Enough Tripe, Back to Work!

Right, so my recent posts have been complete nonsense, but that's what mental agitation produces. Two days ago, I returned to my 3D print / thermoforming shop to begin setting up my miniature foundry!

Here the gas-fired crucible furnace and electric burnout kiln are sitting on my work table. This is NOT where I will be using them. Casting metal is a strictly outdoor activity. Low-temperature alloys may be safely cast indoors, but I got this equipment for casting things like silver, bronze, iron, and maybe even gold.

I ordered one flask to go with the kiln, but neither the flask nor the kiln came with a drip tray, so I made one out of a piece of scrap metal. It's extremely crude, but it will work for testing purposes.

I don't expect the first castings to be pretty, as I'll probably need to tweak my process a bit before I'll be able to pull jewellery-quality castings directly out of the moulds. The moulds will be made of plaster mixed with either silica or brick dust (whichever I can get my grubby little paws on), which must be thoroughly mixed and de-gassed before it is poured into the flask. For the de-gassing, I will hook the mixing bucket up to my vacuum pump.

I have video footage of everything I've done so far, and I'll shoot more as I continue the work, but I won't be able to proceed until I get some more materials delivered. For the sake of cheap and easy testing, my first casts will probably be done in lead-free crown pewter, which is mostly tin. I'll need some wax rods as well to make part sprues. I already have some wax prints that I plan on testing.

Remember these? The wax ones are purple, in case you didn't know.

Given the small features, I probably won't use the egg or the cups for my first test. I might use the ring, however.

The unboxing and set-up will end up being in a video together, and I'll include a test casting run if it doesn't make the video too long. Otherwise, expect to see two videos in the near future. Given that investment casting is a somewhat complicated process, all things considered, hopefully these upcoming posts and videos will be more informative than my usual content.