Metal Casting Alloys Matter More Than You Think...
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Want to learn sand casting using your 3D printer? I can teach you!: paulsmakeracad...
It's all in the details. Most of which I've gotten wrong. Today, I'll talk about detail number 1, and alloys are REALLY important. Get the right one. How do you get the right one? Well, i have some tips, but also you can always buy the right one.
Here's some sources for stuff:
Basically every alloy you could ask for: www.belmontmetals.com/
Copper, Tin, Zinc alloys (zamak), Pewter, and others: www.rotometals.com
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#metalcasting
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Here's some sources for stuff:
Basically every alloy you could ask for: www.belmontmetals.com/
Copper, Tin, Zinc alloys (zamak), Pewter, and others: www.rotometals.com
Postage scale shown: amzn.to/3HAdtJB (affiliate link)
Want to learn sand casting using your 3D printer? I can teach you!: paulsmakeracademy.mykajabi.com/joinus
Thanks, however I live across the pond, but I'm already researching good sources of metals at the right price
Your videos are criminally underrated.
This is *by far* some of the best content for sand-casting I've seen on UA-cam. Great work!
Thank you very much!
@@PaulsGarage No, sir. Thank *you.*
@@btrbt8613You dat man 👍🏻
Foundry metallurgist here, mostly with stainless steel and low-alloy steel experience but my current employer makes a lot of aluminum and silicon bronze (a great learning experience for me)...ingot is definitely a great way to go because it means there is traceability to a particular chemistry. Unless you happen to have a portable XRF or LIBS analyzer on your hip or a stationary OES or XRF analyzer in your garage, it'll be exceptionally hard to buy/beg/borrow/liberate random scrap and use it to make things with consistent castability and physical properties.
This goes double for any pewter, bronze, or brass due to lead content (you don't want to accidentally melt down a 30% leaded bronze thinking it was plain tin bronze and end up huffing all those sweet, sweet fumes), but applies to other alloys as well. The difference between C95200 aluminum bronze and C95800 aluminum bronze seems rather small chemistry-wise but makes a vast difference in mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, metal fluidity in the mold, and even the color - increasing nickel contents turn aluminum bronzes from quite yellowish/gold in color to a whiter, less radiant color. Contamination with trace elements can also turn good metal into Swiss cheese through gas pickup or into a pile of chunks by forming highly brittle intermetallic phases during solidification.
The other thing to keep an eye on is melting and pouring temperatures - changes to the optimum temperatures aren't as greatly affected by small changes in chemistry but they're critically important all the same and are something I haven't seen talked about too much as I start to dive into home metal casting UA-cam. Any ingot vendor should be able to share what temperatures they recommend for a given alloy, since they had to melt and pour it to begin with.
Thanks for the info! Interesting you mention temperature, that was the next thing I was going to talk about. My current set up has the tendency to overheat everything really quickly and that has been causing me problems.
@@PaulsGarage Indeed...we learned a hard lesson that silicon bronze really needs to be kept under 2,000˚F or so at all times during the melt or the castings end up riddled with gas defects.
Hi Paul. . Due to being ill and out of work recently I've been binge watching videos on home and some commercial casting.. I've watched many of yours, some going back several years. It's good to see how your knowledge and techniques have evolved and improved since starting as a novice and back then making all the mistakes. However you have learnt from them as I have. It's inspired me to research techniques elsewhere too and hope to start casting with the benefit of all the knowledge I have gathered from yourself and others.. I'm certain it will save me a lot of time, money and disappointment 😊
want a good book on the subject? pick up Campbell's "Complete Guide to Casting"
@@PaulsGarage No, don't have his book yet Paul, but have watched a few lectures by him on video.. The book is quite a lot of money so I will drop hints to the wife on the run up to Christmas and my birthday
I bought Titanium grade 5 and i forged that very nice
Thanks for the great information and for free. Unbelievable the time we are living in .. Very existed I found your channel.....
Sadly not all car alloy wheels are 356. BMW wheels for example are not. Many wheel manufactures have the alloy designation listed in the letters on the back of the wheel particularly in Europe where I think it is mandatory for recycling purposes - the designation AlSi7 or AlSi7Mg indicate 356.
