My Casting Blunders and Successes

I decided to step back and rethink my mold layouts, to get away from a long single linear runner.

I went with a radial approach, with a large sprue in the center, and I think I eliminated the filter.

I needed to start making some serious progress on this engine build (two sets of castings were made, and ultimately two engines built, one by me and one by my Canadian buddy).

It was time to find a method that worked well every time.

I made five back-to-back aluminum castings in a short period of time, perhaps 1.5 hours, and all were successful.

Result:

Total success with 5 back-to-back aluminum pours.

Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 10:39:59

I was finally starting to feel comfortable with the aluminum 356 casting process, and reached the point where I could easily and repeatedly make quality castings.

I as you can see from all the previous attempts, there was definitely a learning curve to be dealt with.

I finished out the remaining green twin castings, and made a few spares, since my machining work needed improvement too.

Results:

Total success.

Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 10:43:37

Then it was onto cleaning up the castings, machining, painting, assembly, and finally after much grief, running the complete engine.

This build was not so much about making an engine, but rather mastering the casting process, and I made a lot of progress by casting this engine.

Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 10:52:19

I had originally intended to cast the entire green twin engine in gray iron, but was only successful in casting the flywheel in iron.

It was time to go back and revisit the entire iron melting process, and figure out how to cast any part in iron, regardless of whether it was thick or thin.

The next step for me was to build a new lower-mass iron furnace, and once and for all figure out exactly how to tune an oil burner to achieve maximum heat inside the furnace.

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PatJ

That's a really good achievement to produce all the castings and then complete the machining to what appears to be a very high standard on an attractive looking engine, congratulations.

Emgee

Thank you for taking the time to post this. It has been a really interesting and informative read.

Now THIS is model engineering. You should serialise it in Model Engineer!

Superb work.

Thanks all for the very kind words.  All I had to use for the green twin build was three photos of the full size engine.

It was very difficult to learn the foundry hobby, but I suppose had it all been easy, I would not appreciate it nearly as much.  I guess this is a good illustration of what someone's castings look like when you first begin to cast metal, and then shows a progression of what can be achieved over time. 

I would really like to build an IC engine next, and the one I have my eye on is a single-cylinder Frisco Standard marine engine.

I have started the 3D work on it, and Jason B and others here have actually contributed the helical gear design in 3D.

Here are some 3D screencaptures.

I am pondering how to make the cores for the cylinder head, and have that about 1/2 figured out.

Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 15:18:32

Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 15:20:35

Enjoyed this thread! Also read one or two parts of your write-up in Live steam on this little engine, looks fantastic!

Hi Pat, a really good tale of how to make an engine from almost nothing. The base was a true work of high quality. Contact Martin Evans, Editor of ME he will I'm sure be pleased to hear from you with a write up of this engine. Noel

I have a set of 11"x17" drawings for the green twin oscillator engine, if anyone wants a copy of those for personal non-commercial use.

There were drawings published in Live Steam, but they were not the 11"x17" format, and the larger format I think is much easier to use.

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I provided all of the material to Live Steam free of charge, and received no fee for the six part series on the green twin. The understanding was that I retained all the rights to the green twin material, and LS could make a unique arrangement of that material and publish that.

The same green twin photos could be published in ME if desired, but it would have to be a unique arrangement of photos and text, and I would again retain all rights to my original materials.

My material is basically free and open-sourced, and I intend to keep it that way.

The intent is to share my knowledge with as many modeling folks as possible.

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Edited By PatJ on 04/07/2022 18:05:20

Hi Pat,

an excellent account of your voyage of discovery! I laughed out loud at your experience of the cope lifting after pouring the metal into the flask. I had the same experience during one of my early essays into casting.

As Chuck said in one of his books, a couple of “wrong ‘uns” can be used to weight the cope down.

Keep up the good work and the posts.

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Dave-

My early casting attempts were more of a Keystone Cop affair.

It seems like anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

Patience and persistance is what it takes to finally succeed.

Pat J

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Edited By PatJ on 05/07/2022 14:45:24

fantastic work Pat love the post glad you persisted, what a result keep up the good work.

Gren.

Thanks Grenville-

It was a difficult learning experience to say the least, but I am thrilled with where it puts me as far as what I am capable of building at this point.

It will be nice to build the next engine staring with a base level of casting knowledge, and confinence in success.

Pat J