If some of the more experienced members could spare a few minutes to have a look at this blokes method of casting aluminium parts, I’d appreciate your opinions on the viability of his method. http://www.technogap.com/trackmaking.htm
He was definitely successful and it looks like a decent finish on the parts. Might just give it a go.
Though not recently, I've used that same process many times for multi-cavity aluminum casting molds. Given the size and number of parts that need to be cast, I'd go for more cavities than four but there is a practical limit as larger molds can be more difficult to handle, keep flat, and bake. Before making the multicavity tool, I'd suggest casting a single piece, preferably in the same mold media, to optimize the feed system before investing the time in the more complex tool. You can mold in the alignment features with shallow cones and sockets so you don't have to fuss with alignment pins. It's also beneficial to mark the patterns with separate numbers so the cavity that produced the part is a permanent feature of the casting. That way if you have problems, sometimes it can be related to a specific location within the mold. In his conclusion he stated he underestimated the size of the project, had invested an hour per track so that put him at 170 hours invested. That assumes 100% success, not sure it includes everything for the finished product, and doubt it includes the time invested in researching/part development, learning, pattern making, set up, etc. This was my original caution to you but if you are willing to invest several man-months, it's definitely doable. I like development work and making a few copies but find production monotonous. Best, Kelly
Thanks Kelly, some useful tips there. Being retired, time is one thing that I have in abundance, so that isn’t a problem. As far as tedious work, having bucked 12,000 rivets last year, I’m well used to monotonous, repetitive tasks, just put the brain into neutral and go for it.
It looks to me like he made four molds at once but not a four up casting. He did a lot of work. But was successful. I noticed that page was last updated in 2006, back when I was in diapers...
