Three casting mistakes you can avoid
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- A postmortem of three casting that could have gone better. Shows what happens when the cope lists due to pressure, what happens when your flask has poor registration and finally what happens when you don't clean your mold properly before the pour.
Mistakes are the best lessons. Keep the videos coming. I'm learning a lot.
They are great, if we take the time to learn from them.
These videos are very important to understand for people like me trying to get into this hobby/ field. Success is not ALWAYS the way to learn.
Well, neither are failures if you don't pay attention to what went wrong. I watch plenty of guys that never learn from their mistakes
We all make mistakes. It happens 🤷🏻♂️ wait till you see my stupid mistake I did today. 🤦♀️ let’s just say there was a fireworks display. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻
ooooh just seen your channel, really brill stuff, so right up my ally! subbed :)
Sometimes failures make the best videos, I should know :) This is great, I wouldn't have thought so many things could go wrong. Really shows how much you have to know and account for to make a good casting.
Wait, you have experience with things going wrong?? ;-) Just trying to get started on m mustang again. Should be plenty of videos of "happy little mistakes" with this effort. Like how I've found 3/4 of the motor mount stuff that I need.
I like that you show and explain the mistakes and how to fix them on actual pour samples, most other people only show the successes. Keep up the good work it’s helping me a lot 👍
Thanks most of us seem to learn best that way
oooh this is my kind of video! very interesting to see the mistakes and then the results, i learned loads. i'm making a little tips/reminder list and you've really helped me out again! cheers perry great video really enjoyed it!
Thanks Julian. I hoped it was useful when I put it together.
Thank you for being so transparent and teaching us.
Thank you. You are very welcome. We can all learn from our mistakes.
Learning is part of what makes it enjoyable. You have come so far . Thanks
Thanks boss. You’re absolutely right.
Getting any rain down there? ;-)
Sometimes we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes, thanks for showing us.
Thanks boss.
Yep, better boxes with better pins, a couple of different sized artists soft brushes, and a simple on centre pouring shank - all - the way to go. Interesting how much you can learn from one job when you think the failures through if you keep learning at that rate you will soon become a master. Thank you for an interesting video...Martin
PS. Pity that you do not know someone who is trying to come out with a decent box design 😊😏 Private joke indeed 😀
Thanks M Po :-) Yes indeed... I did hear of someone trying to design a better box but he's on the other side of the globe, both longitudinally and latitudinally from me so it's hard to keep tabs on him ;-) I am ever hopeful that I'll see a design... I think he knows that.
Thanks! Sometimes seeing and analyzing mistakes is more helpful then just the success. Very helpful.
Like a lot of us, I learn more from analyzing my mistakes that just getting it right and not knowing why. Thanks
I love your videos, dude. It feels like a real person behind them, which of course it is. But the point is, I get frustrated with my mistakes and if a person has nothing but successes on camera then you beat your head against a wall as a beginner say "what am I doing wrong?" So thank for your vids, and thanks for your mistakes.
To paraphrase John 21:25 25 Now there are also many other mistakes that he did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. 😂😂
We all make mistakes the point is, as I'm sure you know, to learn from them. I can attest to doing stupid things like taking all the time to mold everything perfectly, forget to put a gate in, and then having that horrible moment of awareness when you start to pour an it fills immediately and suddenly you know. Those kind of things happen. I think the only way to get around them is to be pouring multiple molds every day. But then it becomes a job that pays really badly 😂
Excellent video Dude. Success is not about the things that went well but about the things that fuXked up and what we learnt from that. I have learned so much from your films. Thankyou.
Thanks
Thank you for showing us what went wrong.
Some channels edit out all their mistakes for what they thing is a better video. (I disagree)
I always learn more from my mistakes than my successes .
Unfortunately I spend alot of time learning. lol
Thank you for the video. :-)
HA! You and me both ;-)
We learn best from our mistakes, or yours... so thank you for helping us out.
