It is awsome to not just watch your channel but to meet the amazing people and interesting projects that come by for help.
I need to do a better job of putting visitors in these clips. Thanks for the idea👍
Nice work Clarke. I love that folks will take the effort to restore old machinery as faithfully as possible.
New to your channel, video popped up on my feed after subscribing from Keith Rucker's latest shoutout. Around the 6:20 mark I LOVE the pictures you inserted as the cane mill parts were being described. Really made that section of video with only dialogue more interesting to those who have barely heard of a cane mill before. Keep up the good work!
That bell yoke was a trickey piece but looks like it came out pretty good! Glad to see these old pieces get to get another life.
It took a while to establish a parting line but yes, he won't have too much to grind👍
That yoke is from a Blymer Bell Co....I cast a copy of a no 4 bell yoke. It had the square part where the crank was broken off and i made a square piece and glued it on to the yoke. I also designed an authentic looking crank from wood and added that. I pressed the wood crank pattern into the sand and also cut out a square piece of wood a fraction bigger than the wooden square on the end of the yoke that i glued. I stuck the square hard wood that i heated up and dried and top poured the crank. The metal ran around the square wood and made a square hole in the cast crank. I then cast the yoke in 2 part mold...I slipped the crank onto the end and it slipped on and I put a bolt through it and the new yoke and crank was complete. It was a fun job to do.
I love that you're doing these castings to help preserve historical machinery. I know I commented this before, but I know why it's best to let the metal cool slowly in the sand, it's to prevent it from being too brittle.
Correct, it will turn to white uron(carbide) if it hasn't had time to slowly cool. Thin castings are also a challenge.
Been viewing your channel for only a few days. Albom79 took me to Iron Gypsy and Laura got me here. What you guys do is super cool and its preserving a craft that will die without people like you! Casting will always be done in some way but machines and computers are quickly taking out the knowledge acquired from years of actually working on the floor alongside the furnace! Skills we need to preserve, like blacksmithing and boatbuilding being taken out with modern machinery and materials.
I aim to help by watching and learning all these dying crafts even if all I do is point someone else to places like this so they can gain just a tiny bit of what you show us!
Great video! I subscribed. Even though the extent of my casting experience was limited to high school metal shop I can appreciate watching a master. Thanks for taking the time to film your work. I found your channel through Abom79.
Just subbed and love watching what you do Sir!!! It is intriguing to see a craftsman at work. I will be going back and watching some of your previous work. Thanks for sharing!!!
This was a great video to watch. As a retired wood pattern maker it brings back lots of memories.
I will check out more of what you do...great work!
Gary
Thanks Gary, I'm always honored to have those who have had their hands in this watching. I had no idea how much hard work and knowledge goes into making castings until I got in it. From the rules of pattern making, the chemistry of the materials and sand to the physics of the heat, it's much much more in depth than anything I've ever done and I considered myself very knowledgeable in all trades until this.
I was in a trade that I loved and still love working with wood and close tolerances.
I still work everyday in wood even after being retired but it is all fun stuff. Mostly wood turning.
If you care to see some of the patterns I made and the castings that were made from there check this out. I know you will appreciate what goes into it.
ua-cam.com/video/lil3zwgc3Ok/v-deo.html
Gary
Excellent job and thanks for the knowledge preservation..!
From Patagonia, Argentina..👍🏽
Tobby has one fine moustache :)
Nice video!
Nice to see your operation grow!
Always amazed to watch your pours
🙏 Be blessed now
Crawford out ⚒️🧙♂️
Very cool guys! If you guys weren't so far away I'd have the perfect little job for you lol. Thanks for sharing!
Learned simple sand casting in shop class, Annapolis High School.
Great work Excellent castings. Thank you for sharing.
Great content. Love what you guys do!!!
I do brass and aluminum and i have found out that salt makes the pour in aluminum more liquid...I also made a sand trap mold for copes. Say the bell yoke for example...I make a flask take aflat piece of thin wood ot 16 gauge steel and fit it to one side of the cope. Then lay yoke pattern on top and trace around the yoke and make an inlet fo allow for the pouring hole. I also make another inlet other side of the yoke shaped hole. This method is good for beginners and pros alike. I use 2round rods one for pouring hole other for venting.My yokes come out good unless i have a gremlin day lol The sand is trapped and you do not have to ram as tight but enough for everything to form. The sand can never slide out of the cope...
you can also use Strontium or Silicon in trace quantities to make the aluminum flow more easily, but don't use too much, or the finishing will be poor, rough looking
That yoke came out nice, a heavy piece of iron by the look of it! Love it. Too bad that one mold ran out on you though. Hey, if it was easy everyone would be doing it, right? :)
Thanks and yes, luckily it ran over the risers so it filled fine. Think I'm done pouring heavy castings though🤣
@@windyhillfoundry5940 I was hoping that you'd work up to casting bells. I've got a cracked 36" bell that needs to be melted down and recast.
