Pouring iron in the shed and kookaburras laughing at the background, that was great. Please do a video where you make a casting with a bit more complicated core and show the epoxy core making process.
Very interesting, including the core holding! And yes, holes in angle plates are mostly decorative - you end up using only one and a clamp or two! As you cast your own, it's a great idea to start with a blank and make holes as you need :-)
Thank you very much for imparting this knowledge.... as time pass by people start to use new tech and forget this incredibly useful and valuable knowledge....
@11:25 We use the "wedge" check everyday on our furnaces to check the "chill" in the iron before we start trimming out our heats for pouring. I am uncertain of which of the standards that the "chill" measurement falls into, it may be an older Meehanite method to establish the amount of white iron chill that you are expected to get. In either case, we measure the "chill" or white iron shown at the tip on the height and record that measurement. The higher the number, the worse the result. Good demonstration of using a chill wedge to demonstrate the impact of mettalurgical controls in basic foundry melting practice. We do use FeSi as an addition to almost every heat, it all depends on quality of the melt, and how "stale" the melt is. Older melts that have been sitting for several days without any fresh additions will show a lot of chill on the wedge. If the melt is older, or has been heating for a long time, we add a small amount of fresh scrap cast in order to improve the wedge. The FeSi method is probably far easier based on the method of melting shown and melt capacity. Even with these processes and controls, we will almost always have a small amount (
I know the term "stale iron," another term is monday morning iron which has been held over a weekend and takes a lot more ferrosilicon to inoculate. I use scrap for the whole melt and use risers and runners from other melts and this problem of stale iron gets a lot worse.
I don't do castings nor machining... but i love and appreciate this gentleman's work and dedication..! Thanks and cheers from Patagonia, Argentina 😀✌🏾🇦🇷
Good to see you survived 2020! Have you tried oven or at least skin drying moulds as away of eliminating chill? In theory a dry mould will not cool metal anywhere near as quickly because there is no water in it. In one incidence with an aluminium casting a dry mould took 12 minutes to solidify - the same casting in a non dried mould took just 6 minutes..... Martin PS Yep, holes never in right place!
Agreed, the slots are rarely in the right place or the right orientation. I have softened files by throwing them into a burning tree stump but they usually sag or distort however, the steel machines beautifully. Very instructive video. Thanks for sharing.
Hello and happy new year. It would be very interesting to show the annealing process and the resulting machining after the annealing in a future video. I was about to ask you if you can save chilled castings with some kind of reheating-recrystallisation of the metal but surely enough you covered my curiosity. Thank you for the lessons in casting!
Very interesting info on chilling. As you were describing it I was thinking "can you preheat the mold?" And then you went straight into that ! I subbed to learn more. Thanks.
Perhaps a way of avoiding the chill is to have a very large cast sprue with the small mouldings branching off. the thermal mass of the sprue would act as a thermal reservoir to reduce the overall rate of cooling on the mold and if there was a large enough sprue fill prior to the melt gating into the smaller parts it should act as a mold preheat mechanism to further reduce the chance of chill. on a plus side it would also leave you with a nice billet of cast iron for machining or for later use in a melt
luckygen1001 you were using a spoke as a pointer. Many years ago I was casting pistons for my racing motorcycle. A knowledgeable older friend advised “to stir the molten aluminium alloy with a spoke”. Since then the spoke has become an in joke amongst my friends and I. Gaining mythical properties in the foundry.
Happy New Year to you and everyone else. I'm st the stage where some of my aluminum casts look like dog turds, so the advanced class in iron was a pleasure and enjoyed.
I was prepared to suggest creating a spiral passage around the smaller parts' mold cavities to preheat the mold, but after typing it out, I realized it wouldn't work, so deleted it and left my original remark. If you use molten iron to preheat the mold, you really do have to flush until it comes up to some temperature, then plug it so the poured iron stays in. Thanks for sharing your work with us. Happy New Year
Remember your video were you demonstrated if air vents are needed, with the long circular casting gate? What if you used a long casting gate like that to circle around a small casting mold before entering the main mold, providing heat all the way around the small part , and a little extra thermal mass in the sand, without having to have an assistant shut an out gate?