But you are right - buy decent certified ingot and get an analysis sheet with it.... Martin
That's interesting, thanks! I didn't know there was variation, but the foundryman i talked to here was probably thinking specifically of american cars. He was at a place making OEM wheels for lots of manufacturers, all A356, but he probably meant all the American ones. I don't see why BMW would contract somewhere in the USA to make wheels, so that makes sense. And that's interesting on the alloy designation, I have some aftermarket wheels cast in italy sitting in my garage, I'll go look for that!
As somone who hates to pay for anything, I am a metal scavenger. I get my scrap at work at a semi repair shop, cast engine parts & truck rims. After some experimentation, I found that a 50/50 mix of cast scrap & extruded/forged scrap gives you pretty decent pourability (I use top feed steel forms) and better machinability.
heyo paul ! know that aluminum bronze with an Al content of more than 9% can be QUENCHED AND TEMPERED LIKE STEEL ! alloys with upwards of 14 to 15% will reach 40 rockwell C of hardness, wich is basically a mediocre tool steel. Don't forget to add iron and nickel in the mix to manage grain size and quenchability tho !
(also they usually forge better than they can be cast, but that depends on the composition)
I haven't dug much into aluminum bronze but it's easily one of the coolest alloys out there
@@PaulsGarage It machines beautifully. At least the alloys (bar stock) that I used to make bushings out of it with. The chips curl and break and the finish comes out nice and shiny. You can get stringy chips depending on the feeds and speeds though.
Worked in a foundry casting aircraft engine blocks for Continental piston engines, we used A356 if i remember right, just regular molds gravity molds, we heated to around 1700F before pouring. Good luck and great videos.
That's interesting! Aircraft engines probably have pretty strict quality control I imagine so your process must have been pretty good.
Every case half was x-rayed with a certificate about 20% scrap mostly internal porosity and sand inclusions, usually the issues were caused by the green sand, too wet not wet enough....
that's a lot of loss! I'd rather airplanes have good engines though, especially if i have to be in one 😉
It also helps if the mold is preheated. It delays the metal freezing. But that requires making a mold of refractory materials. No sand casting there.
You kinda left out that commercial ingots are expensive. However I agree with everything you said. Keep that good content coming!
Cheers from Alaska
Yeah they are, but you get what you pay for!
Happy Friday!
Same to you!
I assume this especially pertains to something like a lathe, where you’d want more precision, in particular…. 😊
Yes exactly, precision is important 😉
That would be why most metal gears in old low budge lathes are made from zamak
It’s cheap
Easy to work with and stronger than people give it credit for
I’ve got an old craftsman Dunlop lathe from the middle to late 40s or 50s with the original zamak gears
But Paul... once I melt the aluminum, I have "pure" aluminum. 😀
Good stuff.
Haha I wish it was that easy!
Agreed. We used to just buy scrap bronze for casting but we weren't so good at telling the good from the poor so a lot of failed castings and wasted time. When we switched to buying actual silicon bronze nuggets for casting it was a night and day difference. Phosphor bronze however, ooh, that was the bee's knees. And I loved copper/nickel bronze. We had a source of getting small amounts of that for free. I put myself through school selling jewelry and trinkets, and nickel bronze was great. Never worked with aluminum. I get that it has many useful properties for a home setup. But you can work with aluminum or you can work with copper/bronze/silver. But you can't do both unless you've got the time and money to keep them well separated.
I greatly prefer bronze and silver to aluminum. Recently I started using za-12 instead of aluminum and it seems better. It looks aluminum-ish, flows like bronze, and melts below 900f. It's great
Top man! thank you for the great tips. cheers J
thanks for helping people
Glad I can help!
I still use aluminum can, but I melt it once to get all the crap out of it (paint, plastic, etc.). When I am ready to use it on a project, I add about 10% silicon to it. Really reduces shrinkage.
How do you add the silicon? I’ve been thinking about adding it as silicon carbide
@@1495978707 I get pure silicon (relatively) and when the aluminum is liquid and cleaned of any dross I just add the silicon. The temp is actually too low to melt the silicon into a liquid form but it does dissolve quite nicely into the aluminum. Then stir very well to mix it in.
When you cast it, you’ll notice the the shrinkage is greatly reduced and details fill out better. And at least to my eye, the metal now has a very faint bluish color to it. It’s barely noticeable but it’s there.
