My grandson wants to try casting

So my 14 yr. old grandson wants to try casting and we looked at building a furnace. However we were visiting an old friend of mine who was dying from brain cancer and he said he had all the equipment and we were welcome to use it. He was a shop teacher and it all came from a school shop when they did away with shop classes. Unfortunately he passed a few months ago. I know his sons too so I asked them what they were going to do with his huge collection of tools of all kinds. They weren't interested and they told me to ask their mom about the casting equipment. She very kindly said we could have it all for nothing as I was good friend.

So today we hauled home a Speedy-Melt gas fired furnace and the blower and controls. We also got two man tongs for lifting the crucibles from the furnace, several different size pouring handles, six cope and drags of various sizes in cast iron, aluminum, and stainless. We also got a pyrometer, and five graphite clay crucibles, two of which are bottom pour style. Also about 30 lbs of zinc ingots, there are at least 200 lbs more available. It all looks rough after sitting in the shed for maybe 15 years but should clean up nice.

I want to try lost foam and lost wax casting as we have a CNC mill I built with a 18" work cube and a full enclosure so carving up foam and wax will be easy. I am sure I will be back asking questions once we get going.

 

Sounds like a great start.

14 is a good age to instill some safety and conscequence lectures along the way. Hope you both enjoy it.

 

Welcome to the forum. How about some pictures? This sounds like a great opportunity for both of you.
Zinc is a handy metal to have around but may not be the best for breaking in your furnace and getting your feet wet. Your furnace is a "big gun" and could very easily overheat the zinc creating a toxic white cloud (see zinc fume fever). Maybe consider using scrap aluminum as your training material and use your zinc later, if and when it's needed. Aluminum creates no such issues.
Hopefully your gas supply is sufficient to feed that beast!

Pete

 

You are a lucky guy on two accounts. Most of us would feel very very fortunate to have been given a complete set of high quality (most of us are using gear that is just barely equal to the task) casting equipment. But of much greater significance is having a grandson eager to learn with you. What a great opportunity to spend some time, real time, with him pursuing a shared goal. That’s an extremely rare gift.

Denis

 

No pictures yet of the casting stuff. Pictures of his 3d printer and the CNC mill/lathe we built and his high school project he used them to make.

I was lucky as a kid. My dad got me a lathe at 10 and taught me to weld about the same time. So I built minibikes and such. He was an electrical contractor so I was exposed to tools of every kind.

My grandson got a complete set of wrenches for Christmas when we built the CNC. The 3D printer last year. This year he is getting a $500 set of Milwaukee battery power tools. Tools are gifts that keep on giving.

 

Lucky score Gary. Show your grandson my youtube channel. If he has any sculpting talent, there is money to be made. I am not a good sculptor, but the process is easy enough to learn. If he's really got a knack for cad, I highly recommend zbrush and a look at this guys yt channel. Be prepared to be blown away.
Makes the youtube jackasses casting foam swords look like a joke huh?

 

My friend was in to sculpting which is why he had the casting equipment. He did some pretty nice stone work and a couple of bronze bust castings.

 

Thanks for the pics. It's getting off-track so I won't ask for details on the CNC, but if you've documented your build somewhere I'd love the link!
Your right about getting them involved at a young age especially if they have the "spark". Some do and some don't. Your grandson is welcome here as well. It's like bringing a lad into the gun club for the first time with his shiney new Henry: all the old boys smile.

Pete

 

A bit dated but you can get the idea. I have made a lot of upgrades since these pictures. Most of the parts were given to me (aluminum framing, plc, PC, free) gotten at the junk yard (205lb cast iron surface plate for table for $98) or off Ebay (4 THK linear slides with 18" travel and ballscrews for $1200 total).

http://s811.photobucket.com/user/garyhlucas/library/Ifactory?sort=3&page=1

 

Thanks for the link. There's a lot to look at there. The cabinet is impressive in itself!

 

The whole machine sits on adjustable feet so it can be leveled. There are casters too so if I lower it about an inch I can roll it to another location. The entire top of the enclosure can be removed so that the base and machine fits through a standard 30" door. The enclosure is metric 80/20 and uses what they call a standard fastener which fits in a 20mm counterbore. That allows the enclosure to be easily disassembled or adjusted in size and they are very strong. Very easy to build. The one mistake I made. I surrounded the cast iron surface plate with a chip pan that allows me to use flood coolant if I want. Doing it again I would have made the pan the full size of the enclosure and set the cast iron base inside it. Joint leaks have been annoying the way I did it.

 

FIRST FIRE!
We cleaned up the furnace and the burner unit and holy crap everything works! The automatic ignition blower and gas valve all work perfectly. Today we fired it up with a 20 lb propane tank and melted a pile of aluminum cans my grandson hammered flat. We melted it and poured the melt into a stainless bowl.

Going to try some lost foam casting next. I have some of the pink foamular boards to cut some parts out of. I also got some lightweight drywall filler to try.

Something that may of interest to others. The pink stuff at Home Depot has grooves in it so it can be broken apart. Big voids in the 2” material. Today I saw a green foam 2” thick at Lowes with no grooves at all. Looks like it might be a better choice.

Was wondering if anyone has tried fusing panels together using a heated platten. You might loose some thickness but maybe no glue to gum up the works. We weld lots of HDPE which got me thinking.

 

I had guessed that your furnace was natural gas fired as that's what all of the school model I've seen have been. That's why I mentioned your gas supply being adequate to run it.
The lifting and pouring tools are great!

Pete

 

The burner doesn't have an orifice so it can be used for natural gas or propane by adjusting the air to fuel ratio. I suspect I am going to have to get a 100lb tank or hook up more that one 20 lb to get enough gas before the tank freezes. We could hear the flame drop off as time went on.

 

I tested it, you are right it melts way to fast.

 

We have two bottom pour style crucibles as well as two standard type. It would seem these would be excellent for aluminum as the metal comes off the bottom where it isn't exposed to the air. Is that the case?

I have quite a bit of 6061 aluminum scrap. Does it cast okay? Anything you can do to improve its castability?

I know that there is a casting alloy available and I am trying to think of where I might get cast scrap. One possibility is the road department. The bases of light poles are cast aluminum and years ago I used to repair parking lot light poles when they got knocked down. Sometimes I could use a hydraulic cylinder to press a dent out or cut a short piece off the pole then weld all the pieces of the base back together and weld the tube back on.

 

Glad it worked first time!

I get a plastic tub and fill it with warm water to prevent the bbq tank from freezing and dropping pressure. Works well.

I don't know about 6061 alloy, but you might be able to google foundry, or foundry supply and find a place that sells proper alloy at a cheap price. The place I get my bronze and aluminum from is lancaster foundry supply in PA. But there are others.