The day after Halloween is a great time to buy the unsold foam decorations. Sometimes at less than half price.. An easy way to get a start using dry wall mud, and sand compaction.. The sand can be compacted using a rubber mallet to tap the sides of the can.. You'll need a 5-gallon metal can.. Fredo
Agreed, an easy way to jump into lost foam, that is how I learned how to get halfway consistent results with it. However, a couple or 3 years ago, the usual spots around me (Michael's, dollar store) switched to pretty much all plastic Hallowe'en decorations where they would have been made of styrofoam in previous years. I still have loads of leftovers, as you can only pour so many little skull paperweights before it gets a bit boring. Jeff
That may be, but the easy success of a foam casting may encourage new metal casters to continue on to more difficult casting.. You don't have to build anything to start with. I'm sure you were lifted with your first foam castings.. I just turned 80 a few months back.. I find packing and turning a 50-60 lb. sand molds a little bit more than I can handle.. I'll be buying the makings for shell casting soon.. I find the molds for making foam parts a little too big when using lost wax molds. I be continuing with LF, but with my own molds for expanding polyethene beads.. Shell casting should lighten the load on old bones..
Oh, I agree 100%, premade decorative styrofoam patterns are a great way to get started and the easiest way I can think of to try out metal casting for a newbie. When the same old skulls finally started to get boring for me after a couple years, I still had quite a hoard of foamies and started cutting them up and modifying them to make stuff like belt buckles using pieces of the premade shapes. Building a hot wire foam cutter is a fun beginner's build project too. There's a lot you can do with premade shapes and the same techniques apply to pouring more original lost foam castings once you start carving your own. Which can be anything from a quick and dirty <2 hours from idea to crude but usable one off castings like the clamps I made for my sand muller, to high quality completely original parts that are not just functional but beautiful like the car parts Kelly makes. Or somewhere in between, you can chop up premade shapes and glue hand carved bits (or cheez doodles believe it or not) onto them to make original shapes to cast. Very versatile, and the bar to entry is as low as it gets, just a bucket of dry sand, a hot glue gun, and a way to pour molten metal safely are all that is absolutely needed to get going. If you have young kids (or grandkids), styrofoam is so easy to shape they could even make their own little sculptures that you can help them sprue up and then cast for them, perhaps inspiring the next generation of foundry hobbyists. Jeff
I've found that the plastic decorations are made of quite thin plastic.. I cut this plastic skull open and taped it back together.. I then treated it like a slush mold.. Poured hot liquid wax in the skull, rotated it to cover all of the inside of the plastic skull.. Pored the remaining wax back in the wax pot.. Pulled the tape, removed the hollow skull.. The detail was quite good.. Melted it back into the wax pot.. Did it on a lark, just to see if it would work. Shell casting could bring it to life..
I bought this AA batt. powered pen a few years back.. This type pen is used to cauterize tiny veins to stop bleeding.. Amazon.com: WAX Carving PEN Super Max Instant 850F Tool It can work as a hot wire to carve foam.. It worked for me, but was a bit too small for anything large. A larger one, build like a hot wax pen, with adjustable heat, Could do a lot in talented hands..
