Melting Metal to Make Clamps [with Casting Tips]
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- Опубліковано 18 лют 2019
- Lets make some clamps that will be create adjustable shelf brackets. These are part of this over-engineered art/furniture - • You HAVEN'T SEEN shelv...
To fill our green sand casting we are melting Aluminum scrap from old alloy wheels (my favourite source). This video goes right through from how to make the pattern and making the sand mould, to the finished, heat treated and machined aluminium casting. Enjoy.
This project is on the dangerous side, so please take care friends. If you are casting metal yourself. Observe better safety practice than I do!
Check out my other (very old) casting videos:
Making Green Sand: goo.gl/ApG4VT
Lost Foam aluminium pour - Casting #5 CNC gantry plate goo.gl/ePD3Kb
If you are into metal casting I recommend you subscribe to:
VegOilGuy - goo.gl/rVKQUB
Olfoundryman - goo.gl/yVgzjp
FloweringElbow (this channel) - goo.gl/ookzVn
Lets Connect!
Patreon: / floweringelbow
My website: www.FloweringElbow.org
FB: / floweringelbow
Music:
"Where You Do Belong" & "I'm On My Way" by Cullah
"Drum Solo" by Turku Nomads of the Silk Road
"Boogich Bulgar" by The Freak Fandango Orchestra
all CC BY-SA 4.0
![Heat Treating Aluminium [Easy DIY method]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5ejhb1t8BY/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you so much for watching friend. I have four of five more of these clamps to make, so if you have any observation on the process (?) I'd love to hear them! B.
Oh man, skull and crossbones came up half a second after the old key-in-chuck-alarm rang in my head😋
Love watching your videos.. such humility and positivity, but clearly backed by some serious experience and knowledge 😉
Thanks Dan! Appreciate that, and pulling me up on the chuck key to. Peace ✌
Whilst I was quite happy with your choice of music I did find the levels were a bit all over the place and I was having to ride the volume control. You asked. I do admire someone who just gets on and does stuff, I wouldn't even entertain casting aluminium. I'm giving way too much thought to heating up HDPE.
Good to know Twotone, thanks for the tips, and for watching! Peace, Bongo.
Excellent job. I was nervous your sand mould might collapse having been standing overnight but it held its shape very well. Your use of my plaster feeder was very flattering and I was pleased to see it kept the metal molten for you. Here’s a tip - wrap masking tape around the outside. These feeders do sometimes crack and yours was a little thin, but tape will hold it together long enough for it to do its job. Keep up the good work : )
Thanks. Yeah, I was quite relieved that the green sand didn't just fall apart after leaving it overnight - I almost expected it to.
Yep, I actually wrapped the one on the right (not the one I pour into) with some aluminium foil tape. because it already cracked in the oven - and it ended up surviving the best (and I will try and reuse)...
With my next ones I was thinking I may just make the plaster mix bonded into a bean can... So there is already a steel outer - not sure if the plaster will pull away from it during drying (?) but we shall see.
Music: yes please! Also very impressive casting skills.
Music is cool. I love discoing allong to your vids.
Good job. Greetings from Philippines
May God bless you with the knowledge you've shared. I'm a Manufacturing Engineering student btw =)
Good morning Rizal, thanks for getting in touch and your kind words. Good luck with your studies :)
Nice Allen Watts quote in there.
What an inspiration!
Really enjoy the work and your aesthetics. Your videos are unique in a world of copycat building channels.
Good morning rgb. Thank you so much. That's great to hear 😁
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am a recently retired engineer and am dabbling in aluminium casting, so far with little success. Wooden patterns certainly are “sticky” even after painting, varnishing and even polishing. I am using charcoal as a fuel an a modified bouncing castle inflater as a source of air. I use the blower in my improvised forge as well. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next episode.
Thanks Llion! How much draught angle are you putting on you patterns? 5 degrees seems to be a common angle, but you can up that especially if you are having problems, or have internal corners pulling sand away.
I like you use of the bouncy castle blower :D
@@FloweringElbow I think my draught angles are ok. My sand may be a bit too wet. I have another batch of sand so will give it another go once the monsoon season here in Wales finishes.
@@llionellis what part of Wales?
@@FloweringElbow Just outside Benllech in Anglesey.
Awesome content man, keep up what your doing. I love to see your videos
Hey David, I appreciate that, thanks!
Well, I think overall I like the music, and the music choices :)
"...and then the gas ran out". Ahahahahaha!
Good job. About the only thing that I feel is missing is a post pour inspection and analysis of the product. One of the advantages of recording your pours is the ability to review your procedures and the results to note improvements or where mistakes were made. For example you only had one casting with porosity bubbles and at one location. So the question then becomes why and why there?
