Six years into casting aluminum

There's gonna be a vat of melted aluminum about where the fan is now. I'm gonna put a 19ft square aluminum canopy outside the east window of the 14x28 ft. space.

 

There's a 14 x 28 lean-to on the right which will house the muller and compressor. Here's where the muller goes.

 

I'm still laboring under limited space. I realize some of you guys have even less and I have it good with one whole garage bay dedicated to machining, casting, and current projects, but it would be nice to have a completely dedicated space. Looking forward to seeing it all come together.

 

The final resting place for the muller.


Tested out the foundary. Four wonderful casting failures.
The shop definitely needs an exhaust fan. I ran the furnace near the big door, minimal breeze and sporadic, and the shop carbon monoxide levels were about 150 ppm. It took several minutes for the smoke to dissipate.

This is a view looking down onto the snap flasks with the pattern and pouring basin pattern.
The moulding board is a Handy motorcycle lift. Works great so far.

good for sortin stuff before putting it into steel bins

 

Nice shop.
Wish I had a permanent pouring area.

 

You can't have this one but in a year or two you can have one of the ones I'll be making. Remember the design with the hole in the middle?

I'm planning to put on my engineering design hat this winter and I'll be messing around with the Tig welder. I would like to build the dry hearth furnace and vat starting next spring and in the process establish a good heating system in the foundry shop.
I need to find information regarding thermal characteristics of insulating materials such as heat capacity and heat transfer rates among radiant, conductive and convective paths. There may be a chance of making this shop run off the grid.

The dry hearth furnace is going to be about 3ft. cubed. That should be sufficient to accommodate my casting failures, aluminum wheels, and a bag of cans. I'll be using natural gas. Would a 64,000 BTUH burner be big enough?
The vat size depends on a lot of things and I'm still thinking about it. Minimum 100 lbs.

 

Seems I'm getting ready to start building benches.
This is the before pictures of the mess I want to clean up.

I want to build a aluminum welding bench in this area. The bench will also incorporate a bandsaw and possible storage.

So, I'm ready to lay out $600 or so for steel. I'm thinking a pile of 2" and 1" angle for legs and horizontals and some 2' x 4' plates for the top. I'm unsure about the ideal bench height, 31"?

I haven't hung out in welding shops because I've never had eye protection to watch what the old tymers did. Paying the price; I'm ignorant. So, I'm inviting some opinions and suggestions about outfitting a workable welding area.

 

Nice shop area!

Working height depends on your height and what you like.

My advice on aluminum welding is learn steel welding first. But that's just me. TIG, MIG, or oxyacetylene for your welding process?

 

Steel is easier than AL in the TIG world, for sure. Making your bench should supply a fair bit of steel practice. TIG is my favorite for AL and Fe.

couple suggestions for the table:
1) I deeply scored a 2” grid of lines at right angles in my 1/2” top. I use those grid lines all the time. A real plus. Did it single-pointing them on my mill.
2) I also put in an array of 1/2-13 holes for use of the same hold-downs as my mill to fixture work. Handy at times
3) leave a solid couple inches of overhang all around the top free of support angle—-you will want to clamp to the top with C-clamps and the like. A frame brought to the edge of the top would be in the way.
4) A half inch thick top has been just right for my needs.
5) a good sized drawer for welding stuff is great as is a shelf to store the tig pedal.
6) I like having mine mobile on sturdy casters. I rarely use the locking feature as the table, tank, welder, etc is heavy enough that it just stays where I put it.
6) My table is just a bit higher than elbow height—- just right for 95% of the smallish work I do on foundry gizmos.

Denis

PS. I also built a mobile table for my 4x6 cheap bandsaw with some features that made a somewhat crappy saw into a pretty good tool. We’ll talk about that another time.

 

I'll be using a TIG welder starting with the steel for the bench. Would a 1/4" top be too flimsy? I don't anticipate more than 200 lbs. objects on it and usually less than 100 lbs.
Regarding working height I'm basically annoyed that every bench in my shops are at a different heights. My first take on Melterskelter's elbow + suggestion seemed it was too high but then I checked and found one of my favorite benches is at that height.
So, I'm re-visualizing. Separate welding from cutting?
The bandsaw doesn't work for me as-is. I want to get rid of the base and use a 10' x 10" clamping area outside of the bandsaw frame. This will allow me to cut up to 10" sheet Al and cut a 7" disk in half.

 

OK, you asked. Yes, 1/4 is way too thin. Having a really solid top which does not oil-can and to which you can clamp without concern as you tweak straightness of a tacked joint etc etc. I’d be really unhappy with a thinner top.

Denis

 

Well, let's see if I can get motivated by a pile of rusting steel in my yard covered with snow and overgrown with weeds in the spring. I think that will annoy me a lot, enough to get busy making things. So, tomorrow I'll order up some steel stock. I think that 1-1/2"x 1-1/2"x 3/16" wall tube, 1"x 2"x 3/16" angle, and 1/4" x 2" length of flat steel should be useful stock for making bench like things. I'm going to get a 1/2"x36"x36" plate for the welding table. I should be able to weld everything up using the stick welding feature of the welder. I'll need to make a rack for the Ar bottle and welder as well as making a decent bandsaw before I get into Al tig welding. I'm going to Horrible Fright to get some welding stuff, anybody need anything while I'm there?

 

I've used a 1/4" welding table for years but I only put stuff on it I can lift by hand, car axles, transmissions, etc. It works surprisingly well. It's only 20" by 36". I'm not discouraging you from 1/2". 3/8" would also work well.

If you don't have any heater hose pliers from Harbor Freight, get a set. They work great for lots of things.



Nice serrations in the jaws which are angled. Only way I could get the socket unscrewed to replace a tail light in a Japanese car. Haven't seen them anywhere else. They are in the auto department, not with pliers.

 

I've got a pair of those, they're great, they've saved my butt more than once. Here in Canada, you can get them at Princess Auto, they're sold individually, they have two sizes.

 

Nice tip for a product previously unknown to me.
Also available at Amazon. I would guess cheaper at HF.

https://www.amazon.com/Pittsburgh-P...ords=Heater+hose+pliers&qid=1606231980&sr=8-8

And more expensive (but likely better quality) at McMaster-Carr. https://www.mcmaster.com/2937N11/

Also Knipex makes a pair. Knipex tools are my favs https://www.amazon.com/Knipex-38912...ords=knipex+hose+pliers&qid=1606233071&sr=8-2

I am going to get a pair.

Denis

 

The McMaster and Knipex ones you linked to are normal length pliers, the Harbor Freight and Amazon ones are long reach pliers. So, ask yourself how often do I say, "Damn it, I wish these pliers were shorter!" and then you'll probably want go for the long reach.