigger than an A6. I like them better than the tongs and pouring shank I built for my size 12, also pictured. Those work but could work better. Jeff
Hey Jeff.. Those look like they work well. Thanks for the link to the thread! It's to darn hot outside to much melting right now and we get t-storms everyday so I have plenty of time to shop around for something like that.
