Welcome Nick. Tell us a little more. Are you literally taking the first step on the journey or have you started to build/collect some foundry equipment? Best, Kelly
Thanks guys, I watched a couple of YouTube videos which I know is not necessarily good info but my original plan was to make a slingshot out of aluminium for as little money as possible. I told some co-workers about my plan today and had more aluminium rims offered to me than I know what to do with lol I work at a sawmill and can make all the charcoal I could want for free so that's my plan atm, I made a 44 gal drum full once to try and learn to bbq but didn't like it so i gave it all away I started today so I'll post some pics tomorrow of what I've done so far!
Welcome to The Home Foundry! When it is time to actually melt metal with the charcoal you make and you need a furnace, if it is not too late I highly suggest you check out Dave Gingery's book, "The Charcoal Foundry" before you go and copy something made out of plaster off of youtube. There is a wide mix of great and terrible examples there, but some of the worst are incredibly popular. You're already off to a good start collecting rims instead of beer cans, so keep it up! If you don't already have special materials to make molds out of, lost foam casting is going to be the cheapest way to jump in IMO. Once you have a way to melt and pour molten metal safely, all you need for basic bare bones lost foam casting is a carved styrofoam slingshot with an extra long handle, a bucket of sand, and an empty soup can. Good luck, looking forward to the pictures! Jeff
Hopefully AlloyAvenue.com forum will come back up. There was a guy over there named Toolshed who was a great slingshot guy. +1 on the Gingery book. Get it on kindle or ebay cheap. Super helpful and easy to follow. Working at a sawmill will get you excellent feedstock for charcoal. I found an excellent method to make charcoal you may be interested in, let me know. But if the casting bug really bites you will probably move on to oil. In the meantime though,start with what you've got. Pete
Thanks guys, lost foam casting looks like fun and I skimmed through 'the charcoal foundry', heaps of good information there so ill keep it handy!
On youtube if you see stuff from oldfoundryman, myfordboy (a member here), swdweeb, sandrammer, chirpy's tinkerings, paul's garage, luckgen1001 you can trust it. There's also links around here to all the members youtube channels. Al203 (Kelly) is the man to listen too for lost foam....mad skills! If you want the black arts of shell casting Jason (here, worldtraveler on youtube) can help you out. DaveF is the gray beard for block mold casting. All of us can help with the what not to do category or in the barby satire comment department.
Speak its name and it appears. ;-) I have cast a few slingshots in my time. Both of these addictive sports are great! https://www.theslingshotforum.com/threads/bigdh-casting.40031/#post-366408 https://www.theslingshotforum.com/threads/trade-with-toolshed-complete.41622/#post-392568 https://www.theslingshotforum.com/threads/the-far-end.42527/#post-401258