@@austinwagoncompany I fixed one to ring again once that was that big. If the crack is straight up and down you can get a 6 inch grinder and grind all way through to the inside. It will open up vibrations but the bell will not sound like it did before it cracked. It will ring, but with a lower tone. I have a friend who is a very good welder and he welded up a 21 inch iron one for me and it rings like a charm. I did grind the crack out first and then he welded it back up with either a tig or mig welder. Those old bells are not pure cast iron, they are made of cast steel alloy , a hard but good metal. They still will crack if misused. They are close to 3 inches at the lip.
Nice looking parts. Great that you can replicate parts.
Sorry you had some leaks.
I had my share of leaks that day. It's hard to stay coordinated and remember to weight the molds
My father made the wood pattern for the Librrty Bell for the Bicentennial. He worked for Worthington Pump Works. Still have some of his tools, shrink rules erc.
That is awesome, no one in my family ever did foundry work. My great grandfather and his father were blacksmiths. I have their tools, anvil etc but that's it. As a matter of fact, my foundry sits on the same sight their black Smith shop sat. I guess I could say iron work has been in my family over 100 years here. Regardless, hold on to those tools and educate your children on how they were used. There is a lot of pride behind what it takes to be a pattern maker, a molder or any of the foundry
My first destroyer had a Worthington air compressor located in our after fireroom; steam turbine driven, it was a backup for the 5" gun mounts. It never saw any in- use hours as the one up in forward fireroom was the primary one ever since she was launched. The ship was decommissioned after 1 year of my coming aboard (1969), towed out to sea and used for target practice- always thought it was a damn shame to deep six such a fine piece of equipment as that Worthington, I'm sure it could've been converted to a belt/ motor drive, in the end all she did was help slip the ship under a little faster- our tax dollars hard at work for us.
Hands up all those under 60.......
Big pour. Nice to have a second set of hands.
Windy Hill Foundry Hello. I just found you today, referred by Christ Centered Forge. This was so fun watching you. I worked for years in a foundry, casting bronze sculptures, my favorite part was always the two person pour. A crucible full of hot metal is mesmerizing, and pouring it that way is exciting and fun. Thanks for sharing, very interesting, as I never did any sand casting.
The Wild West Workshop Yeah, a one person pour requires a whole different set up. Fun to watch, more fun to be part of a team.
@@aliceharvey1226 thanks for watching and tell Roy I said Hi😁. Yes, much better with two people pouring, here lately I have had several orders that are more than I alone can pour. I have an 80 pound casting coming up soon. I wish I could do bronze, I have attempted it a couple times but decided to stick with cast iron. I destroyed the last batch of bronze I tried to melt batch
@@windyhillfoundry5940 It might be a temperature thing. Years ago a couple artist friends sand cast a large fountain piece, so I know it can be done, but have no experience.
But isn’t hot metal fun? I first became obsessed back in fourth grade when we studied the industrial revolution. I opened the large text book, and there was this two page picture of a huge crucible pouring out molten steel. I stared, completely mesmerized, at that picture often, trying to imagine the real thing. So when I got the chance to work in the foundry I jumped at it. Ahhh, dreams fulfilled are something wonderful. Good luck with your big pour, stay safe, show pictures. :)
Love these vids :D greetings from the Netherlands.
The home of one of my icons Grinling Gibbons 👌. He was raised in Delfshaven, just outside of Rotterdam, back then anyway.
@@windyhillfoundry5940 unfamiliar with the man, but his carvings look amazingly good. I've been to the Dam, townhall development might have influenced him wiki sais. Have a wonderfull day, and thanks for teaching intresting things, even in the comments 😁
G’day Clark. Big job and thanks for sharing. I presume the leaks are not what you prefer but hey no need to test the safety gear, was this not enough weighting down. Cheers, Peter
Good video. I enjoy listening more than trying to read the print . Stay healthy.
:)...Nice job; a lost art making a comeback...Those Needle Scalers are great for cleaning up steel...But they really eat the air on the compressors...:)
@@windyhillfoundry5940 :) It's like you need a 120 Gal with a 25 CFM regulated to 100 PSI..:)...I never tried one with that much pressure and capacity but; It might just work...:)
So the size difference from creating a mold off the original part isn't hurting the fit of the resulting casting? I would have thought that the yoke would be too small now, but I guess that there was enough slop in the original design that a smaller part will still work.
