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What a weekend!

Long story short, I guess I'm still going to have to listen to Jason.

I'm the proud new owner of most of Bill's foundry stuff! Saturday was 19h straight of road trip and hard work, and Sunday for me was another 18h straight getting everything unloaded and the truck returned.

Man am I beat. And excited, and maybe a little overwhelmed.

I am sore in places I didn't know I had, and I need to sit down and do nothing for a couple hours now. But I will start a new thread soon, with many many pictures.

I can't thank you enough Bill. Aside from all this amazing new gear it was really great to meet you and your wife and see your shop!

Jeff

 

That would have been fun, I am not sure how I didn't think of that.

Does anyone know if the "red french sand" Bill gave me is the same thing as petrobond? IIRC it's about 20 years old and from Smelko's, so I guess I could email Tim to ask. It's oil bonded and looks and feels just like I always expected petrobond to do. I am not sure how much use it has seen but it feels perfect when I grab some and squeeze. I can't wait to try it out.

Pictures are on the way.

Jeff

 

300# was what I would have guessed after carrying the 3 bags. My sand muller will be able to make sure any burnt sans gets a fresh coat of clay and oil as well. It does look practically untouched, aside from small signs of what looks like parting dust. Amazing how nice and sticky it still is for having mostly just sat there for years! My greensand dries out on me if I take a break to drink a glass of water.



More pictures:

Bricks on a truck. Much of my Sunday was taking these off a few at a time to put on a cart to wheel into the shed to stack back up there. I'll say it again, a forklift is a wonderful tool if you have one!



Here's the big furnace:





Firebrick for scale





Another big crucible I can fit my whole head into, same size as the #70 in the furnace I believe. The 55g barrel below it has some sil-bond sodium silicate still in it.



Catalyst for the ss, and some mixing paddles for investment. You can see part of the crane-mounted crucible tongs here too.



You can see the spare blower for the burner behind the can of catalyst. It's a heavy thing! I had to stash some stuff away until I can make room to set it all up, but when I can I will get better pictures.

More to come...

Jeff

 

More tongs and shanks. Some are 2-man tools, plus a set that is for being lifted by a crane. Bill gave me a couple DVD's with some video showing those in use and how he had it all set up. He said I can share them, I'll have to figure out how. Maybe I can host them as private or unlisted videos on my youtube channel so you guys can all have a look too. At the very least I'll grab some screenshots eventually.



Inside the furnace after moving it off the truck, which was quite an adventure. There is a second plinth like that in among all the gear but I didnt take a pic of it. This plinth is stuck on the floor of the furnace pretty good.



#6 crucible for scale, lol. That is the grate that formed the cover of the furnace pit at Bill's place in the background. I think I will want to set it up in a pit too as the height of the furnace plus the crucible is pretty darn high to be lifting out otherwise.



Here's a pic of the tuyere



Jeff

 

Flimsy PoS non-fireproof Ikea coffee table "pouring deck" is OUT, good riddance.



I have a much better place to set molds and other hot things now...



Here's the rest of that firebrick that I'm keeping under wraps for now



The hard firebricks are actually for stacking up a loose brick burnout kiln. Bill built a lid for the kiln out of insulating brick. I have that leaned up against the wooden shed wall behind where I run my little furnace for now. A bit more fireproofing for the shed while I continue looking for some free scrap barn siding or something to line the inside walls with...



Here are the kiln burners.











Jeff

 

Every Canadian will now be able to don a skull belt buckle and be armed with a bronze ax!

Best,
Kelly

 

I dont even want to think about this stuff having ended up in a landfill! That would break my heart. Hopefully Rocco or OMM would have stepped up if I hadn't, or Petee if it weren't for the border and all the covid hassles. It would have been a much shorter drive for any of them.

Here is the blower for the furnace burner. It's a monster! Sorry it's not the best pic, it's hard to get up close becauae of all the stuff in the way right now.



Meet Gollum. He eats chunks of fired investment material (ludo) and spits out much smaller chunks. Apparently my helpers were being nasty hobbitses and decided to sit him upside down in my shed when I wasn't looking. I'll have to correct that (and get a better pic) in case this makes him leak all his oil out or something.



Here is Gollum's partner. He eats up what Gollum spits out and in turn spits out ludo all ground up and ready to mix into investment for new molds. This thing is HEAVY!





Here is what's left of my helpers after we got the furnace moved into the shed. No, wait, it's PPE!

Leather & helmets/face shields



Aluminized gear - more chaps & another set of spats.



Lots and lots of gloves for unstacking hot kiln bricks. The ones in the bag are brand new, never used:



Here is an assortment of tongs and a nice ladle:



There's also a whole bunch of plumbing for the furnace burner, but I think Bill already posted a picture of that and the electronic control board that runs it.

Edit - from watching a dvd video Bill gave me, I believe the ladle is actually the crucible skimmer tool for removing slag/dross.

Jeff

 

Wow!! Just WOW!!
Time to quit the day job and run the foundry full time. I'm sure the local artists would love to help you out in exchange for a place to pour their work..

 

Just a couple more pictures.

Some fiber board and some blanket bits.







Definitely I have to up my game now. It is going to take some time to grow into it all though. Bigger shed(s?) must indeed be built etc. There is so much to set up and connections to be made, I've sure got my work cut out for me, and that's no complaint. There was a bunch of stuff I didn't have room to take as well. Such as a large mortar mixer for mixing up huge batches of investment (Bill told us about making one sculpture that is 26 feet long and another that was going to cost a buyer a quarter million in reinforced flooring... I don't even own a big enough drill to use the mixer paddles in the pic above yet ), and an awesome contraption that looks a bit like this, but made of square frames instead of round, and designed for slush casting waxes instead of making astronaut trainees do spirograph art on the walls in puke:



Bill, can you post a picture of that thing? I wish I had thought to take a few while I was there. Show these guys your cars while you're at it!

Where the heck is Rasper? I bet he would love to see this stuff. Bill, Rasper is our other plaster, sand and ludo bronze caster guy here. He casts his own sculptures down in Mexico but he has been pretty quiet lately.

Jeff

 

He's been on... just quiet..