johnsmachines

Setting up for casting molten metals into shapes for my model Armstrong cannon.  Still getting ready.

Today I made some moulds for dealing with any left over metal melt.  Not a big deal, but it does have to be done before the first melt.  No point realising that there is nowhere to put the left over aluminium or bronze during the pour.  It has to go somewhere.

So today I made some ingot moulds, in readiness.

The ends of the moulds are sloped to allow easy ejection of solidified aluminium or bronze.

4 ingot moulds.  Made from 40mm ID thick wall pipe, with long handles.  The diameter of my crucible is 48mm ID, so any ingots made should fit into my crucible later for remelting.

It seems a long time since I have done any welding, and the welding of these items was pretty ordinary.  But the joins seem water tight, so hopefully they will be OK.

Today I fired up the casting oven, to 850ºC, and the load was some ordinary food tins.  They are the correct diameter for investment moulds.  I wanted to see if the tins would cope with these temperatures. (after removing labels of course).

3 ordinary food tins, at 850ºC.

It became apparent, that the tin joins were welded not soldered.  And the inside and outsides of the tins were covered with some sort of paint or plastic, because it flaked off.  But the metal cans remained intact.  Admittedly, when hot they were VERY soft, but when cooled they retained their shape, and were quite stiff.   I would be prepared to try these for single use moulding projects.

I have realised that my investment plaster mixing bowl is too big for the vacuum chamber which I had bought.  So I have ordered another vacuum chamber, and waiting for it to arrive before starting a mix.  I am using the delay to gather items like the ingot moulds above.

It will probably be another couple of weeks before I am ready to cast.   Meanwhile my 2mm rivets have arrived at last, so I will get back to the riveting.