@Spiro_Ketal (Chris) has kindly offered to bring along some stuff and give a demo.
What
This will be an informal gathering Saturday morning, with the option to hang around afterwards and perhaps order lunch.
The plan is to use an `odd-side’ mould and preform a smallish casting. There will be examples of more complex castings a home-built furnace, burner and forge, and discussion around other casting related topics.
Safety
As we will be working with hot materials please do not ware synthetic materials, and stick to natural fibers.
Be prepared to follow any safety directions and use safety equipment necessary.
I’d like to, but I’m almost certainly not going to to be able to attend in the next 6 weeks or so. I would like to sponsor some people to attend, though, if that’s possible/beneficial.
Pinging me for funding would do in a pinch, but longer-term it might be good to get a pool of funds and identify sponsorship candidates for “Any thing in general”. Basically anyone with interest, aptitude and/or time to spare, but just lacking the funds.
Maybe I could just hand Paul Harvey an envelope of cash?
I am planning on being there for this. I have a little experience with metal casting, I did a Level II certificate in Foundry Practices back when I was 20. I don’t remember much of it but when I cast up something about six months ago It was not a complete mess. I will get there early as one of my kids has netball
I’ve been thinking… I don’t really need to cover my costs - consider it a goodwill thing. And, as stated, I’m definitely not an expert -just happy to share what I’ve managed to achieve, crude as it might be. So, I was thinking, if you guys and girls are going to take up a collection for the morning then it might be worth putting it towards the purchase of materials in order to establish a small foundry at MHV, or to repair/replace some of your gear that it failing. I haven’t had the cash handy to buy proper stuff for my own projects so I’ve had to do a lot of improvisation but some of it has worked out reasonably well:)
Cheers, Chris.
Hi All.
There are the casting from today’s demo. Cleaned up a little and with the sprue and riser removed. I’ll probably drill these out and fit them to the lathe, tomorrow. I’ll post a separate picture of the lathe and the starting material. To a machinist, I know it would look pretty rubbish but when you consider what I started with, it’s not so bad. Also for any that are interested, I’ll see if I can find the exact composition of my refractory material.
Cheers, Chris.
