foundry hobby?

[Ironwood]

I could also offer this,  I have a large sand ram that is air driven. It kinda looks like a small jack hammer. I had it rebuilt (I mistakenly thought I could use it as a light weight jack hammer). Could anyone here use it? PM me if you or someone you know could use it. My understanding is you use it to pack the sand and they to break the sand away, although I could be mistaken. I got it from a local foundry I cleaned out.

 Ironwood

[zopi]

Ironwood..that is a neat story...I am not sure where Ron lives, and have not had any contact with him since like 2000....used to be a mailing list called TheForge...

I went to an ABANA (too many bureaucrats, not enough blacksmiths..) event and learned how to make steel flowers from Dorothy Steigler...One of my goals is to get a building up that I eother cannot burn down, or do not mind burning down and set up forge and foundry and get back to it...
I would love to clean out a foundry....(vulture, sick cow, etc...)

I personally cannot use an air rammer...I only have two flasks...but I will ask on the casting forum...maybe I will scare you up a suck....ah...buyer...
What do you want to ask for it?

[zopi]

Breaking down some loomnum in meltenstein there...powered by pine sawmill slabs...a wheelbarrow full of slabs will break down about fifty or sixty pound of aluminum....
 

[Ironwood]

Zopi,

 The rebuild cost me $80, and add shipping and the FF amount to that. So, $90 + shipping. If it is worht more ask for more over there. I will split it with you. It is tall, like 3-4'  and has a travel of about 12-14". the rod is around 3/4-1".

 Ironwood (Vulture)

[zopi]

K lemme see what I can do..

[Don_Papenburg]

Ironwood , you have a pic or two of the CI work gloves? Or the pattern that I could rent ?  My buddy John would like a pair for his foundry.

[POSTONLT40HD]

ZOPI, believe it or no, I can't wait to get up in the mornings and read your post and replies. You write some very interesting stuff.
One day your carving the next day you're melting. 

One day you're gonna invent something! 

[zopi]

Thanks! I have been called jack of all trades, renaissance man, and some other things not so nice...
I tend to pick things up, learn them and keep them..sort of Like Will Hunting
Said to that snot nosed pretty boy..."You spend a hundred Grand on an education you
Could get for ten bucks in library fines...."
It is all my grandfather's fault...grandpa George was a pipeline welder, blacksmith, well driller, etc...I asked him to teach me blacksmithing, and he refused, he did not want me to have to work like that for a living....he pretty much ensured that I would learn it on my own that way...backfire..

Pick an old trade...patternmaking, blacksmiting, carpentery...barn raising...go to google books amd search for that trade in the public domain....it is like having a whole new world to look at.
I even found a treatise on my favorite engine...the Corliss Valve horizontal mill engine.

[Ironwood]

Don, I will get a picture.

 Ironwood

[zopi]

So, Here goes...I made charcoal last night and this evening...another reason to love my woodmizer..I have all this annoying firewood laying around to play with...

So now, I am going to take some cedar, sawn on the woodmizer, (it was thin enough for the job..did not feel like digging out the planer..) and make the pattern for the indicator arm, and it's attendant wingnut thing...melt the metal with charcoal made from the slabs sawn on the woodmizer..and cast the part. Gotta love a tool that will help build/modify itself. If I have any Chevy orange powder left I might powder coat it..if not..spray bomb!

[zopi]

Got tired of making charcoal and not getting bbq, real fast...hauled off today and cobbled myself a waste oil injection burner...tested no load in this picture just idling...burni.g waste motor oil and a little diesel, and mineral spirits.....second pic is about half throttle without the top in place..
 

[rbarshaw]

I did this once many years ago, used a small 15 gal. barrel with 2" of fire box cement lining it, charcol in the bottom with a hair dryer for forced air. I needed to make a bearing for an old disk set for a tractor. I made the mold out of sand i collected from the side of the road, made the form on a lathe. I used the crank case from an old VW engine to melt, it acted funny, like it was trying to burn while it was molten, someone told me it was partly magnesium. It made a fine bearing tho'.

[zopi]

Lol...I am so glad that magnesium did not go up on you...stuff burns above 4000 degrees..not pretty.

This one got a little rowdy on me last night...fuel was not homogenized well enough amd hit a pocket of thin stuff...looked and sounded a whole lot like a rocket stuck  in the ground...

[metalspinner]

Zopi,

These guys drive around town here each day...

 

 


 

 


Maybe I can redirect them towards your place.


This is the coolest casting I've ever seen...



 

 

It is on display at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  If my memory is correct, it came from a Florida fire ant mound.

[metalspinner]

I found a YouTube video of the professor making the mound casting...

[zopi]

oh..I am so trying that!