Great video once again. I always learn something. Couple of questions. Can you remelt your chilled rejects? How do you actually preheat a mould (do ypu pass hot air through it?)? Do you have an issue getting hold of used brake discs? Cheers.
Yes you can remelt rejects. Small molds can be heated in an oven or kiln but big molds can be a big problem heating them up. I have no problem getting brake discs as anyone who repairs cars will have at least two discs in the scrap bin.
Hi Luckygen. Please can you tell me what you use to get rid of the slag in your crucible before you cast? I am battling to get rid of the slag in my melts without using borax. Also, i have a lot of scrap that is painted that I throw in the crucible. Should I remove the paint first to reduce the amount of slag build up? You thoughts will be much appreciated.
I assume that you are melting cast iron? I don't use any flux but dirty iron does create more slag. I use a "L" shaped slag scraper to remove slag before I add ferrosilicon. I don't use a lot painted scrap but if I do it burns of when melting.
If the edge gets chilled, with a squared edge, what would happen if you had a more radius edge, yes I now you would need more material, and more material to remove, but it would be more easily machined, correct?
Lucky have you ever tried to fill a sand mold with argon and see how it effects the finish?.....if so what happened? I imagine it would effect the finish of coal dust ...but would it come out better or worse?
@@luckygen1001 if I get a chance will.. ..I almost think it would make a rougher casting...instead of a smoother one. Glad to see you are well, thanks for responding. As far as being a professional machinist, or machine tool operator goes the value of predrilled holes is all over the map.... Sometimes you have the luxury of making fixtures or taking the time to make everything right (heaven)....most of the time you don't have that time and so must select a different workholding solution.
Simple answer, "Too Bloody Expensive" and of course, the holes are never in the right place. Torsion in the wrong place while tightening down the piece, and the spanner tends to be just a little too big for comfort in my experience. But mainly demand and cost.
Hi Luckygen. Your videos are incredibly educational, thank you for making them. 2 questions. Do you reccomend using borax as a flux for cast iron? Or do you think using ferrosilicon is better? Question 2. I'm starting a small casting business. Any chance I could have your email for some advice please? Many thanks.
I don't use flux with cast iron. If you use borax it will shorten the life of your crucible, use in small amounts. Ferrosilicon is not a flux it provides seeds for graphite to come out of solution so cast iron can be machined. If you want to give me your email address in your reply to this comment but if you don't want to I will understand.
A lot of videos there is heavy rain and going by how green everything is I would guess Queensland or Northern NSW. Kookaburras are everywhere in Australia, even in Tasmania where I live though they are not native to this Tasmania.
Sometimes when I ram up a pattern in my petrobond and turn the box over, the parting line is a little bit higher than the pattern like the pattern has lifted a little while ramming. What causes this.
@@luckygen1001 Thanks for the reply. While I have your attention, I am making a pattern to cast a cylinder head for a 6 cyl tractor. Its for a pulling tractor so it doesnt need any water passages. It will need the intake and exhaust ports. I plan to make the core boxes. The cores are basically the shape of a capital letter "L". One leg will point to the side. Would they normally pour this with the other leg pointing up or pointing down. I was thinking pointing up so the mold will prevent the core from floating on that end.
@@TheJohndeere466 Cores should have core prints on both ends of the core so I have tried using cores on one end having a core print and there is a risk of the core moving.
@@luckygen1001 They will have core prints on both ends but I thought if the one leg is pointing down it may try to float that end of the core up out of the core print
Pouring iron in the shed and kookaburras laughing at the background, that was great. Please do a video where you make a casting with a bit more complicated core and show the epoxy core making process.