Nice way of recovery. someone from past had made suggestion regarding reuse casting and shrinkage problem. spray coat the casting with varnish to compenstate the shrinkage. did not say how much. i was thinking instead of varnish, using drywall mud, thinned to consistency. would be based on a chart made by trial and error.
I have actually done that but usually to smooth out the rough finish of the existing casting.
B/c the microphone and the accent , I thought initially what was being said was "train wheel" instead of "cane mill!" Great video showing this pouring process!
Oh I had a thought. Would it be advantageous to have a small oven to preheat the iron that you are going to put in the pot? Might be too cost prohibitive, I don't know nothing about casting iron or anything else for that matter... Thanks!!!
Good question and yes, for the smaller iron I preheat it in a seperate chamber but for the large stuff it is just as easy to lay over the exhaust
Is the floor dirt? At the foundry where I worked the molten iron would splatter if it hit the concrete because there is water in the concrete. Great work keeping this alive. Where I worked closed in 2002.
Hi Richard and yes it's all dirt where I pour. Sorry to hear about the closure. The way things are looking with China it may be opening back up hopefully
@@windyhillfoundry5940 Thanks for the immediate response. Unfortunately it was torn down. It was Lancaster Malleable in Lancaster PA. Some of what we made I now see is made of plastic. We made cast iron mop wringers for example. Now when I see one they are yellow plastic. Anything can happen with China so we will see. Tremendous loss of craft. Had I stayed there I would have been a molder trainee for two years, a journeyman for five years and then a full molder. I made parts for pizza ovens.
I lost touch with the workers there so I don't know if they found work at other foundries. There used to be quite a few in the area. York Barbell is probably best known.
Some castings have to be made in America, like anchor chains for the US Navy.
i dont know if i,ll ever get into casting iron but it sure was cool to watch,, cool enough for me to subb and thumbs - up,,,, be strong, be safe, and be blessed
@@windyhillfoundry5940 nothing is ever easy for me, it would be the cost of it, be strong, be safe, and be blessed
Fantastic sound track !
Thanks and I try to use this one often. The last one I used is really irritating after 2 minutes😞
Love the Boogie Woogie music too. Good job replicating the yoke. I'm learning. Sent here by Abom79.
Great vid, but obviously the shrinkage during cooling was not important. Is this right?
True, the covers won't be a problem since they just cover openings
Now I gotta go figure out what a cane mill is. This is just like a wiki hole where you start on one thing and two hours later have no idea what started your learning experience.
Show de mais excelente trabalho!!!Realmente surpreendente o trabalho final,parabéns!!!João Carlos -Brasil!
Id love to know more about ur furnace
Please post a video if you ever start casting 49-53 Ford flathead blocks, I'll be first in line to buy one!
Thanks Mark, at this time I am swamped with other jobs. If a pattern and core boxes for that job ever show up I'll get on it👍
What is the name and purpose of the third sand section between the cope and drag please and thanks.
That was a sand bed to help insulate the casting from chilling or cooling too fast in the upper and lower areas.
@@surlyogre1476 yeah afaik that would not be needed on all but the largest soft metal castings. Guess iron needs to cool like a glass annealing cycle eh?
Nice work guys. Made in the U.S.A .
Golden foundry is still casting I bought a very nice egg shaped cast iron grill.
Goldens has been around a long time and I feel their business will pick up dramatically next year as the US focuses on bringing back more of our manufacturing 🇺🇲
Windy Hill Foundry It is going to be exciting to see that happening. Many of us really mourn the loss of so many locally made items. Our many makers are stepping up to take back some of our past. I hope this helps downsize some of these big box stores. American Made, Yesss!!!!
I couldn't agree more Alice. I feel it will be a rough start in that direction but nothing comes easy, unless you're a politician anyway
this is pretty awesome but your watermark/channel branding gets in the way too much, can you please alphablend it next time so you can see through it, maybe 30-50% blend? missed some good pour shots/angles as a result, im here from booth's machine shop/abom79, just subbed
How do you calculate a job cost ? Is there a goos way to contact you about a casting?
Why do you get so many blow outs and fires?
Jerry I try to do a check list of everything prior to pouring, fuel pressure, weighing out ferro silicon, having enough iron readily available beside the furnace, making sure my tools for pouring are the correct ones for the size crucible I'm using that day, uncovering and calculating the molds and determining how much iron each one will require, making sure my safety gear is on correctly and has no accessible pin holes that could leak, making sure the camera is at the right position and recording, verifying all possible trip hazards are cleared, having plenty of water and Gatorade in the cooler, checking all wiring to avoid electrocution, making sure both blowers and exhaust fan is all on and properly positioned,,,so, sometimes I accidentally miss that I forgot to add mold weights.
