Nope.. the pictures are fine. Is that your 911? Ceramic shell isnt that expensive actually. Figure about 300bucks for a bucket of slurry and 2 bags of silica. The stuff comes from Ohio, so it wont be too bad for you. What kind of stuff do you typically cast?
Yes I have had the car for about 26 years now. 300 is a bit much on my retirement unless I sell the car. LOL Typically on the small scale. Things I carved. Off road stuff for now (horses and jeeps) and a few skulls for fun. here are some of the things i cast Here is a fish i made for a wine bottle stopper. I cant find the finished piece though. I gave this away so finished pictures are not to be had. here is the first thing i ever cast April 4 2020 but it gave me hope.
Whoa! Nice work and tiny stuff! You should be running Ultravest and quit playing in the sandbox like a caveman. The resolution will blow you away. https://www.riogrande.com/product/ransom-and-randolph-ultra-vest-investment-44-lbs/702314 Are you using hagerty's for insurance? They've got my old jag and agreed value insurance is dirt cheap on it. I pay about $350 a year for 40k of coverage. If I could get the ass end back in it, maybe I'll get lucky and watch it burn on the side of the road! I'm kidding, but never really fell in love with the driving experience. I'd dump my E in a heartbeat for the right TR4a or TR250. I missed my chance at a 356 about 30years ago. Oh well.
Those are nice, I love the fish. Jason, drop the jag at mine and I'll slip a hurricane out of the back door, sound fair?
lol.. PERFECT! I lost my contact in Germany for these cars. This thing is probably worth a small fortune over there or in Italy seeing it's a left hooker.
If you can cope with 100 gallons an hour and a strip down service every 25Hrs you'll love it, not sure it has the range to get you back home though! I'll leave Zaps thread alone now, sorry Zap, keep up the good work on the turkey
Yeah cool car and nice castings. I like ultravest as well. Its pretty cheap too. I use it for silver casting. Thanks Peedee I got the second half of the back feathers done today and blended them into the head. Just the wings and tail feathers left now. Then a crap ton of cleaning and chasing the wax and I can start molding it.
Sorry I don't want to hijack this thread. I'm still learning the forum etiquette thing. Hell I don't even know how to do the pink quote function. haha I use "Prestige ORO" for investment currently. Probably used 50lbs of the stuff already. Would that work for a casting the size of Zap's Turkey/Eagle. Could the cost ratio be less with Ultravest? I will look into the ultravest as it may be cheaper for larger block invested castings that I would like to try someday. I'm following this thread to learn how to cast something that size and shape and anything else along the way. Like the fiberglass backing. Zap. Any pictures of the latest progress? When you say "chasing the wax and I can start molding it" I must admit i'm a little confused. Is this in reference to the silicon mold and making the wax model for burnout? Jason. I do use Hagerty for the car. Is your Jag a XKE 6 or 12? My first car was a 1970 Triumph Spitfire 1500 LOL but I always loved the tr4.
Bill, they are pretty loose on thread continuity and we really do a pretty good job sticking to the the original post. Using an investment al la solid block for Zaps Turkey here would work, but it would be awfully heavy, slightly expensive and require a big kiln. Solid block really shines for small stuff like jewelry and for anything that would fit in your hand. For the bigger stuff, ceramic shell is the most cost effective and almost just as good as solid block. Zap will cut his pigeon up into a few manageable pieces, cast them into bronze and weld it back together. The hardest part is not letting the wax change basic shape or reassembly will be a nightmare. I saw a new trick the other day this guy did Zap my want to try. When possible, adding sprues to the wax while it is still in the mold prevents many problems later. Brilliant! My E is a 6cyl series 2. I owned one 12cyl jag in Europe and would never do that again. It was expensive, cantankerous, and frankly it's just too many damn moving pieces to the puzzle. Glad to hear you have hagerty. They are the best!
We use the term chasing for both cleaning up the wax after it comes out of the silicone and also chasing the metal after it's cast. Chasing just refines the sculptures details at both stages. It is always easier to chase wax. I've said in the past oh I'll fix it when its metal only to wish I took the time at the was phase. Wax works so much easier!
Jason, I will continue to read up on all of the posts in the Solid Block Method section. It seam a bit different than what i have been doing. My burnouts are 1350f and I cast around 900f for the small stuff and 600-800f for the one piece that has given me the most trouble. The temps for solid block interest me greatly. definitely worth trying. I guess I weld okay, but I would of never thought of welding it back together. I came to the party a little late and have a lot of learning and fun in the future. Can't wait to see the progress on Zap's project. This looks like a really solid process.
When he puts it together, he will tig weld it. If you havent tried TIG, you are missing out. It's more like tig brazing, but with TIG, you dont have to get the entire piece screaming hot. Bronze welds super easy and is a joy to work.
