What is best option for purchasing suspendaslurry and/or any other slurry in a 5gal pail? Are people sourcing from local distributors or online source?
For you in Mass? Take a drive to Ohio. You have to have them ship the 5gallon pail and the 2bags of silica... Rancosil part A and Part B. Each 55lb a bag. The shipping is not as much as you'd think it would be. Ya might look at this page I wrote on SS. http://forums.thehomefoundry.org/index.php?threads/ceramic-shell-supplier-r-r.676/ Zap has the information of Remet. I have no experience with the stuff he runs and from what I've seen, I'm not warm and fuzzy with it either.
Hi Jason, Thanks for the link to that write up, very helpful. I searched before posting however that did not come up, I must have used the wrong key words. It seems that the "start up" cost of using the SS is more expensive than traditional investment however it appears that larger items are cast more easily vs. the more jewelry industry style of doing things. Also it looks like you don't need to mess around with pulling a vacuum with the SS method.
That is correct. No vacuuming is needed with shell. For anything larger than 5inches, shell is the way to go. Traditional solid investment as used in making jewelry is still king when it comes to very fine details. With that said, I have seen my fingerprints in metal running ceramic shell. Yes it's going run you around 300bucks to get setup with the materials and then there is the added pain in the ass of dewax. But the results are oh so worth it. Take a peek at my YouTube channel, lots of good stuff that will help you learn how to use this stuff. Whatcha planning on making??
My interests are mostly in model engineering (steam and IC engines) I am currently set up for sand casting however I am becoming more and more interested in lost wax for small production runs of parts. Making a permanent mold and cranking out a bunch of wax patterns is more attractive to me than ramming up a whole bunch of sand molds. The ceramic shell method seems to be a sweet spot for "medium" size castings.
Yes it is. Now the down side. SHRINKAGE! As you know by now, everything shrinks or expands.. Wax and metal have this problem. The good news is ceramic shell is VERY dimensionally stable and that's a plus and negative. Wax expands when heated and ceramic shell does not. This can lead to shell cracking during dewax. There are methods to prevent shell cracking and you will learn those along the way. Drilled vent holes is one method and patched up later. Ceramic shell is a very slow process compared to ramming a sand pattern, but it is pretty dead nuts easy. Follow the steps and you'll be fine. If your parts need tight tolerances, you'll need to experiment with changing your wax pattern size to achieve the final result in metal. Last thing I'll add for now is if you need hollow sections, shell can be a pain in the ass. Getting the material to dry inside a hole can be challenging and removing it after casting isn't always easy. I use a bead blaster and I've heard it can be dissolved with muriatic acid. There isn't one perfect method when it comes to casting, each has it's virtues. I run artsy fartsy stuff so if my dimensions are off, no skin off my ass. Most of the steam and little engine guys run sand around here. So you might be in uncharted waters on this one. Keep asking questions before you drop 3-400bucks with R&R and make sure it's really the right process for your application. I'll help where I can. btw, I've got a good supplier for wax, don't buy the overpriced microcrystalline on amazon. Have you screwed with wax before? It comes with it's own set of challenges too.
I am interested in your supplier for wax, it appears to be fairly pricey as well. I guess that is why they call it investment casting.
I'm in CT. If you want to drive by my place and have a look at my furnace and equipment let me know. I'm in Hamden CT. I'll be back in CT after April 11th and would be happy to show you what goes into lost wax, just let me know a few days in advance. I use Remet as Jason said, they have a distribution center out of Utica NY which is about 4 hrs away from me but may be closer to you. One trip up there every few years saves a lot on shipping heavy sand and slurry. And it is cheaper than suspendaslurry. I know Jason loves his suspendaslurry because it tends to stay suspended in liquid form rather than sediment out over night. It isn't really an issue at the hobby level, remets stuff will resuspend with a paint drill or if you do it by hand. It lasts many months once mixed as long as it doesn't dry out. Remet also sells wax. I bought premier pastel backup. It's made from reclaimed wax and is 1 buck a pound so it's very cheap. It is more brittle than other waxes so you can't bash it around or get it cold and move it roughly but other than that it burns out well and sculpts well. Very easy to work with. Remet Contact info: Email Us: sales@remet.com Phone: +1 315 797 8700 Toll Free: 1-800-445-2424 Fax: +1 315 797 4848 Registered Address: 210 Commons Road Utica, NY 13502-6395 https://www.remet.com/us/ I use RG1 and RG2 (the fine and coarse colloidal silica sand you need for coating) and RP1 and RP2 (the 2 powders that get mixed with the liquid binder to make the slurry solution you dip the wax into before costing with sand) with remasol adbond 2 liquid binder.
Wax can be considered to be an investment... But truth be told, I bet I still possess 80% of the wax I've started with. You recover it, filter it and use it over and over again. It's not a one and done. Good wax isn't cheap that's for sure. This is what I use. It's 50bucks for an 11lb block. There is a price break for a case purchase. http://arizonasculpture.com/j-mac-microcystalline-wax-2-ab150/ I'm in phoenix a couple times a year, so I always stop at Reynolds Advanced materials and pick up another slab. (saves on shipping) Funny how the stuff isn't sold at all of the Reynolds. Ya can't just use any wax. These waxes are designed to resist expanding when heated, yet they still do, can and WILL crack shell. Some guys customize their wax, blending different micro-crystallines can yield certain properties. Zap, you might try adding some of the 2ab150 to your pot and see if you can correct some of that brittleness with your bargain basement wax. The only other slurry supplier in the states I'm aware is Shellspen in Florida. Sit down when you check out their prices. OFF THE FKING CHARTS! I'm willing to bet my left nut, they buy pails of SS and repackage it into little sizes to rip off the old farts in Sarasota. Shameful really. It looks like SS to me. I've had my pail of SS going on almost 3 years now. It's almost empty and I've added at least a gallon of water to replace whats evaporated off. The only maintenance this stuff needs is once a month, it helps to open it up, spin it with a paddle and close it up. It stays pretty well suspended. Longest I once waited was 6months... There was a chunk on the bottom I could feel... After a few minutes of paddling, it was good to go again.
Remet sells good wax for 3 to 4$ a pound but I have trouble justifying a 250 buck bag when the brown cheap works so well for me as long as I don't manhandle it Haha. They also will post you samples of each type of wax so you can see what you like best. I guess you can recover it. But until recently I didn't have a proper burnout kiln that would let me save the wax. I do now, so maybe I'll get around to purifying the good wax. Still need to try out the suspendaslurry to compare it with the traditional shell from remet. They are probably the same, but the price difference and local supplier for me in CT makes it worth the irritation of resuspending the hardened chunks that sediment out over night. I may make myself a mixer to keep my slurry suspended while I am coating for a few days, then turn it off and let it settle out between projects. Usually I just mix up small batches so it isn't much of an issue.