Wild how this is not so far from cooking. Reminds of making cookies for home-ec. My classmate in charge of the salt didn't know the difference between "tsp" and "tbsp." To this day, we still lovely refer to them as the "play-doh cookies." Good times.🤣
A pinch or a handful, it's all the same to me! For the record my wife doesn't let me cook...
This sounds like sage advice from a man who's been there, done that, and made all the mistakes, so we don't have to. 😄
It's the perfect type of advice if you ask me, so thanks for sharing it. 👍
Well if there's anything I'm good at, it's making all the mistakes!
@@PaulsGarage 🤣😂🤣
Hah, VERY useful tip about aluminum alloys. I’ve been saving old hard drive frames to melt down, but they’re surely all injection-molded. I guess I could still cast them into large rounds to use in my lathe (my original intent), but good to know the metal will be useless for casting purposes. 👍👍👍
Great information there sir. Thank you for sharing!
Glad it was helpful!
A380 Aluminum Alloy has optimum machining properties and suitable for die casting and sand casting.
A356-T cannot be easily machined hence suitable with sand casting and permanent mold casting.
This information can be found online, nothing wrong with sand casting a380.
So the old wives tale of melt your aluminum under a layer of broken glass has a lot of truth to it....😁👍👍👍
That layer can keep the dross down, yeah, but I usually don't keep the aluminum liquid for very long. I found that helps. Get it to pouring temperature and pour quick!
If you want to make quality castings, you need to use the right alloy for the castings. That's the lesson I've learned from this.
LAVA! Runny lava has silicon in it! Now there's an idea...
I could try sand casting rocks into other rocks!
old mag wheels are cheap as chips, your local tip recycling shop is a good source, otherwise keep your eye out on the local online sales sites. I cut them up with cutoff disks and a sawzall, but I am considering a plasma cutter, as I am going through about 10 bucks worth of cuttoff disks per mag rim, albeit it usually yields around 10kg of aluminium.
Good tip! Plasma cutter or oxy torch maybe?
You can throw rims on a fire and bust them up with a sledgehammer when they soften.
I cut up a wheel with a circular saw and a regular wood 40 tooth saw blade with wax on the blade. It cut easy.
Oh yeah? I'll have to try that
Well said. Wish i could see this few years ago.
Same here
Does this mean my keychain cone is in danger of exploding in my pocket
You *might* want to invest in some kevlar underpants
Wish XRF guns weren't so expensive, know what ya got and alloy in what is needed
Oh man I agree. I used to work in a lab that bought one, they treated the thing like the holy grail lol and then they said "it was $50k" and I instantly knew why.
Look up how they used to make lead organ pipes. It's crazier than casting.
When you start taking your hobby a little more seriously and realize that you need to buy the right stuff compared to messing around with free or cheap garbage.
Exactly!
Good thing i have access to a bunch of auto aluminum castings
Aside from using more suitable materials - you could always just add a metal funnel on top and put the cast under pressure with a plunger.
Kinda tricky to get working at first but not that technically challenging either
Kinda like how die casting works? Shove the metal in there? I'd be worried about blowing out the sand lol
Is it important to have cast Aluminium car weels for an aloy Like Nord gold or can i dump any Aluminium in my crucible?
i saw someone cut up a alloy wheel with a skillsaw with a wood blade.
Interesting, that sounds a bit scary though
I don't know why there is so much hate for aluminum cans. In school shop class we used to make all sorts of stuff with them successfully. All closed molds.
I tried to look up what alloy it is but apparently the body, lid and pull tab are all different. So I'll have to figure out what the resulting chemistry will be first.
It works, but the surface tension is very high, it doesn't flow well, and the shrinkage is very high. If it's all you have then you can use it, but you will always get better results using a casting-specific aluminum alloy (like a356 for example). If cans are all you have, it can be improved with a few percent of copper which increases strength and improves machinability, but doesn't help the flow much, and with detailed castings or thin castings you really need a more suitable alloy
@@PaulsGarage Ill have to figure out what the resulting alloy is and then compare to more easily cast alloys. It might be easy to add a little of another metal to bring them close. Most of my source stock is engines, window frames, tubing, and not cans, so it will vary anyway. I'll have to take the ingots to work and scan them to see what they are.