Jason, Thanks for the explanation. Totally relate to the do it later mistake. Now I start holes for drilling and tapping in the wax before casting. No more center punching hard to hold stuff. Cant do to much casting with investment at the moment. Too cold in the garage for the vacuum pump. It's an old Gast 1550 Lubricated rotary vain from an 1950s AB Dick Printing Press. It does not like the cold. Nothing under 32f.
Hopefully we can see some video. Not to add anything to anyone's schedule. LOL I would probably use oxy/act for that with bronze filler. I have made some unpredictable looking bronze so matching color would be interesting. Don't have a tig setup. Stick, MIG, Oxy/Act and a small Mapp/Oxy brazing setup.
A harbor freight DC TIG rig is all that's needed... I went ape shit on a welder because I hate being held back. I do very little aluminum, but it's nice to have.
I think you are trying to get me to sell my car. HaHa If only I really had a need. Down the road maybe
You can do bronze with a few methods. You can convert a regular arc welder to scratch start tig if I'm not mistaken or use oxy acetylene as well. Just less control than a dedicated tig welder. I also went ape on my tig welder and got a syncrowave 250 for about $2500. Great machine. I have a video of when I made the octopus here: . Pretty similar process to what I'm doing now just less details. I think you could do solid block investment for large pieces but it becomes pretty difficult to manipulate huge pieces and you need a big kiln. I think Rasper does that for large bronzes. He uses ludo and plaster (pre-fired brick dust + sand + plaster) to make huge 50+ pound block investments that he fires and makes bronzes in. Problem is it takes 2-3 days to burn out a huge investment like that. I finished the neck feathers and started the right wing. Lucky I had made most of the feathers I needed for this. Unfortunately I used most of them up and won't have enough for the left wing... back to making thin wax sheets and more feathers...
After seeing your creations you deserve a good welder. I guess a MIG is probably a bad choice but I would try just to see what it would weld like. Oxy/Act would be my go to for now. Never really thought about fixing defects by welding. I will definitely watch the octopus vid. Block investing is a process that I just discovered existed. From this forum. If i'm correct the temperatures seem to be a lot lower burnout and casting temps. Ceramic Shell will probably be the last process I explore. Still so much to learn with the stuff I do know how to do. LOL The sculpture is really coming together. The feathers look awesome especially the transition into the breast and wing. The texture on the top of the head is spot on. What is that brown wax your using? I just finished reading the frog posts that is awesome as well. I see it's on your work bench. Looks good even out of focus. Started the video. I have seen some of this guys videos recently. I love the fact that this is a self taught art form for you. I usually only look for guidance when the challenge starts costing to much money.
Oh yeah the frog is there. I really need to finish it up. 99% of my sculptures are at the stage where they need to be buffed or get a patina. Technically finished but not with their final colors. I just hate the patina stage and keep procrastinating. However I did make myself a swivel table two weeks ago so I can finally do the patina step comfortably. I recently saw people using bronze wire and mig welding which I thought was interesting. Might be a bit easier for small repairs or porosity issues. I also recently upgraded my dremel to a foredom for more power while grinding bronze. But the damn thing keeps snapping my carbide burrs. I think I need the 1/4" shanks instead of the 1/8" shank burrs. The wax I'm using is premiere pastel brown wax from remet. Its $1 per pound which is the cheapest wax you can buy. I think it's cleaned reclaimed wax and usually is used for pouring into silicon molds to make copies of sculptures. Its pretty brittle and shatters easily but takes high detail and works easily with some heat. I just don't want to pay 4 to 6 bucks a pound for "better" more plastic wax.
For some reason i struggle with the finishing part of everything i cast. So far I can put everything I make into a tumbler to do most of the work. Recently I have started wet sanding the flat pieces starting with 150 working up to 800 than buff. Always put this off. I will look into the bronze wire for the mig. I think I may have heard about that as well. I had one casting where I thought I might try to finish an arch with bronze filler. Most likely it wouldn't match because the bronze I make can be a bit hit an miss. Mostly just copper and tin with whatever antimony is in the pewter and a few small mostly zinc discs for deoxidizing. A lot to learn. Breaking carbide burrs? Do they get stuck in tight spaces and the torque just breaks them? Or do you go into that hypnotized state of mind while grinding and push until they break. I know the Foredom has a lot of torque for its size especially if it is a newer model with the newer motor. Usually I just grind off what's left of the sprue with a sanding wheel because I have the space. Ya brittle may not be good for what i currently do, though someday I plan on doing some additive sculpting. Most of what I do is subtractive. Carving away to make the image. Certainly cant beat the price though. Do you think that wax will melt and inject okay. I could always lower some cost with a cheaper wax if I am only investing to burn out. Do you boil your shell like Jason. I always steam investment castings to remove the wax. If I had to burnout the wax my wife would shut down my operation. LOL she hates the smell of the wax.