I made a video 3 years ago called "How to make a shielded impellor in iron" and it shows all those things you asked about in detail.
When the slots are in the right place... they are too narrow or too wide!
You explain your method extremely well. I learn alot from your demonstrations. Thanks.
Very interesting, including the core holding! And yes, holes in angle plates are mostly decorative - you end up using only one and a clamp or two!
As you cast your own, it's a great idea to start with a blank and make holes as you need :-)
Thank you very much for imparting this knowledge.... as time pass by people start to use new tech and forget this incredibly useful and valuable knowledge....
@11:25 We use the "wedge" check everyday on our furnaces to check the "chill" in the iron before we start trimming out our heats for pouring. I am uncertain of which of the standards that the "chill" measurement falls into, it may be an older Meehanite method to establish the amount of white iron chill that you are expected to get. In either case, we measure the "chill" or white iron shown at the tip on the height and record that measurement. The higher the number, the worse the result. Good demonstration of using a chill wedge to demonstrate the impact of mettalurgical controls in basic foundry melting practice.
We do use FeSi as an addition to almost every heat, it all depends on quality of the melt, and how "stale" the melt is. Older melts that have been sitting for several days without any fresh additions will show a lot of chill on the wedge. If the melt is older, or has been heating for a long time, we add a small amount of fresh scrap cast in order to improve the wedge. The FeSi method is probably far easier based on the method of melting shown and melt capacity. Even with these processes and controls, we will almost always have a small amount (
I know the term "stale iron," another term is monday morning iron which has been held over a weekend and takes a lot more ferrosilicon to inoculate. I use scrap for the whole melt and use risers and runners from other melts and this problem of stale iron gets a lot worse.
I don't do castings nor machining... but i love and appreciate this gentleman's work and dedication..!
Thanks and cheers from Patagonia, Argentina 😀✌🏾🇦🇷
Yea another viewer from the southern part of the planet.
Good to see you survived 2020! Have you tried oven or at least skin drying moulds as away of eliminating chill? In theory a dry mould will not cool metal anywhere near as quickly because there is no water in it. In one incidence with an aluminium casting a dry mould took 12 minutes to solidify - the same casting in a non dried mould took just 6 minutes..... Martin
PS Yep, holes never in right place!
Yep still here. I have never tried to oven or skin dry molds so it will be something I will have try.
Agreed, the slots are rarely in the right place or the right orientation. I have softened files by throwing them into a burning tree stump but they usually sag or distort however, the steel machines beautifully. Very instructive video. Thanks for sharing.
Always good to see a video from this channel.
So dang cool! I'm slowly working my way on having a hobby foundry and appreciate the useful incite on the subject.
This is a fascinating video and I learned a lot! I look forward to seeing the machining of the angle plate.
I hope all is well. Happy New Year and thank you for all the videos you make.
Very interesting. Looking forward to the machining of the angle plate.
Hello and happy new year. It would be very interesting to show the annealing process and the resulting machining after the annealing in a future video. I was about to ask
you if you can save chilled castings with some kind of reheating-recrystallisation of the metal but surely enough you covered my curiosity. Thank you for the lessons in casting!
Very interesting info on chilling. As you were describing it I was thinking "can you preheat the mold?" And then you went straight into that ! I subbed to learn more. Thanks.
Perhaps a way of avoiding the chill is to have a very large cast sprue with the small mouldings branching off. the thermal mass of the sprue would act as a thermal reservoir to reduce the overall rate of cooling on the mold and if there was a large enough sprue fill prior to the melt gating into the smaller parts it should act as a mold preheat mechanism to further reduce the chance of chill.
on a plus side it would also leave you with a nice billet of cast iron for machining or for later use in a melt
Yes it would work but it wastes a lot the iron that ends up as billets.
Another great video, very informative as normal. Happy New Year to All.
John, Australia.
Another great video..... Happy New year.......☺
Great info thanks for sharing.