The trick I've heard (haven't tried it) is to use cast aluminum pistons, which are usually hypereutectic and have a super high silicon content, so cutting non silicon containing alloys with pistons should help. As long as you get the ratio right
so what can you use the cans for?
The ingots you get from cans are fairly pure, so if you need some aluminum to use when making alloys like aluminum bronze, they would work fine. 10% can aluminum, 90% copper from plumbing, and there you go
I'm pretty new to home casting myself. I've only been doing it for five years, learning mostly by myself with some help with some sage advice from others, and I've used A356 for most of my castings. My problem that I've never been able to compensate for is pockmarks/blowholes. I de-gas and have used flux and have yielded various results but have never made consistently clean castings. Any advice on accomplishing this?
What about heatsink aluminum? I have soo many old heat sinks from old computers and electronics and was going to cost them into knife bolsters for my custom blades
Heatsink aluminum is usually pure, they tend to be cut from extrusions. not great for casting because it doesn't flow well and has a high surface tension. It also has a high shrink rate. Might work for small stuff like knife bolsters, though. I assume you will be filing them down and stuff anyway, right?
@@PaulsGarage for sure, filing, sanding and polishing… just got a little electrical foundry a few months ago and have been a little scared to give it a go. Definitely getting a little more confident with your videos. Now a just need to get some good casting sand and bite the bullet
@@PaulsGarage what do you suggest for an easy start… I don’t want something soft, and was thinking about that copper aluminum 9/10 mix you made on another video… looks nice and tough, and the goldish Color would really add some class
Petrobond is very user friendly, especially for newcomers. You don't have to worry about moisture management. As for metal, aluminum bronze is pretty awesome but it develops a dull black patina that is kinda ugly. Maybe try ancient bronze? Its 90%copper, 10% tin. You can get clean casting grain from riogrande. Also silicon bronze, sometimes called everdur. You can give it a cool patina or polish and clear coat it. Everdur casting grain is available from rio grande or Belmont metals. Definitely make sure whatever form you get the metal will fit in the crucible for that electric furnace. Casting grain is what people usually use with those
How would billet aluminium work for casting? Like 7475 aluminium alloy plate
Probably pretty bad, not enough silicon in 7475. It's for machining, not for casting
@@PaulsGarage Thanks.
@@PaulsGarage Not all aluminium casting alloys have silicon, A712 is relatively similar to 7475, but has less magnesium and basically no silicon. If the metal is free I'd give it a shot.
This is how one goes from, "I got a buncha scrap/junk, should I throw it away, or can I make something mildly nifty?"
to
$
$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Wife : "I want a divorce."
At the start of the video: "Aha, that's why my castings always sucked, I was just using random aluminum car wheels, not the good stuff!" at the end: "Well there goes that excuse..."
Haha there's always another excuse somewhere
Q. Can you add silicon to The liquid metal to make a higher viscosity making it flow better so you can use whatever alloy without worrying about the flow by actually, adding silicon to it similar to borax?
I love your videos and all ways full on good info.
In some cases, yes, but there is usually a limit. To make cast iron or silicon bronze, you can add ferro-sillicon or cupro-silicon to the mix. These are alloys with LOTS of silicon that don't work well on their own but can be used to raise silicon content. There's a limit to how much silicon can dissolve in the mix, however, similarly to how there's a limit to the amount of sugar that can dissolve in water. And usually there is a point where adding silicon makes the alloy more brittle or something. It's not just a "more is better" kind of thing. There can be other problems caused by other metals, as well. A380 aluminum isn't worse than A356 just because it has less silicon. It actually doesn't. A380 also has some copper in it, which screws up the properties relative to A356.
Legend thank you for all the info 👍
Im assuming the use of pressure to feed the mold is the same as injection molding? I follow a fellow sculptor that does a bit of that with various materials to make figures. Pretty cool
Exactly! That's die casting. I'm going to experiment a bit with the opposite soon, vacuum casting, it's more a jewelry process but it should be fun. Sand casting for big stuff, vacuum for detailed stuff
@@PaulsGarage Thats awesome! I'll be looking forward to seeing more on that! I'll shoot a link to you on Discord with the channel I was talking about. Quite a different focus for his method, but pretty interesting and entertaining, nonetheless!
Have you Melted any Cast Iron?
