Lost wax casting

Hi all,

The novelty of machining parts from billet is starting to wear off and I am looking to add home casting of aluminium to my repertoire of techniques, particularly lost wax casting. There does not seem to a lot on this topic in the forum so I was wondering if anyone has any experiences or advice that they would be willing to share. I'm thinking of going down the home-made gas fired furnace route.

Alex

I do a bit but use sand cores and oiled green sand. I find it extremely interesting and strangely theraputic. I hope to try bronze this summer. I use a home built propane furnace. Buy all my stuff from John Winters who advertise on here. Made some of my tools and ASDA are a good source of stainless utensils that can be adapted. The plunger I use for the degassing tablet for instance is a modified sink plughole strainer welded to a bit of stainless rod. You need to be creative, or have deep pockets.

graham.

Hi Alex,

Do not dismiss lost foam casting. Patterns are easily made, no draft is required on parts and the process is very simple. Ideal for one off parts. There is much more info on my foundry pages see:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/foundry.html

Mike

Various ME issues have articles

Searching for "lost wax" or "patternmaking" gets results

Hi Alex, I have recently started making patterns for the "Gingery Shaper". Furnace will also be along Gingery lines - charcoal fired. I already have a gas cylinder cut and suitable fan sourced, off to local tip in morning to look for hoover type stainless tubes for air inlet. Recipe for foundry liner can be found here **LINK** cheers for now. David

Link edited so it works as per Graham's post by JasonB

Edited By JasonB on 18/04/2014 20:21:04

Hi Alex,

You should be able to get all your answers on this forum.

Best of luck.

Peter.

Davey, you missed the last "L" off, the link is here FURNACE

All, many thanks for the interesting and helpful comments and links. Certainly no excuses not to get started now! I recently found a book entitled 'Lost-Wax Casting' by Wilburt Feinburg in the library, which is worth getting hold of. It's aimed at casting in third world countries so focuses on doing things with locally-sourced materials (mainly clay and animal manure!) but some good ideas for those of us who like to do things with minimal expense. In fact I subsequently found a PDF of this book on the internet, but I am reluctant to give the link as it is probably not a legitimate copy.

Best regards,

Alex.

Hi - This site is quite interesting for anyone interested in melting metals

Unfortunately there is not much about lost wax casting

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/index.html

Davey, you missed the last "L" off, the link is here FURNACE

graham

Oops, thanks Graham - will try harder

David