Hey John, you're welcome
Love the videos I cast outside and use cope box with L braces with hole for a metal dowels to go through. I make a sand bed thick and then make core on it....then i set cope over false bell. Then ram and lift cope up from the dowels driven tight into the ground. Then peck false bell over its core away(remove false bell) and return the box down the dowels to the sand bed. then pack wet sand around the outside of box. I pour from the top hole i make as a sprue. They usually come out good I have made a 15 inch aluminum-zinc bell and it rang with much more sustain than if i just poured an aluminum one. I hope to experiment in bronze this spring. If you could get corrigated metal pipes to make the copes out of, it would work good.
Hey Ron,
I'm actually looking to try a more conventional molding process, Similar to the way you make yours with a core and false bell. I'm even looking at making a strickle-based mold. Right now I'm looking at how to cast the crown, I expect it is a lost wax process.
Great video Perry. I think I see a video in the near future of forging a shank. These are not mistakes, they are learning experiences. Old tradie's saying "man who never made a mistake, never made anything". see my previous post
Yeah, I can't wait to hear what Master Po has to say :-D
You always give the information we need most, nobody learn anything from those perfect edited videos of the know it all. Just started building my furnace and hope to be on here soon. Your the best teacher on here don't change your teaching techniques they work great thank you for everything.
Well, thanks man. That's pretty high praise for a guy that's still got a ton to learn ;-) I am a teacher at heart, I love sharing things I've learned. so that's a huge compliment for me. I've been pretty darn lucky in getting some really great instruction along the way.
Thanks for sharing your learning process. 👍 ☺
Thanks Ron
High value video! We can all learn much from the experiments of others. Thanks - and great respect.
Thank you Andy, you are very welcome
I love your honest videos. I just learnt so much so thanks heaps. Cheers Stuart 🇦🇺
Thank you. I’m glad they help 😄
I am nowhere near this lvl of casting yet, but when I get there stuff like this is very usefull, thanks for this video 👍
How much further down the chain could you possibly be? :-D
Thanks Ralph
@@swdweeb still casting muffins and ingots, mostly to stock up on metals 😁 aside from some simple foam casting, I will keep watching and learning 👍
good video, By seeing what you did you may help others do a little better. keep them up.
Thanks Ken
Thanks for the video. Helpful for us newbies!
Thanks Dustin, I appreciate that. Glad you found it helpful.
Great video, thank you for sharing. For sure, I believe it is always worth the time and effort to make things tight, with good smooth fit, and to copy the methods commonly used. I don't mean to say there is not room for innovation, but the "old standard" methods have evolved the way they have because they work. I see the results of rushing and "innovating" by folks that are just beginning to learn constantly when teaching blacksmithing. Keep up the good work!
Every time I don't get it right I learn something. I'll keep going, though. Very very good video!
That's how we do it. Learn from our mistakes and don't give up. ;-)
Great video! from my experiences, you should always maximize the gravity, E.g. Reversing the Sprue so that the top of the bell is the lowest part of the pour. Also make sure the sand is only just wet enough. If the sand is too wet, you will get steam which will need to escape which in turn creates bubbles, incomplete castings & fire.
not sure I'm following you on needing to pour with the top of the bell down. Completely agree on the wetness of the sand. I'm actually in the process of doing some testing on wetness versus water-induced surface porosity
Thanks for sharing the video with all the mistakes included as ArtByAdrock said in his comment we all make mistakes but as I got taught the key thing is if you end up learning by those mistakes is it a mistake? You show everyone that by learning by these mistakes your learning and you continue to improve with every project that you continue to do afterwards keep up with the great videos and never worry about making the mistakes
Thanks. My philosophy exactly.
good vid. we learn more from mistakes than when it goes perfectly.
I know I certainly do. Thanks
Great video sir, good tips.
Thanks
I use angle iron with a threaded bolt/nut to hold the flasks together and have never had a problem with leakage since going that route. Another thing I would suggest is increasing your sprue size to compensate for the viscosity of the brass.
Not a big advocate of bigger sprue sizes. I have enough trouble keeping this sprue full so its not entraining air during the pour.
Your videos are the best out there!