Really good point Mark. I guess the short answer is I left that out because I don't know why they were there! I have had some speculation about the surface of the steel chill not being smooth or hot enough. Of course my strategy of just melting the Aluminium as quick as possible, de-dross and pour (without fiddling about with de-gassing concoctions and flux) could also be responsible... But honestly I think people tend to cause as many problems with those extra processes as they solve.
As is the way, the next few castings will hopefully be somewhat improved (not least because of clever suggestions form you guys!) and I may be able to tell more...
FloweringElbow From what I observed the porosity only occurred in one item and at one location, so that says to me that it was Not a general procedure problem but rather a localised issue. But what was it?
@@markfryer9880 Hmm. As you say it was localised. I shall have to examine the steel plate further and the gating arrangement. I think larger gates would help, perhaps not enough molten metal was getting through, because it was freezing against the chill - and the gates were quite a bit smaller then the part...
Add some salt to the liquid aluminium before pouring It. It Will degass a bit and avoid Bubbles in the piece.
Thanks for sharing! I'm curious about what kind of aluminium alloy went into the melt, and if you added flux or degassed it? From what I can see, it pours, solidifies & turns really nice, like it has some silicon or other casting alloy part in it, but then - common AlSi9 press casting alloy is not supposed to work with T5 HT. Personally I use AlSi12Fe for casting, from discarded office chair feet at work: 2,7 kg of Alloy in each, and some Zamac 8 at times.Gas pores could perhaps be reduced by a few tsp of pool shock chlorine (then wear a gas mask)? -Yeah - I'm really surprised by your results! Good luck and keep up the good work! Regards, DIYSwede
Hi DIYSwede, thanks for the comment. I can't be 100% sure of the alloy as it is from old alloy wheels. Seems to respond well to T5 - as you see in my other video experimenting with that...
Cheers, B.
impressive, steel can hold moisture on its surface within the oxide layer. preheating the metal helps your liquid have more time to fill the voids but by using steel without always torching off and polishing the surface, you risk the chance of those bubble pockets.
I'd use stainless as the heatsink plate or brass/copper this would heat up faster and hold heat longer. brass or copper would be easy to clean and sand/smooth as well after many uses. for now try using your torch to heat and burn off the oxide layer before your next run. I'd also use a flat grinder right before you place your sand in top and then blast it with a quick puff of air. good luck.
Thanks for the suggestions Peke! Appreciate it. Brass, copper and stainless are out on account of me not having one lying round and them being awfully expensive for that kind of size... I did preheat it to about 150C, but looking at the "nice but slightly river'esque surface that was in contact with the chill", I will try the torching, and get more of a polish on it. Thanks, B.
FloweringElbow Check out your local scrap metal merchant /dealer for suitable items at scrap prices.
@@markfryer9880 Even at scrap prices a plate thick enough to resist warpage, in brass or copper would be expensive (& a rare find).
I love watching your video. I am wondering if their is any way to get semi-industrial results? That is, absolutely no gaps and voids? How do they do it industrually? I mean obviously the alumina parts in my table saw are cast/machined.
Hi Ed, thanks for this. Yeah, lots of iterations and seeing the exact process that works... There are a lot of different methods in industry, including vacuum filling a die, and lost wax... But a surprizing amount is still actually done with variants of the green sand method. Cheers, Bongo.
I did some investigation, and I think that you just need to add a few minerals to the aluminum to push the waste into the dross. Flux of some sort. Personally, I really like your video's, so I would appreciate it if you would redo the casting for the DIY CNC machine gantry with melt from alloy wheels.
I also can see where the following.
Connect the end of a chain to one side of the crucible carrier.
Make the cable able to lift the crucible up on one end by pulling on the cable. That gives you a trivial pouring mechanism. Now all you need is some way to transport the carrier from where the melt happened to where you pour it into the mold. Like using a cart with wheels on it.
There are at least two reasons for having a project. 1st. the goal itself. 2nd, the making or acquiring of tools to be used in this and future projects. Its best if you can make the tool, but if this isn't possible, buy one. There are 'standards' for curvature in various sizes available but, you can make your own with a bit of thin steel or aluminum, lay them out, and grind/sand them to the correct shape. When next time you need to layout curved pieces, you'll have the right tool.
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clamping pressure on any lathe, mill or rotary table will cause a round shape to deflect when cutting out the center portion. if the deflection is within your tolerances, then it doesnt matter. On more critical parts the errors add up.
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Why not have the cope and drag. with just a cope and a steel plate it will cool very fast; but I think you noticed that.
Green sand may be better.