Yeah a couple years back I melted cast iron into ingots. I didn't cast anything with it though, just ingots.
@@PaulsGarage How are your kids?
Had some “ingots” of cast iron done many years ago for machining stock.
Wish I could get some more of it.
What is the best bronze for a large hatchet/small axe?
Modern aluminum bronze is tougher than ancient tin bronze, but both can work. Some aluminum bronze alloys can be heat treated to increase toughness too. It's not as tough as steel but it can get close.
@@PaulsGarage Thank you, I have been thinking about putting together a camping/survival kit and wanted an axe similar to Otzi's copper axe but more durable.
That would be so cool
Do you know how to add silicon? I would be very interested in learning the metalurgy behind making alloys, for example cast iron.
Depending on what you're making, you can get a mix of the metal and silicon (like ferrosilicon) to add to iron to make alloys. Pure silicon is pricey and difficult to dissolve but the purpose made stuff works
Just sell whatever you have as scrap and buy some source of proper casting alloy. You won't get a good result from pure aluminium + silicon.
Yeah as much as I love salvaging free stuff it might be easiest to do a trade for the right stuff
So I take it that you cannot amend your A380 by adding silicon to it, or whatever?
Unfortunately no. The silicon content is already pretty high but the other things in there like the copper cause problems. Like I said, only a little off and it's all wrong
Okay, but... Have you tried cutting wheels to fit your crucibles? 😂😂😂😂
Nope, I'm avoiding it lol I have a set of wheels ready for the chopping... I might just buy ingots instead haha
@@PaulsGarage good idea 😂 It's so gummy that I'll never try bringing a saw or grinder near it. I value my limbs being attached to my body too much 😂
Join me in vacuum assisted casting, even crap aluminium works pretty well for basic stuff then. I've made thousands of trolley tokens with .5mm sized lettering and raised image features using the cheapest scrap aluminium I could source.
@@PaulsGarage p.s. pewter is great 🥰 Makes a magnificent source of tin for making tin bronze. Arguably better with the potential drop of lead in, as that's used in similar amounts as it'll end up been in bearing bronzes or other hard wearing bronzes 😊
Funny you mention that, I have a vacuum pump sitting on my work bench right now
Stop. Hammer time 🔨🔨
think i mentioned it on here a few times ( after hearing it from others ) about aluminium rims being good source material
guessing using a midsize to large bandsaw with a metal blade might work best as the rim / manifolds / cilinderheads fits through it
seen vids from a guy that made a big funnel with an oilburner and basicly melted the whole rim / head/ intakemanifold with all the bolts nuts watever still in it , the metal parts with the higher melting point stayed in the funnil the aluminium whent down the funnel either dripped in a bucket of water basicly turning it intoo lead shot , or poored intoo muffintrays
wasnt an exact science and sumtimes it looked like a chineese firedrill after a clog in the funnel kindof desolved
ua-cam.com/video/pBhOAiipyZg/v-deo.html
Yeah it's great. The foundryman I talk about here said he worked at one giant foundry for years that cast aluminum wheels for a bunch of car manufacturers. He said A356 is what they used because it's great stuff
Spend alot of time learning to properly gate,riser,and vent your castings. You'll get the best castings possible by doing this correctly. I worked as a foundry foreman for 30yrs and if you want consistently good castings learn this
I agree with you completely. My earliest castings (unfortunately the majority of my early videos) had terrible gating, no venting, no feeders, etc... Only much later did I learn how to make better molds and it was the #1 biggest difference. I still have plenty to learn but the improvement was crazy.
4:55 yet you keep the name of the alloy a mystery for some reason. maybe cuz you were lying.
Thanx for all the info!
I hope I can use it when I move into a place where i can actually use my furnace! LOL
Thanks
I melt alumium radiotrs dor handels and brass taps faucets
Pewter is for kids of 12 that got metal casting started
All alloys are cast at one point in there life, at least into ingots anyway. I use 6061 alloys with no problems. Plumbing brass you have cast and machined. Mostly use machined. The cast aluminum i have is mostly engine parts. I turn all scrap into ingots before I make any castings. The biggest issue I see is gating and risers systems. And that changes with alloys used.
