Shed conversion for casting

Lol, could be, I am not sure what that means either but it sounds a little bit dirty.

Jeff

 

He did mention a squirrel cage fan and single wall pipe, I'm just not sure I'm visualizing it the way he meant it...

 

Well, now I have the tools to find out if I need to look into that some more - my CO meter finally arrived!



Will report back once I've had a chance to take some readings with the furnace running...

Jeff

 

Agreed, now that I have that meter, I'll feel safer experimenting with the oil burner, seeing how many doors I can safely close, etc.

I hear you there, I thought I would never be able to make room to move in my shed, much less get any work done. Still lots of stuff to keep improving over time, it's a work in progress for sure, and maybe always will be!

Fire is definitely a concern. I've moved out most of the lumber and random fuels that were in there, but not all of it yet, and besides which, the shed itself is made of wood... I'm keeping my eyes open for some used steel barn siding or something to cover up as much of the interior as I can. Maybe some insulation too some day, to go in behind that. Even then I'll have to be pretty careful about splashes and pops I suppose. It would be easy to roll the furnaces and carry molds outside in nice weather as I've always done if I decide that is the safest way to go; easier than ever in fact, because now I have the muller and molding bench right there much nearer where I've gotten used to pouring, not to mention they are also now conveniently close to each other for the first time ever...

Jeff

 

So, a few days ago I managed to find some shed time again. Figured I'd cast a hook to hang my leather apron and face shield up on, using one of my hardware store cast iron molding practice finds from a couple years ago. I had cast it once before and it came out great!

Well, depending on how you look at it, I was either an hour too early or a day...

For the hour, well, I had misplaced the first casting I'd made using the moosehook pattern. Been looking for it for months now, to the point where my wife actually gave up on me and went out and bought a different hook that I don't like at all for the inside of the bathroom door. Well, after the mold cooled down, I brought the casting inside to show off its crappiness. My son saw it and immediately grabbed the original finished casting from the drawer of the computer desk where he was sitting to show off its awesomeness! D'oh! He had considered it to be in his way at some point, and stashed it in that very unlikely spot, no wonder I couldn't find it where I was sure it had been left... So less than an hour after I cast a new one, the one I already had turned up almost magically...

For the day, the CO meter pictured above finally came in the mail the very next morning. Would have been nice to have been able to take a few readings while the furnace was running, though on the bright side I still didn't notice any ill effects from CO poisoning.

The casting session went fine, but the mold was crap, my sand just would not behave. I think it needed longer in the muller to distribute the water I had added more evenly throughout the sand - the only thing it wanted to really stick to was my rammer. Temperature may have been part of the issue too, it was about the same as when I cast the unicorns (about 1C), but I think I may have left the weed burner torch blasting into the muller at the moving sand for longer and warmed it up more that time...

Here's some video of the whole fiasco.



In the end the new casting was so bad I decided I am going to toss it back in my ingot bucket. I hung up the good one from before instead. FWIW, it seems to do a good job holding my stuff up off the floor.

I found some old pictures of the casting I did use:

Here it is before I cleaned up the flashing etc.





And here it is all cleaned up.



I don't have a real good pic of the new one, but here's a screenshot from the video where it doesn't look any worse than the first one did before I finished grinding. But it is worse, the flashing on the new one is almost a cm thick in some areas instead of a mm at most, due to me futzing with one side of the mold after the other was already rammed up. Certainly more flash metal than I feel like grinding off between those antler points etc... Also, the back of it looks just terrible. You might be able to see it better in the video, if you feel like watching this train wreck happen.



The lesson I learned here was, if the sand isn't behaving, toss it back in the muller right away and start over, rather than trying to push ahead and brute force it into compliance!

I got a comment on the video from sandrammer, which is always a nice surprise; he thought I should not have filled it upwards from the base because the metal had to run uphill onto the antlers. I thought I was being smart doing that! If I flipped the pattern over and did it that way, the metal would still have had to flow uphill through the runner/gate (because of the shape of the parting line on this irregular pattern) from the sprue base to the antler base, and then it would be (in my mind) splashing back down into the antlers and creating a lot of bifilm defects. The way I had it set up, it goes downhill through the gate from the sprue until it fills the base, then (hopefully) smoothly fills the antlers from the bottom up with no splashing. I know sandrammer knows his stuff backwards and forwards though, so you won't catch me disagreeing with him (not where HT1 might see it especially!), so this is a bit of a dilemma for me. Anyone here got a second opinion about what is the best orientation to mold this thing? I plan to try it again both ways at some point, to compare the results.

Jeff

 

Finally got some CO numbers.

Did a few melts with the new meter. It came with documentation stating 50ppm is the max it should get to for spending 8 hours in an enclosed space, and to get the heck out at 100ppm. I set it to alarm at 100.

While the furnace is running, I've been keeping it clipped to my leather apron and checking it often. Seems to stay between 14 and 20ppm. Last melt I set it to hold the max reading it gets, to see if maybe it's spiking when I'm not looking...



If the supplied document is to be trusted, that's one thing to worry less about I guess.

Jeff

 

Thanks Billy. Recent developments have made me realize my foundry shed is way too small, but it's still way better than being at the mercy of good weather pouring outside. I will have to try casting the antler hook again with this new petrobond, so far it seems much better behaved at around freezing temperatures than my greensand ever has.

Jeff

 

Been playing in my sandbox. The petrobond really does still work in the freezing weather! A couple degrees below freezing, anyhow.

Tested out some new letter board sign letters I got for patternmaking as well as some plastic dragons I ripped off my kid's plastic ninja sword scabbard before it went in the trash several years ago. I always thought those dragons would work well as pattern accents... I used them to make a fun sign for my foundry shed door.

The pattern. I used a blank plaque I cast earlier to glue the letters and dragons onto.



It's a Dungeons and Dragons foundry pun. Level 20 nerd, I know.

The casting, done in my new petrobond. I love this sand!





Before I descovered metal casting, I used to spend my free time collecting and painting miniatures for my D&D games. Figured the sign could use a splash of colour, so I dug out my old paints and brushes. I was a little worried they would have dried up or settled out too much over the past 7 years or so to bring back to life, but the paints are still good!







My shed may not look like much, but it looks a little better now than it did a couple days ago...



Jeff

 

Thanks guys. It was only maybe -2 out, and I know at that temperature my greensand would have been all but useless. We'll see how it works a month from now... if I can make myself go outside to try it then. It only has to be willing to work when I am!

Jeff