Shed conversion for casting

Things have been busy so progress is slow, but I got the muller moved in and the molding bench, though the latter needs new legs.

Also, my wife got tired of the cheap Ikea pantry cupboard in the kitchen when it lost a pin and dumped a shelf load of premature lost foam kush tools (some call them soup cans), so she bought a replacement cheap cupboard. So now the old one is out in the shed too now with a bunch of refractory and clay and stuff in it. I just need to get some shelf pins so I can finish putting a few more things away in it.

Here's a quick look as of yesterday, if anyone wants to see a still-kinda-big mess that is at least now tidied up enough to walk through...



Jeff

 

Got the LED shop lights already, same kind from Costco I put in my other shed a while ago, they come with a remote, light the place up well, and they are dimmable, can be set to turn on/off with a motion sensor or just be in switch mode, etc. I'm pretty happy with them. I was actually thinking about some sort of heater too. That is a bit longer term maybe, but I do like the idea of it being warm in there...

Jeff

 

More room in there than it appears. Going to be a nice foundry when your all done with it.
Castings before Christmas??

 

A couple years ago I thought about using an ice dam melting wire to keep the sand warm, but that wire is now snaked down the drain hole in my roof. So I'm not sure, the sand sure does get cold and lose some of its sticktivity in the winter months. Tough on the fingers when making molds!

One thing I noticed, once I doubled up the width of the wheel in my muller, it started warming up the sand noticeably as it works. Maybe that will help, though I might have to run the muller for a few minutes, then quickly ram like a maniac, then mull some more to use for the next layer... Not sure. At least the muller will be nearby now...

No promises, but that would be nice! We're sort of in pre-Xmas panic because relatives from BC and Germany are coming to stay at the house for a few weeks during the holidays, and all the cleaning up has been eating up most of my hobby time lately...

Jeff

 

Maybe I'll try that, sounds easy to set up... Thanks! Too bad, I was just there the other day.

Speaking of thrift shop foundry scores, I'd been keeping my eyes out for a used coffee urn to use as an oil burner fuel preheater/tank ever since I saw the suggestion in Bill T's sig on AA 6 years ago, and I finally found one at value village! Exact same 1970's paint job as on Mom's that she would bring out when the neighbourhood ladies would come over for coffee. Picked up not the worst crokinole board I've ever seen there too.

Jeff

 

Well, Christmas madness is in full force at my place. All the spare time now goes to getting the house ready for inbound houseguests. No time to work on the foundry shed for me.

I had to tidy up the living room this weekend. It's near the front door, so it was mostly just kids' jackets and boots and stuff needing to be put away, the worst part was moving my kiln out of there. I don't know why that was so important, the thing had only sat there for a year and a month...

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The thing is crazy heavy, I was going to need a cart! I was sure I had one somewhere... Then I remembered it was out in the foundry shed with my old charcoal furnace sitting on it for the past 6 years! Oh well, it is what it is. The only way to get the living room cleaned up would be to move the charcoal furnace off its cart. I didn't like how much room it was taking up in the shed anyhow. Dragged it outside and took it off the cart, placed it on a base of loose bricks. My 2/3 of a 55 gallon drum that was also using up a huge amount of shed space made a perfect cover for it to keep the rain and snow off it once I trimmed the tuyere down a bit.





That made a nice open space in the shed where I want to store sand barrels and flasks etc. I figured I'd move that stuff roughly into place while I still had the cart out there. With 2 flat tires, it wasn't much fun shifting that barrel with a couple hundred pounds of sand in it, but I got it there.





Well, I had no time to go buy tubes for those flat cart tires, that would have to wait. But we do have a fridge cart... That would be perfect. I told my wife, "Wife," I said, "I should have thought of this before I did all that work moving stuff around in the casting shed for nothing, what a shame!"

The fridge cart worked great getting that kiln out into place...



Of course the cart needed a clear path into and through the shed, so I had no choice but to tidy up a bit first. So that the living room could get cleaned up. Just to make sure I could see all the mess that needed to be tidied up, I decided to play it safe and installed those ceiling lights real quick.

One right over the molding bench...



And the other closer to the mid point of the shed, to keep some shadows around the furnace area at the far end, which I'm hoping will make furnace tuning easier (I adjust the mixture based on how much flame is or isn't shooting up out the vent, which is much easier to see in lower light).



You know, I don't understand why she was so worried I'd spend all weekend working on the shed when there's all this cleaning up to do inside - the casting shed is practically ready to go already!









Sure wish I could have found some time over the weekend to work on the shed though...

I do still need to build legs or a stand for the molding bench, but really, aside from that and moving some last remaining bits of scrap lumber out, I'm just about good to go in there!

Jeff

 

Maybe I could have figured out a way to tidy up the living room with less shed time involved, such as not keeping an emergency kiln move on deck for a whole year... Nah, it's 100% a total coincidence that cleaning up the living room required so much work out there to be done that day! If you don't believe me, just ask my wife - she'll tell you that's what I told her...

Jeff

 

Joe, it's a little scary how much that looks like the inside of my other shed that's halfway cleaned up! Looks like it'll be a great work space once you're all done setting it up.

Got some lumber picked out of the scrap pile to build the new stand for the molding bench, but that is the only progress I have to report.

Jeff

 

I cast the bronze ball for my drainpipe project inside my shed, had the furnace running for about 20 minutes; the rafter directly above the furnace vent which I can reach without going ALL the way up on my tippy-toes barely got warm. So I think your "lower bits" should be fine... Always protect your lower bits!

Jeff