Today I cast a 30x12x4" precision square in iron. The entire casting and runners required 66 pounds of metal. As my largest crucible is an A25, it was very full of liquid metal and I knew getting every drop of metal into the pouring basin with such a full crucible would be tricky. So, using a scrap of 20ga steel I bent and welded a box about 10 square and 1.5" tall to surround the pouring basin. I trowel the surface of the cope into something of a very shallow cone with the pouring basin at its center and then put the corral around the basin. I backed it up with a few handfuls of green sand though that was not likely needed. It turns out it did prevent loss of maybe a pound or so of metal as my initial aim was off a bit and and some metal careened around the corral at first. THe title of the video says 70 pounds melted and that is true, but slag etc reduced the net melt to 66.5 pounds. I had tried a corral a year or two ago, but did not like it as I made it too tall and not wide enough. This setup seemed to work well and is one I will use for very full pours. I'll post photos of the casting later when I get my phone back from my neighbor who is using mine to try to recover his lost phone. Denis
Pics of the corral and of the casting. 65#15.5oz cope side Drag Side Last but not least, gates that are free of shrinks. I printed my sprue and runner and riser patterns using Onshape CAD software and my Prusa MK3 printer. Denis
Very nice Denis! It seems like you have taken to CAD and 3D printing. Thanks for posting your results. Pouring 70# to yield 66# is impressive too. I ran out of Petrobond sand to fill the cope on my 'grande' flask during my last aluminum pour and reverted to childhood thinking I could make a 'mashed potato volcano' as a basin and sprue in the middle of the cope. Towards the end of the pour I lost one of the basin sides, burned the flask, and have n couple magma-shaped ingots to show for it. I had a point where I could have added filler boards to the flask... I would have needed a corral about the size of a small tuna can.
Thank you, Tops. I actually put 70 pounds of returns in the pot and yielded 66 in the casting and 1 pound in that little dribble into the overflow mold at the end. I think I could have gotten into a little better position to start the pour. But, as I maneuvered to get set up I tipped a bit much and started the pour a bit before I wanted to. But, ya can’t stop once you start. So I did the best I could. And, yes, I am finding the printer to be a time and work saver when it comes to pattern making. Denis
I have seen people using cores and just greensand ram ups to add extra basin width and height. We have even looked at adding core on top of our mold so we could add extra castings and gain head pressure for them. We chose not to do so which made my life easier.LOL
Sure. It is the middle of our drought season. What you did not see is that I hosed the surrounding areas several times during a melt to make sure the surrounding grass is moist to a roughly 70 foot radius from the mold., I have a charged hose with very good pressure and a nozzle right at the mold area, and you can see the extinguisher in the video. I do not wet the grass right at the mold as I do not want to tempt fate should I accidentally have a crucible failure or some other large spill. So, that little bit of grass can burn harmlessly enough. On the subject of fires and extinguishing them. I learned a year or two ago that petroleum fires can be much more effectively be fought by aiming a dry chem extinguisher into a stream of water that is played onto the fire. That seems contrary to the usual advice of not putting water on oil fires. But, our local refinery firefighters have special hose/nozzle setups to d just that and there are YouTube vids on the subject as well. I may have mentioned this previously here. Denis I don't like using green sand to build up a berm around the basin as I find it very very difficult to avoid getting bits of random sand in the pour basin/sprue while making the berm. The corral is easy---just drop it in place and maybe back it up or not with some sand. I have to be very careful if I back it up. Sand likes to cling to hands, arms, etc and fall where it is not wanted. Denis
Fires need heat, fuel and air to burn. The water takes the heat away and the chemicals take the air away or inhibits the fuel from burning. The problem with using just water on pertol fires is the water turns to steam from the heat and atomizes the fuel for a lovely (deadly) fireball. Compressed gas cylinder fires you let the gas burn off and cool the tank with water. Very nice pour (envious of your ability with Iron).