Wow, thanks Stephen 😄
Great video, very informative on what not to do lol. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks. I'm pretty good at what not to do. ;-)
Very educational thank you
Thanks Mark
I've also heard people say hydrostatic pressure, I was thinking it's hydraulic pressure but nope, the correct term is hydrostatic pressure. "Hydrostatic pressure is the pressure that is exerted by a fluid at equilibrium at a given point within the fluid, due to the force of gravity. Hydrostatic pressure increases in proportion to depth". Sometimes our vocabulary fails us.
I thought the issue with your sprue clogs was related to improper blowing out the sprue. If I remember the steps olfoundryman uses right; once he removes the sprue, he then dumps a small spoonful of parting compound down the sprue hole, then he blows out the hole before cutting the basin, then blows out the sprue hole again when he takes the flask apart to cut the gates and runners. By using the parting compound in the sprue before cutting the basin it helps keep any sand that falls in from sticking to the sprue.
(Note olfoundryman uses a calcium carbonate parting dust, so no concerns with blowing lots of the dust into the air)
Your improved flask is nice.
Educational and thank you Perry. For myself, I learn more from failure than success, I should be a genius any day now lol.
Was going through dads foundry the other day and took some pictures of the various equipment/tools and flasks he made over the years. Most of the newer ones are cast aluminum and use steel alignment pins (modified bolts), some of different lengths ( I suspect to accommodate different pattern heights). Others are wood with angle iron to hold the pins. Looks like some of them have pins of different diameters..perhaps for registration.
Keep up the good work,
Al
Thanks Al. I'm headed to cast aluminum flasks and steel pins, I'm just waiting on a friend that is designing them. Yeah, the more I do, the more I'm finding the need to have various sizes is important and I'd also like to get multiple of the same size so I can ram more than one casting at a time. Even having two boxes would double my production.
Everyone makes mistakes. They're learning experiences. You're looking on the bright side of this.
Don't I know it :-D Thanks
Hello, personas como tu de optimistas hacen que el mundo funcione, muy buenos vídeos, muy interesantes para los que nos gusta la fundición, muchas gracias por estos vídeos, graaaacias.
gracias y de nada.
Yes, hydrostatic pressure is the correct term.
Thanks, I thought it was, but had that little bit of doubt ;-)
I have had those half bells before but most lately they turn out good. Steam will push up the cope if not weighted. I always pack wet sand around the sides of the cope box and put bricks on top....
I'm told that its the metal that lifts the cope. It was pretty well vented out the top so I don't think it was steam. Well... that and there's always the fact that I don't use water-based green sand ;-) Now if you had said smoke from burning oil lifts the mold...;-)
I think you do good! I have been making some aluminium and bronze the last years. "3 times" is nothing! I've done some cast much more than than that! Well, I try to make a Ferrari 308 engine in a quarter scale (I got the full size to look at and make and exact copy), and the main block I've tried more than 10 times! But everytime I learn something new! Learning is good by mistake! Keep on trying!!
Thanks. Casting a Ferrari head, what a cool project
Mistakes are the way we learn. Each time you got something out of it and you share nicely. Care to share how you deal with dry sand? I got some petrobond that is to dry to cast with.
I've got a few things for you. If it's unused petrobond, make sure it's not really cold. I live in Colorado and in the winter my garage routinely goes below freezing at night. I find my unused petrobond has really poor adhesion when it's cold so I keep it in the house. That helps a lot.
If it's burnt petrobond, I add a little non-detergent motor oil to it. I don't have a recipe for you, I do it by touch. Basically I have rigged a tool that I can mix the sand with pretty easily and thoroughly and I had a little oil and do the clump test. I grab a handful, squeeze it together see if it bonds and then break the clump off to see if it will break cleanly without falling apart. Once I get to that point I call it good.
I keep my new and used sand stored separately. Most times I use a little new sand to face the part with and then fill the flask with the used sand. Occasionally, like with the bell, I used all used sand.
Great vid making a bell is on my list thanks for the advice
I gotta tell you there is something different about pouring a bell. It's weird, but to me they're almost living things.
