Save the Date!! This year we are planning three foundry days for summer of 2023 in Tamarack Minnesota. Concisely stated: #1 is structured for a very small group (3-7) persons who want to get good at sand casting aluminum and bronze. #2 is for machine tool hobbyists who want an intro to casting. The plan is sand casting with a lost foam demo. #3 is a Tamarack community pour featuring lost foam and a sand cast demo. Some details on each event: #1 is scheduled for April 22 and maybe the 23rd, 2023, come a few days early and stay longer if you’d like, significant others are welcome and encouraged. (Note: In addition to our small home we have an immediately adjacent structure with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths.) We are looking for 3-7 people to do lots of hands-on learning and work. Please note- this is a small group. We will also encourage persons with casting experience to teach. Please note that this is not a spectator opportunity. Bring your own patterns or come up a different day(s) and use my wood shop to make patterns. While I have some aluminum and brass scrap, we encourage you to bring dry sorted scrap (no soda cans). The plan is to have the furnaces in the shop with multiple fans for ventilation so we can work regardless of weather. We will use a gantry crane and lifting tongs to remove the crucible from the furnace to a pouring cart. We have many multiple flasks, a sand table, petrobond, supplies for cores, and a muller. We will have 2 one hundred pound cylinders of propane. We will supply lunch (likely I’ll smoke some pork that week). I’m looking at purchasing some additional casting PPE. But please bring your own welding gloves, eye and face protection, closed toe footwear, cotton pants and long sleeve cotton shirt. This is a free event as we don’t want finances to impede learning, safety, or fun. However, donations to offset actual costs will be accepted but not expected. I’m sure I’ve missed something. Please contact me should you have interest, questions or concerns. Because participation is limited it is imperative that we reserve your spot. Please contact me… #2 is June 10th is a free hands-on event for machine tool hobbyists who have watched a few videos and maybe read some stuff. This is for persons who would like to learn more. We hope that all those who were at #1 will assist at this event and facilitate learning. Emphasis is on learning about the basics of casting and being safe. More on this event as we get closer to June. Lunch will be provided. #3 will be in Sept. likely one of these dates 9th, 16th, or 23rd. The McGregor High School ISD#4 Community Ed has already tentatively approved this no charge event. Community Ed will be providing insurance for this specific event. Any minors are required to be accompanied by an adult chaperone. Emphasis is on safety, fostering questions, increased awareness of industry and how things are made. Specific activities include lost foam casting with a sand casting demo. I'm secretly hoping I can find someone to do a day long 10" Logan Lathe demo. We are discussing the possibility of turning aluminum bolts which we cast that day for kids to take home. More on this event as we get closer to September. Lunch will be provided. Please understand that I don't profess to be any sort of foundry expert. We are fortunate to have several people who will be assisting with this event. We are looking forward to hearing from you if you are interested in helping to teach and/or learn. Daryl
If you are interested in one or more of these, then I'd like to write your name in. Especially if it's for session #1! Daryl
Exciting news! Lyle (Tubalcain) Peterson / Mr Pete has offered to ship us some sand cast patterns for us to use and enjoy at our sand casting events in Tamarack MN. We are excited to use Lyle’s patterns and encourage participants to continue their preparations for these events. Preparations might also include watching his excellent video series which include both casting and the subsequent machining. Please note links to some patterns attached below. Lyle reports that success with some of these patterns is more difficult than others. Therefore, we will be assessing the difficulty of casting each pattern at Pour #1. Because one of our goals is to have participants ram, lift and pour their own projects (with assist as needed) the difficult patterns may not be available at Pour #2. The driver for this position is that we want this experience to be positive and successful. This especially true for Pour #2 and #3. Regardless of Lyle’s gracious contribution, we continue to actively encourage participants to create patterns unique to your needs. Additionally, one of the many suggestions we’ve received is that we pour some aluminum bolts and nuts and consequently profile and thread them on the 10” Logan 200. I’m recommending the Logan because my other lathes require the RPC (noise) and we are trying to encourage an awareness that hobby machining doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive to have fun, be safe, and do good work. We have these announcements posted on various forums Vintage Machinery, Hobby Machinist, and The Home Foundry. Please contact me should you have questions and want to participate. Daryl Tamarack MN
Thanks for looking into those patterns Daryl. It will be fun to mold up stuff that was made and used by someone else in the casting community. I got a thrill the first time I drilled and tapped into a couple of my own cast pieces. It made it feel like I was going from proof of concept to a working part.