Hi SV Telos. Well said my friend! And nice tips in regards to both turning and casting, thanks for sharing :)
I'm impressed with your work and also your taste in music! Could you tell me the playlist from this excellent tutorial, Mick
Thanks for the kind words Mick. The music details are all in the video description. Hope that helps..
needed a new 80mm collar for a pillar drill where the cast iron one had cracked. Scrapyard 1" plate line bored on the pillar drill with a bearing in the table. , I would put much more talc on but you seem to have nailed it. do you need to de-gass the aly just for homemade castings.
Hey thanks man. 😊. Yeah degassing has been a difficulty for me, actually find it easier not to... more on that in the more recent casting tips video. 😉
Music why not, but a bit loud in this case ;)
Thanks for the feedback Ping
So I want to cast Archery Bow Risers and I am thinking about using old aluminum car rims but is the aluminum any better than cans once you melt it? wouldn't it take the ageing out of the aluminum, and it would need heat treated anyway, or are the rims a better mix some how.
Hi there TwistedSister. The aluminium in old rims will be a much more suitable alloy for casting. Check out our vid on heat treating if interested in that element.
Old cans have a very low volume of actual aluminium compared with their surface area, which means a lot of paint and oxide impurities... it's possible but hard to do a good diy casting with cans. I'd say If you're starting out use good clean aluminium. Alloy wheels are a good bet. 👍
@@FloweringElbow That makes sense, Its just that I have a semiload of cans. I was told to make them Ingots first to get out all the crap then use them for casting.
I also have a bunch of aluminum frying pans but I need to wire wheel out the teflon.
Anyway, love your vids.
@@TwistedSisterHaratiofales thanks 😊
Be super careful with ppe if grinding teflon. It's really not good inside you. Personally i would say it's not worth the risk or amount of clean up you should do... and you know if you have seen many of my vids how much of a safety fascist I am not!
Stay safe, and good luck with it.
What are the timelines for each step?
It's Acrylic plate, that material is. And get the Gingery Lathe books, those might help you do even more stuff...
That's kinda what I thought, but it doesn't smell like the acrylic I have machined in the past... ?
FloweringElbow Perspex then?
@@markfryer9880I thought that was the same thing?
Good video - no music please!
Thanks for the feedback :)
@@FloweringElbow Thanks for the instant response! Binge watching your stuff ATM as I'm into a lot of the same stuff as you and you have such a positive can do attitude.
@@phildxyz thanks so much 🙏 that made me smile. And all the latest vids ... no music :D
Hi: music on video: yes when you're not speaking, otherwise robot witch generates subtitles can't understand your voice. Subtitles are needed not only for people with hearing-problems but for many non-English natives too :)
Good Evening ProstoPutnik, Thank yo so much for the feedback. The robot can't understand my voice half the time even if there is no music ;) So, yeah, I have come to the same conclusion as you about that.
Peace, Bongo.
Also, what's going on at 02:03 with the danger signs?
Sam Saville sharp edges straight off the lathe and swiping fingers will cut you.
@@pekesrepose7363yikes!
Leaving the key in the lathe chuck is a Bad Thing!
Yes it's the chuck key issue, not feeling the edge!
Just a thought. I am severely hearing impaired and can only enjoy these videos by using special headphones. As a result of that I prefer this type of instructional content sans music, especially if the presenter attempts to talk through the music. All instructions are lost to me and I suppose others who are likewise hearing impaired. In addition if music at high volume is used as a filler during time lapse when instruction resumes it takes several minutes for the ears to adjust back to the quieter mode. If there is a lot of high volume music included in the content it becomes useless to me and I usually pass on the channel that includes it.
That said, I like music of many genres and even play guitar in all of them so I am not by any means anti music at all. (I played lead guitar in a rock band in the late 1960s which no doubt contributed to my hearing loss with further damage being inflicted by rifle and ordinance explosions in Vietnam) Music has its place but in instructional videos it becomes a hindrance to understanding for the hearing impaired.
Thank you for being sensitive enough to ask for the preference from your viewers.
I too am hearing impaired from being around loud machinery. I had to turn the sound off and just watch it because even the closed caption button couldn't translate. I'm pretty sure I missed a lot but I have always been more visual in learning.
Voids? Bondo and silver metallic spray paint! Bad music.
'Bad' as in good you mean ? Like badass cool?
@@FloweringElbow Not cool at all, annoying.
A few holes woulf look.better than spraying the whole part Imho.
You need to get your mix right. Music should be lower than your voice. Normalise your narrating tracks, normalise your music tracks, then run your music a few db lower than your narrating.
no music or lower the level
MUSIC SHOULD GO. I want to actually hear what you have to say!
seriously ????
that was beyond over engineered , i couldnt watch to the end ..total waste of time
this video should include a public safety advisory starting with "Dont Try This At Home " ending with could cause brain damage from just watching it .
some one take his video camera away ...!
M.b.b I'll add the warning to the description. If you think that's over engeneered you should see some of my other projects. They would give you even more brain damage! Seriously!