@@swdweeb first I need to do another upgrade my furnace won't quite get hot enough for copper
Good Lessons-learned video. :)
Thanks Gary
I like your work bud
:-) Thanks. Not quite sure what to make of this comment since its based on three failures ;-)
@@swdweeb we all are designed to make mistakes by creater. I like your honesty, at least you uploaded it. In this show off and materialistic era, Most of the people would consider it matter of reputation and wont upload if their efforts failed. 2nd one was almost perfect but only tiny hole and 3rd one came up beautiful, why would you say 3 fail attemps? It looks like only 1st one and even that looked accident..... there is nothing to say failure pal....
Keep uploading more new videos so your channel will grow up.
Subbed! I see some of my friends are already here.
You may want to shorten your cope alignment wedges at least so you can get a finger under there. It'll allow you to start the lift easier and avoid a blackened finger nail when when you set it back on.
It was hard to tell from the video but it almost looked like you had a constriction where the pouring basin met the sprue on your last pour. Just an observation.
Yeah, people that are actually trying to learn from each other makes for a small world ;-) Welcome.
I thought about adding handles to the cope so it'd be easier to lift but I haven't done that either ;-) Been too cold to get out there and cast much of anything recently. It is possible that I screwed up the basin to sprue connection.
very good ... i don't know either , lol great lesson . i'm practicing with the best !!
Been so long since I made that video I'm not sure what they "I don;t know either" refers to but ok 😄
Thanks
Thanks for the tips
You’re more than welcome. Hope they help
@@swdweeb I haven't poured a casting yet. Mostly been gathering scrap and making ingots. Finally got some Petro bond and I am redoing my foundry (different design) on my next days off. So hopefully I'll be able to do some actual casting.
And I really do like your videos I'm slowly chipping away at your collection.
Cool, let me know how it goes. You're gonna love it
Mistakes are money in the bank of wisdom.
I think I have someone embezzling from me. I keep making mistakes that I surely must have learned at some point 😄
Thx for this informative video. I like very much how you analyze the situation and try to improve. From now on I will keep the pressure of the metal more in mind. You think some handles left and right of the box would make it easier to lift off? Again thx for this video and thank you for showing the faulty ones too. In my opinion one can learn more from an unsuccessful attempt. :)
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm sure some handles would help. I'm going to add some today and hopefully cast an aluminum bronze bell just for grins.
Can't wait to see it. :P
Already feeling better about my pours. I would say I pour 2-3 times every time to get what I want.
I always say, if you wan to feel better about yourself, stand next to me ;-)
I had that to happen several times. Now i put bricks on the cope on the sides
First time it's actually happened to me. I guess the volume of the bronze was great enough this time to actually lift the sand. I've been warned about it multiple times in the past. Maybe now I'll learn ;-)
bonjour merci pour tous
C'est conseil ça va mettre utile cool bravo
Vous êtes les bienvenus
@@swdweeb merci
Hi Perry, Happy New Year to you and your family. Interesting video filled with lots of details. Pour 1, did you notice that the heat from the crucible set fire to your mold box as it was about to rest on the edge and before all the drama with the box separating? Nice flame job from the vent and pouring basin. On the subject of pouring basins and interrupted pours, I think that having a flat top to the mold box is a mistake unless a berm ring is placed around Martin's tapered sprue and pouring cup and any vents or riser openings. This will help to deal with any backup during a pour without things getting messy and dangerous. I think adopting Martin's technique of parting powder and a soft brush to the pouring cup and tapered sprue before softly blowing out with compressed air will help to eliminate blockages.
I am wondering if it is worthwhile to form a second basin at the bottom of the tapered sprue where the runners start to catch any inclusions, again slow down the metal flow and allow for any alignment issues between the sprue and the runner. Stronger mold boxes with good alignment details will also help here.
Just some thoughts, Mark
Mark, Any sort of basin or enlargement at the base of the sprue while once thought to be a good idea is now known to just result in a lot of churning of metal and mould gases very much to the detriment of casting quality. I think that if a simple on centre pouring shank had been used such that an over centre weight was not being fought with and a better view of the basin afforded overflow would not have occurred. I have no trouble with a 30 mm diameter pouring basin but I have done it a lot (an awful lot) and maybe a 40mm diameter basin might suit some people better. You could use a low berm ring but I prefer to keep the crucible as low to the basin as possible (by pouring from the side of the mould with most of the crucible over the side and below the top) and a berm might get in the way if it was a bit to high.. Martin
I had previously discussed with Perry just how awkward his crucible pouring tongs appeared to be. Given that I have to design and make my own set of tongs for lift out and also for pouring there are several things to consider. Naturally there are the differences between individual and team pouring techniques. I do favor the idea of having a fulcrum point to land the crucible against just prior to the pour to reduce the variables in locating it in three dimensions before beginning of the rotation and pour.
