'49 Caddy Tail Light & Signal Buckets

Discussion in 'Lost foam casting' started by Al2O3, Feb 18, 2019.

  1. Very nice! How much value do you see in the vacuum?
     
  2. Jack Meckes

    Jack Meckes Copper

    1550.jpg Great job, Kelly. Thank you.
    I was polishing the rear bumper and before I put everything away, I polished one of the front parking lamp grilles to see how this alloy comes up.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2019
  3. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    7" Hg. If I hook up two of those three stage vacuum motors in series I can pull 1/2 ATM.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  4. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    That looks good Jack. It'll be neat to see the tail light buckets polished up on the rear along with that bumper.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  5. Jack Meckes

    Jack Meckes Copper

    Side view mirror stands. As cast on the left. Sanded and polished on the right. 004.jpg
     
  6. DavidF

    DavidF Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Looking good!
     
  7. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Very nice Jack.....something about the look of aluminum polished to high luster.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  8. Jack Meckes

    Jack Meckes Copper

    Back up sensor bezels polished and test fit. Two down, two to go.

    xyz.jpg

    2xyz.jpg
     
  9. WOW that's looking good!!
     
  10. Jason

    Jason Gold

    Yup.. Very sharp looking.
     
  11. Redwolf947

    Redwolf947 Copper

    Looks GREAT!!
     
  12. FKreider

    FKreider Copper

    Wow! That looks awesome!
     
  13. ddmckee54

    ddmckee54 Silver

    A '49 Caddy with 3 tail lights... I just realized that THIS is the Caddy that Johnny Cash built in "One Piece at a time!"

    Don
     
  14. Jack Meckes

    Jack Meckes Copper

    I did some fitting and polishing on the tail lights. They fit well and polished up pretty good but there's some porosity in the upper 1/3 of both castings. I'm going to keep them, I don't want to start the whole process over again. There's enough material to sand them a little more to eliminate the pits but I might just hit more pits below the surface.

    1577.jpg

    1578.jpg
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2019
  15. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    Got a close up?

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  16. That's the pits.

    Is there some kind of solder you would fill the holes with and then polish back out?
     
  17. Jack Meckes

    Jack Meckes Copper

  18. Jason

    Jason Gold

    AHH.....that's a four letter word for sure!:mad: It would take eons to tig that, sand and polish. What happened to all that biofilm BS? I thought this problem was going to be a thing of the past?

    They still look sharp, It's not a riddler car right? Call it patina. No one will know but us and your secret is safe here. Or chrome them.
     
  19. Al2O3

    Al2O3 Administrator Staff Member Banner Member

    The tail lights were cast in essentially the position they are shown on the car and sprued at the very top. If there was going to be porosity, the upward facing surfaces near the sprue are the most likely locations. There weren't very many choices IMO as to how to orient and sprue them given the multiple deep undercut features and complex shape. Even so, I had to add a couple of feeder holes through the pattern to insure the mold would pack and remain stable.

    There was quite a bit of wood glue and some bee's wax on the patterns. I use lower melt point waxes and try to minimize anything present on the foam pattern other than foam itself. Those materials will produce more gas. I also poured these pretty hot because I only had one shot at it, all of which may have been a contributing factors. All the parts were poured from the same stock and same method. You polished the one grill. It looked pretty good in your picture. Have you polished a turn signal bucket?

    Whether they will polish out is hard to say but what do you have to lose? You might also polish a couple of small spots on the backside near the top to see what they look like. There are a couple the larger ones that I would TIG. The real fine stuff probably isn't worth it and you may be more likely to add porosity and defects with TIG because when it comes to aluminum, casting is not the only process susceptible to gas defects. Beyond that I'd say plating and polishing to fill the small defects is the best option.

    Best,
    Kelly
     
  20. To be fair, I don't think anyone has suggested there are any bifilm control techniques which will eliminate porosity in lost foam casting.
     

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