Another great video, thank you.
Great content, thanks for sharing
Excellent vid thanks
Neat work!
Wonderful to see the use of the spoke in foundry work.
I am not sure about what you mean "the spoke in foundry work"?
luckygen1001 you were using a spoke as a pointer. Many years ago I was casting pistons for my racing motorcycle. A knowledgeable older friend advised “to stir the molten aluminium alloy with a spoke”. Since then the spoke has become an in joke amongst my friends and I. Gaining mythical properties in the foundry.
@@iancoulston6452 Ah yes that makes sense and it was a broken spoke from my bicycle.
Happy New Year to you and everyone else.
I'm st the stage where some of my aluminum casts look like dog turds, so the advanced class in iron was a pleasure and enjoyed.
My first castings in aluminuim were sooo bad but I just kept trying and they slowly improved.
good video.. looking forward to the angle plate segment. Id love to have one to machine
That kookaburra bird lol!
Happy new year! Very interesting stuff.
Happy new year to you. Maybe one day you will have a go at melting cast iron?
@@luckygen1001 I'm sure it will happen eventually
Excellent content- as usual !! Thanks, luckygen1001.
Pul. The riser on the on opposite side to the in gate to create a flow
Seems like it might be a good idea to make a match plate for molding sacrificial angle plate.
The birds are awesome
Sometimes they sound like monkeys..! 😀😀😀
excelent video on chill. Ive never had much luck anealling cast iron tho. thanks heaps for that
I am curious to know what iron castings you were trying to anneal? I hope they were not the expensive model engine castings.
Very interesting
So did I find it interesting and that why I made that video.
I was prepared to suggest creating a spiral passage around the smaller parts' mold cavities to preheat the mold, but after typing it out, I realized it wouldn't work, so deleted it and left my original remark. If you use molten iron to preheat the mold, you really do have to flush until it comes up to some temperature, then plug it so the poured iron stays in. Thanks for sharing your work with us. Happy New Year
Remember your video were you demonstrated if air vents are needed, with the long circular casting gate?
What if you used a long casting gate like that to circle around a small casting mold before entering the main mold, providing heat all the way around the small part , and a little extra thermal mass in the sand, without having to have an assistant shut an out gate?
Shrinkage of cast iron is 3mm per 300mm length
Starting 2021 right, with a Luckygen video
holes are always in the wrong place! Even the standard ones ;-)
Обалдеть ты один во всем ютубе кто льет чугун в домашних условиях. Молодец похвально.
Есть и другие, посмотрите на youtube канал windyhills.
Great video once again. I always learn something. Couple of questions.
Can you remelt your chilled rejects?
How do you actually preheat a mould (do ypu pass hot air through it?)?
Do you have an issue getting hold of used brake discs?
Cheers.
Yes you can remelt rejects. Small molds can be heated in an oven or kiln but big molds can be a big problem heating them up. I have no problem getting brake discs as anyone who repairs cars will have at least two discs in the scrap bin.
Hi Luckygen. Please can you tell me what you use to get rid of the slag in your crucible before you cast?
I am battling to get rid of the slag in my melts without using borax. Also, i have a lot of scrap that is painted that I throw in the crucible. Should I remove the paint first to reduce the amount of slag build up? You thoughts will be much appreciated.
I assume that you are melting cast iron? I don't use any flux but dirty iron does create more slag. I use a "L" shaped slag scraper to remove slag before I add ferrosilicon. I don't use a lot painted scrap but if I do it burns of when melting.
Would it also be possible to add a big riser to those small castings? so it will cool slower, and to prevent the edges from chilling
Yes you could but it would be easier to make them from a cast billet.
would running the gate runner around casting be a way to preheat enough to avoid or reduce the edge chill effect?
If the runner is very close to the casting it might give the preheat to prevent chill.
Could you pour a thin casting in combination with a larger casting to prevent chilling of the smaller ones?
