Vertical mold

Discussion in 'Sand Casting' started by Billy Elmore, Jan 18, 2021.

  1. Billy Elmore

    Billy Elmore Silver

    Played around with making a vertical molding machine. It was fun. Not much less work than hand molding at this point but with some improvements could be very efficient. I dint have time for all that at the moment but will revisit one day with improvents built in. Had quite a few runouts due to my less than stellar mold stacking line. Line stacked and I realized the way I intended to clamp them together was not going to work so I sacrificed several molds to keep the center ones stacked as tight as I could. Could have gotten sand little better and had better results but this was just an experiment.
     

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  2. Melterskelter

    Melterskelter Gold Banner Member

    Interesting results. But the machine is the thing. What does it look like? How does it work?

    Denis
     
    Tobho Mott likes this.
  3. Billy Elmore

    Billy Elmore Silver

    Two opposing pneumatic cylinders with pattern plate in the middle. Since both objects I was casting were flat back I was able to make two different molds at once and then stack them front to back to pour both castings in a single mold line. The pneumatics were not nearly strong enough to make a good solid mold so I am shelving it for now. Later I will get back to it and use hydraulics and build a press plate to keep everything squared up like it needs to be to stack molds in a line. I only added the second pattern to the last five molds and lost all of them due to an error on my part .... I did not get the stack properly clamped together. I do not have any pics but I did a model on a prototype I will add. The pics are prototypes I played around with but not the exact one I made and I just used wood to build the actual working prototype. When I switch to hydraulics I will have to use steel or cast iron for the frames and chamber. I learned alot from this and am positive that I can build a better one that will be more efficient. One thing that needs to be addressed also is the loading of the sand into the molding chamber. It is a pain in the ass ... a sand chute to direct it into the chamber and a belt fed sand hopper would be great.LOL One side note though...I was thinking about using this as an educational project or to use here as a simulator to our disa line during our tours and built the top plate out of plexiglass so you can see inside the machine as it is squeezing. Pretty cool...almost more work than traditional molding but fun to build and wacth.LOL I will try and get pics tonight.
     

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  4. Billy Elmore

    Billy Elmore Silver

    Here are some pics of the machine. I also took some of the molds and beam I used to stack them on. I'll post more later.
     

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  5. Billy Elmore

    Billy Elmore Silver

    Wow...I couldn't see the pics before I posted them because my phone is busted.lol Those are pretty shitty. I will take some new ones tonight if I decide to stop and get a new phone.
     
  6. Al Puddle

    Al Puddle Silver

    whoo, I thought it was too many beers, couldn't make out a thing.
     
    Billy Elmore likes this.
  7. Billy Elmore

    Billy Elmore Silver

    I can see the molds and the beam but the machine is just a flash with some tubing sticking out around it.LMAO
     

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