There is a lot happening here that isn't visible in the videos and it all has to play out flawlessly. On production jobs I rarely have incidents. One off jobs like the ones I share here haven't been rehearsed so anything can happen
Windy Hill Foundry have you ever watched Olfoundryman out of Australia on You Tube, very interesting.
Great unexited drama pouring malton iron no panic just chill and carry on while fire rages and metal splashes.
also what exactly is a cane mill? For sugar cane?
Sorghum is more widely cultivated there than sugar cane. I expect it's a sorghum mill.
@@windyhillfoundry5940 awesome. Any chance those guys will put up vids of the stuff being machined? If so links?
@@joshschneider9766 Josh these parts won't be machined. These are ready to use after they grind the flashing. They don't have a channel
Man, I'd love to sell you some steel flasks. Lumber is expensive!
Great music!!!!
Are you not worried about shrinkage? The new part will be smaller than the original if the actual part is used as a mold.
Always, and yes we knew this would be smaller but for its function this wouldn't be an issue
Windy Hill Foundry ah, okay. If you don’t mind me asking, how much does a part like that shrink? Did you measure it?
@@windyhillfoundry5940 A bell say...no 33 shrinks to around 32 inches when it comes out of the mold...Thats normal with cooling of metal
Is there anything you can do about shrinkage (compensation) when using a casting as a pattern?
how heavy would a pot of molten iron like that be? Wouldn't be easy holding up[ something that heavy and control pouring it in to a tiny little hole a couple of inches across!
I have had a ladle carrier suspended from the crane but it takes too long from getting it attached to the crucible to slow moving to the mold. As fast as iron freezes you want to dump as soon as possible.
@@windyhillfoundry5940 I sometimes use a funnel and press it in the pouring hole and remove the funnel before I take off the cope This gives a wide area to pour in..
Hello, I enjoyed the video but do you have to have the MUSIC SO LOUD. It distract you from the video itself. Best wishes Geoff Lewis Wales UK 🏴🏴🏴
Who is the apprentice in that crew ?
goooooooooooood
I think it's time to build a lifting and pouring device for your foundry. trust me its gonna be very rewarding and much safer. Thanks for video.
I'm actually planning for a manipulator. Yes my back is not going to last forever
@@windyhillfoundry5940 To get the iron quickly with such a lifting device, would it be better to ram the molds near the furnace? That way it would not have to be carried too far away from the furnace?
Seems to me anyway, that I'd fix those covers so they wouldn't fall off, or let the cane mill fall over.
I make bells from 12 inch to 20 inch and cast yokes from old ones
@@windyhillfoundry5940 Ivanhoe Va I have my foundry outside. I mostly pour cast aluminum and some brass
i have a crazy idea... after cutting the wood for frames to length.. why not use a drill jig something like this.. www.harborfreight.com/portable-pocket-hole-jig-kit-96264.html allowing you to put in a few drywall screws between the edges after assembly but prior to pouring so the frames can't separate.. there are plastic versions from Kreg... but i figured they might get melted somehow.. might save a lot of pours for a few minutes of drilling an 50 cents worth of drywall screws.
i loved doing castings in school so many decades ago. just never got into it during my working life other than pouring lead sewer pipe joints back in the early 80s.. i did get fired for asking why we used Lead based solder to sweat copper water pipe fittings.. don't ever mention that ever again.. lead free solder came out a few years later..
With your accent, I thought you called him Tubby Taylor.
Do you not bother with Shrinkage allowances.....
Always, when someone sends me an actual casting I have no choice but to use it
clearly its not obsolete! maybe cheaper though
I've never seen a kine meal.
kine is archaic plural for cows. so presumably kine meal is many cows eating. lol
The music is annoying.
Not fair. You bums make it look easy.
Unfortunately there is nothing easy about any of this. The magic of editing can take a 4 hr job appear to take 10 minutes.
@@windyhillfoundry5940 I can vouch It is not an easy task There are good days at the foundry and bad days. Sometimes its honey and roses, next time seems like everything works against you but never give up and its rewarding. I have worked in the past and have metal run between my feet from a leak other days things went great..Thats the fun of it all
Thank you ALL for your great efforts to preserve and maintain our historical artifacts and machinery! Clark, thanks for letting all of us see you at work.
So glad you enjoyed it👌
Saves more history than the Canadian government that's for sure