Yes you can and I plan to do that in a future video.
Would it work if you put say a 1/4" x 1/4" raised area around the edge seeing as it will be machined off anyways?
That would probably work but a lot metal would end up as chips.
If the edge gets chilled, with a squared edge, what would happen if you had a more radius edge, yes I now you would need more material, and more material to remove, but it would be more easily machined, correct?
Edges and corners are always a problem for chilling so a radius can fix it but the best way is to use the correct amount of ferrosilicon.
Lucky have you ever tried to fill a sand mold with argon and see how it effects the finish?.....if so what happened? I imagine it would effect the finish of coal dust ...but would it come out better or worse?
No I have not because coal dust is cheaper that argon gas. If you try it let me know if it makes an improvement on the casting surface.
@@luckygen1001 if I get a chance will.. ..I almost think it would make a rougher casting...instead of a smoother one. Glad to see you are well, thanks for responding. As far as being a professional machinist, or machine tool operator goes the value of predrilled holes is all over the map.... Sometimes you have the luxury of making fixtures or taking the time to make everything right (heaven)....most of the time you don't have that time and so must select a different workholding solution.
where do you get your ferrosilicon from?
From a foundry supplier in Australia. Cast Metal Services.
I've always wondered why no one seems to sell angle plates with multiple threaded holes like a tooling plate. They seem a lot more logical than slots.
Simple answer, "Too Bloody Expensive"
and of course, the holes are never in the right place.
Torsion in the wrong place while tightening down the piece, and the spanner tends to be just a little too big for comfort in my experience.
But mainly demand and cost.
That would be better than slots.
Hi Luckygen. Your videos are incredibly educational, thank you for making them.
2 questions. Do you reccomend using borax as a flux for cast iron? Or do you think using ferrosilicon is better?
Question 2. I'm starting a small casting business. Any chance I could have your email for some advice please?
Many thanks.
I don't use flux with cast iron. If you use borax it will shorten the life of your crucible, use in small amounts. Ferrosilicon is not a flux it provides seeds for graphite to come out of solution so cast iron can be machined. If you want to give me your email address in your reply to this comment but if you don't want to I will understand.
9:48 Where in the hell do you live?!?! It sounds like Jumanji in the background! LOL
Kookaburras. Lovely, Hey!
Recognized the Kookobourough from our local zoo. Sounds very exotic.
Thought the same thing lol
A lot of videos there is heavy rain and going by how green everything is I would guess Queensland or Northern NSW. Kookaburras are everywhere in Australia, even in Tasmania where I live though they are not native to this Tasmania.
@@_Skim_Beeble I can listen to radio stations that are located in the north coast of Tasmania from where i live and that is in the daylight hours.
Hey Luckygen
I’ve noticed your weather often matches up with mine. I’m located near Hastings, Victoria. Whereabouts are you?
Not far away, Gippsland.
professor
Sometimes when I ram up a pattern in my petrobond and turn the box over, the parting line is a little bit higher than the pattern like the pattern has lifted a little while ramming. What causes this.
It maybe that the pattern is not flat at the parting line and will rock during ramming.
@@luckygen1001 Thanks for the reply. While I have your attention, I am making a pattern to cast a cylinder head for a 6 cyl tractor. Its for a pulling tractor so it doesnt need any water passages. It will need the intake and exhaust ports. I plan to make the core boxes. The cores are basically the shape of a capital letter "L". One leg will point to the side. Would they normally pour this with the other leg pointing up or pointing down. I was thinking pointing up so the mold will prevent the core from floating on that end.
@@TheJohndeere466 Cores should have core prints on both ends of the core so I have tried using cores on one end having a core print and there is a risk of the core moving.
@@luckygen1001 They will have core prints on both ends but I thought if the one leg is pointing down it may try to float that end of the core up out of the core print
🌹🌹
Do you work out of a jungle? Loud wildlife noises in the background.
They can be very entertaining.