Hello All, I'm Matt from Brisbane, Australia. I have been sent this way from reddit because someone there suggested that you may be able to help me. I'll post that request to the appropriate forum board and provide a bit of detail about myself here. I'm an aircraft engineer by education and profession. I'm a big fan of making things and this has me making a CNC lathe at the moment (it all started because I wanted a pen, so I needed a lathe, so I'm building a lathe, and now I want a mill). I also dabble in composite design and manufacture; mostly for racecars, but realistically what ever I can get my hands on or what ever people want done. I'm a big fan of watching a few casting folks on youtube (Olfoundryman, Vegoilguy and a bit of stuff on Alec Steel) and it is something I wouldn't mind getting into myself down the track, but I think I need to get this project knocked over first. Anyway, that's me, thanks for having me, Matt
Hi Matt, Brisbane has a number of foundry supply companies which will make life easier if you decide to get into this addictive hobby. I'm in Cairns, so I'm always getting crucibles and refractory materials like castables and bricks from Foseco Brisbane. Also there is Refractech Brisbane where I have bought several 25Kg bags of 1650 deg C refractory concrete (16LCCF). I think there may even be a foundry club somewhere in Brisbanistan too. Starting a foundry is going to suck up a lot of your spare time and money not to mention being addictive. If you have one off parts you need for your machine tools then fabrication may be faster and cheaper than learning pattern making and making a series of wood patterns to suit a particular foundry's preferences and hiring a foundry to cast them. You can buy iron bar in a number of shapes cut to length with very good machining properties to machine your components from.
Thanks for the reply mate. I've seen some of the foundry supply companies, and let me assure you I am tempted, however I have enough workshop stuff kicking around at the moment I cannot justify it (CNC lathe [thats what this casting is for], CNC router, Composites shop, 3D printer, electronics work area, welding etc). I will eventually get into some casting, but at the moment I don't really want to tool up for a single sub 5kg part (it would easily fit into a Aus Post 5kg bag nudge nudge, wink wink).
I'm still trying to reach cast iron temps reliably, so it will be some time before I get there, after a year of trying. There has got to be someone in Brisbane selling durabar, hopefully with a few offcuts for sale cheap. That way you get what you need with minimal side trips down the rabbit hole, believe me, a home foundry is a serious commitment but a worthwhile one and to some extent will let you do stuff that can only be duplicated on a large CNC machine: engine blocks being one example that comes to mind.
That sounds like a decent learning curve required! I could probably buy cast iron from blackhawk metals (I actually bought some round bar from them this afternoon for my lathe chuck back plate), I was just hoping to make this as a near net shaped part without all of the machining that I've been doing on every other part (like this )
