John, good for you for putting up the link. As long as Pyrosil is not unduly expensive, good for them. But the "mixture of materials" they mention probably just means they added table sugar as outlined in Tom Cobett's excellent monograph. I am betting that plain RU is going be cheaper. And not everyone uses RU, but people have reported success with other forms of "waterglass." Denis
Not really sure. Just put it on there. I am new to this core stuff. A lot of acronyms thrown around I am not familiar with I guess. They are pricy for sure.
If you haven't already, read Tom Cobett's article. You can find a copy of it here: http://forums.thehomefoundry.org/in...-silicate-for-core-making-by-tom-cobett.1334/
That's new! The jarod.eells.us link may not work anymore but below the link, in that same thread, I also attached a local copy of Cobett's article and that is still available.
They sell a couple of sodium silicate binder systems at Smelko Foundry Products Ltd. here in Ontario; one that uses a catalyst and one that uses CO2: http://smelko.com/?page_id=279 I have about a quarter of a 55 gallon drum of the catalyst system (Sil-bond) binder and a can of type 15 catalyst. It sat around for a few years at Bill Jurgenson's foundry before I got it, I think. He had used some to make some bound sand molds that turned out well, and the binder is still liquid inside the 55g, so I assume it's still good stuff. Here's a pic of the can of catalyst and some info on mixing and work/strip times for the different types of catalyst that are available. I haven't used any yet but I have no CO2 on tap and don't really want to put my plaster coreboxes in the oven, so the catalyst seems like an ideal alternative for the next time I need a core. Jeff