Brief event report: I had a great time with the Tamarack group. We had inclement weather at the start but were eventually able to set up for casting. In the meantime, the guys helped me work on the lift mechanism for my 'medium' furnace. By help I mean that someone offered and did the lathe work on the pipes for me, and the others had me/made me (the teaching/learning vibe is really nice there) run a vertical mill to do the drilling and opposed slots. If you have a chance to make an event there you will not be disappointed with the shop, PPE and safety, casting equipment, guest house, and hospitality. Enclosing a couple candid shots of the crew and some of the castings including honey-do parts for the hostess' loom (parted down from the original and a wood pattern), vice and anvil patterns from 'Tubal Cain', and a couple with the stars from my shop. We also presented them a matchplate with the Tamarack coasters as a thank-you with a roster of attendees and significant others wood burned into the flatback. I was so excited to try my copy of the anvil in a real metal foundry flask that I forgot to cut the gate from the runner to the molded pattern...
Short Recap of Event #1. All the participants report that this was a huge success. Foundry Events in Tamarack Minnesota Summer 2023 Save the Date!! This year we are planning three foundry days for summer of 2023 in Tamarack Minnesota. Concisely stated: #1 is structured for a very... Last weeks incessant snows extending into the weekend made for considerable trepidation about a pour. However, it stopped snowing, warmed up and the sun finally came out enough and we lit the furnace. End results injuries, successfully made parts, had huge fun and learned stuff. But the Saturday morning delay was not in any way a loss. One of the participants has been casting very small parts in a small furnace for quite some time (he is well practiced at making match plates). He has been working on a plan to build a medium furnace which requires a lid lift mechanism. Unfortunately, he has neither a lathe or mill to do the fab work nor any lathe/mill experience. The team dove in and assisted making the parts on the lathe, and coached him in the use of my Cincy for other parts. http://forums.thehomefoundry.org/in...ng-55-gallon-200l-drum.2490/page-4#post-50169 After lunch we observed that the snow fall/rain had stopped and the sun was out. So we commenced with ramming up some patterns. This included in depth discussions of basins, sprues, runners, gates, part location, risers and vents. What I was most surprised about was how the the approach to doing this reflected the personality and style of the person ramming up the part. 1. Practical, effective and efficient. 2. Meticulous and carefully planned. 3. And me ploddingly slow and fussy. We owe huge thanks to Lyle Peterson (Tubalcain) who loaned us several patterns, Not only did we cast some of his patterns but we were able have fascinating discussions on pattern making including fillets and draft. We also learned that Petrobond is easier to work with when it is warmer! We look forward to pouring more of his vises. Very likely prior to the next publicly schedule pour in June. We also poured some 3D printed personalized coasters which had been carefully laid out on a match plate. These also turned out wonderfully. Match plates require more work up front in the pattern making process but save a lot of work at the molding bench as the gates and runners do not need to be cut in by hand. However, the most important casting was a replacement aluminum pawl for my brides weaving loom. I had planned to pour a shelf for our fishing dock. But I had a poorly planned core-box. I'm hoping get that done in May and if I get really organized, a brass part for a Milwaukee Die Filer for a guy here at HM. Daryl
Is there an opportunity for the second session on June 10th? I live in Park Rapids, MN I have a post under lost wax casting that explains the project & problems I'm running into. Mike
Mike, It'd be great to have you! I'll contact you via messaging with my personal contact data. Come for the day or several. I'll check out your thread. I can't promise that we will be able to resolve the complications you are facing. But, I think we will look forward to working on them. Daryl MN