You guys know I'm here right? :-D I'm headed to the scrap yard now to see if I can find something I can make a proper shank out of
Great video and explanations. I bet my first casting goes perfectly with zero errors. (If you believe that I have some 'dry' land I will sell you.)
I've got plenty of bone-dry land here... allow we did get a little snow yesterday. Yeah I'm sure your first casting will be flawless, they generally are :-D
@@swdweeb In Louisiana I have some land that never floods ;-)
I can honestly say I have never made these mistakes!
Yeah well, you have to engage in the manly arts first mate :-D
I had some scrap from today and magnesium was in the auto parts and it made a mess. It glowed like a star and never made a good casting. I wonder if a person could add some kind of chemical powder to the melt to stop the magnesium from burning up the good metall thats alloyed?
Wow, I don't know. I do recall from chemistry classes (100 years ago) that magnesium burns hot and you cant really put it out. I would count yourself as lucky that all you lost was a crucible of scrap aluminum. What sort of casting was it in? I have a couple of alternator bodies and an intake manifold that I'm thinking of melting.
Also meant to ask is there a reason you're casting some items up hill or the gates lower than the casting? Cleaner finish?
Yeah, I do it to control the flow of the metal. I once watched a video that Bob Puhaka published of aluminum being pumped in from the bottom of the mold. It was the most non-turbulent fill you can imagine. Completely the opposite of pouring down a large sprue into the part. I try to recreate that with the whole pouring uphill thing. I can't pump the metal so I do it the best I can with the tapered sprue. Some parts just don't easily lend themselves to that type of pour, like the thin plaques I do but if I can put a part in the cope and fill up into it I will.
😁👌
Failure analysis, its a thing.....
When you can snatch the pebble from Martins hand, you will rarely need this heh heh heh.
Stuffing up, its all part of the journey, realising why you stuffed up, allows you to minimise smacking your head into a wall repeatedly and stop spending a fortune on gas........
Nice job Perry whats next?
I think the only way I'm going to snatch the pebble from his hand is if I catch him napping :-D He's got 40+ years on me.
I've got a pour in mind that is sometime off that I think will be pretty darn cool. I'm getting some help from another professional on how to pull off part of it that I haven't been able to figure out. Stay tuned for that one. In the meantime, I'm going to be making a "proper" shank and pouring an aluminum bronze bell just to see what it sounds like.
Why not just save all the trouble by making a master model out of wax, pour plaster of Paris, or plaster of Paris+sand mix over it, melt the wax out, then you got a solid mold that isn't gonna allow movement?
If detail doesn't need to be extrme, you can make a really thin cut across the middle of the plaster moldto make two halves, and just use something to keep them together when u wanna cast. That way you can pull the two halves apart cleanly after casting so it can be reused again without having to make a mold every single time.
Thanks Thomas. I'm not sure that would actually work as you describe. I've never actually used a plaster mold but I've watched several people do it and they have to destroy the plaster to get the casting out. Have you seen an example of what you suggest? I'd love to watch how it's done as it would be nice for repeatable parts.
English is full of inconsistencies. Common to read/hear forecasted. broadcasted, both I think technically incorrect. Pronunciation like bough and cough, lead (dog lead) and lead (plumbing).
I don’t own a milling machine or really more than basic power tools. I have been using investment casting so I can have minimal clean up work. I really only have hand tools for woodworking. Don’t you live abusing a surface plate using it to lap on?
This response may be a little off base, sorry. That video is over three years old and don't remember the content.
Like you, I have a fairly minimal toolset, no mill or lathe but I'd sure like one or both. All of my lapping is pretty much done with a lousy belt sander from HF or my palm sander. So to answer your question sarcastically, yes I love hand lapping stuff with those tools.