I know where you are coming from but I only melt what I scavenge.I do it for fun and if it works out great if not it will either be re melted or it becomes a conversation piece. I don't get very many fails but then again i do stick mostly to the alloys I am sure about. Anyways like I said I do know where you are coming from but you are kind of taking the fun out of it. Too serious for me but good advice for the serious caster. PS. try to have some fun with it.
I've been using A319 and have very good luck with my pours. I order it from a metal supply company. It comes in ingots which I use a metal cutting chop saw to make into smaller pieces that will fit into my foundry. One of the best things about the A319 is the lack of dross.
A while back I melted down a bunch of sheet aluminum scrap I had left over. Not only did it take forever to cut and bend it but then I had a huge bit of dross to skim off. It poured OK though.
Good tip, A356 isn't the only sand casting alloy, it's just one that's easy to buy and scavenge
@@PaulsGarage Here I am, I'm supposed to be casting. I just finished mulling the sand from last night's casting and you have got me researching aluminum alloys. Blast your eyes, you scoundrel. I did a google search on 319 vs 356 and came up with this
What is the difference between 356 and 319 aluminum?
The 319 alloy is a secondary aluminum alloy representing a lower cost alternative to the A356. The copper-bearing 319 alloy has the advantage of better tensile and creep strength at intermediate temperatures because the Al/Cu precipitates are stable to a higher temperature than the Mg/Si precipitates in A356
I'm grateful it was not the other way around because I have 64 pounds of 319 ingots that I ordered from Atlas Metals in Denver and I am just about done with this project.
The next time I order I will try some 356 and see how it feels in comparison.
The last time I ordered -a few weeks ago- the price per pound of the 319 was $3.79 with 109.00 for shipping-so a total of $5.15 per pound. Hmmm-maybe I should be hunting the salvage yard-even if it is knee deep in snow.
@@PaulsGarage are engine blocks the same alloy?
Or local scrapyard crushes all alloy stuff and seperates out the steels etc from it.
Trouble is all the alloy stuff is down to inch chunks at most after crushing and I can't tell what's what anymore.
I could buy manifolds etc but they're more expensive (being a usable part) and I have to spend the time removing them myself
How about using old small engine blocks for casting? IE: Briggs & Stratton
It probably depends on how it was made. Lots of small engines are made with die casting. You can usually see lines from the dies if it's die cast, or sand texture if it's sand cast. That's what I would look for
Super informative, thanks guy!
Glad it was helpful!
I wish I had a video like this when I first started. It would have saved me countless hours of trial/error.
When I was casting brass bells, the mix was such a proprietary formula, it was comparable to Coca-Cola. We had three alloys for different sized bells. I just cast them. Designing shape to set pitch is a totally different skill set.
Injection molding and spin casting both are fun but not at my hobby level.
That's really cool. Channel swdweeb does some bells, but he's on a hiatus at the moment. Agreed on other casting types, many of them are a bit much for a home shop. I'm going to try vacuum casting though
if you use cans can you add silicon
I wonder if the mold were heated (warmed) would the aluminum flow deeper before the plastic & hard stages.
Hm...
Probably yes, a lot of molds are preheated. I usually don't do much more than blast a torch down the sprues and only when I'm casting in winter
What about the aluminum in small air cooled engines? Like on lawn mowers and rototillers, etc.
It depends how they are made. Some blocks and stuff are sand cast but I think quite a few are die cast and would probably be die cast metal
You can also get tin and other low melting point materials from rotometals. Great store
Yeah rotometals is pretty awesome
Most most youtubers on the subject offer very little if any explanation. I really appreciate you sharing this knowledge.
Most cuprous alloys want phosphor-copper to be deoxidized.
Supposedly they become more fluid, then.
So Let me give you a little something I've learned working at a certain car make that I can't mention here.. Basically they do use high pressure die cast for engine blocks and low pressure for other stuff.. but there's more to it and I've learned more not only from you, but from my co-worker/friend who used to do downpour/foundry for a living.
Yeah engine blocks are kind of a different thing too, so I didn't mention those. I've seen some car engine blocks I could swear are lost foam cast in by the texture, very weird.
@@PaulsGarage The crazy thing is, they run through a slew of machines to get smoothed out just right. Its very very cool where I work; they not only do the blocks but also the heads, connrods, manifolds, and a few other things on this particular motor company. Its super cool to see everyday. The guys that do like downpour or whatever wear a weird foil looking suit thing.