OddDuck

Did some more work on it this weekend. I cast the two patterns for the shell sides with the bolt tabs installed, and started work on the gearbox. Here's some pics of the shells, fresh out of the sand and then with some cleanup work: I'm very happy about how well the halves matched up, I screwed up locating one of the tabs and had to re-mount it, burt since these are patterns it's not a problem. I ground off the lettering on one of the halves to allow mounting the gearbox. And here's the plan for that: I glued up a couple of boards (I'll skip that pic, not exactly earth shattering) and pasted the gearbox sheet and the gear sheets to another board with some thinned woodglue. I managed to get the center of the box pattern cut out, even though my jigsaw crapped out on me, I had to use my bandsaw, but it came out okay. I just had to goop some 5 minute epoxy in the saw kerf to rejoin the box. I'll have some more work done on it in the next few days.

Grant, I think the geartrain is going to be a bit more straightforward than that. That's a bit beyond my design skills at the moment, but might be something to mess around with on a future redesign. I did the planning for the layout of the gearbox today, so I will probably start on that sometime in the near future as well. Too many projects, not enough time. Oh, well.

Meet Hellina Bucket. This is my WMO fired beastie, due for a rebuild of serious proportions sometime this spring. You can do cast iron with propane, but you (to the best of my knowlege) need a blown propane burner and pretty good insulation. Cast iron is hard on your furnace, both temp wise and as those who here have a propane forge know, it makes a dandy flux for refractory at high temps. This pic also shows one of my first blowers with a cast shell, using more or less the same process. This one is spun by a 1HP 3500 rpm motor. Makes beaucoup air, more than i even need for this furnace. Here's a closer pic: and the impeller setup:

I've actually got a vintage handle that I am going to be reproducing to go with it. It was off an apple grinder or something and has a really nice serpentine look to it. I'm flexible, I can make a kit from soup to nuts, or as few parts as you think you need. The other nice thing is that these should fit into a flat rate box so shipping won't be a killer either.

Arftist, the first gears I do are probably going to be aluminum, but they are going to be fairly big and chunky. I am cast iron capable and will probably do them in either brass or cast iron, but I'm kind of curious to see how well aluminum ones will hold up.

Mlmartin, nice thing about this is that if you have an idea or a drawing about the part or parts that you want I can probably do them. I could easily offer several different kits with the same basic shell. I am also planning on doing a "hairdryer" shaped one, it's just been too durn cold here lately to do much casting. Kind of difficult when your greensand is a frozen block... :blink:

Thanks, guys. I hope I'm not breaking forum rules, but I suppose where I don't have a kit done yet I'm not actually selling anything. Glenn, if I am please let me know and I shall cease and desist. I'm not sure of a price point, either, I hope to be able to offer it for under $150US. I do know that I have some stiff competition in the sheer number of good units out there on the used market, but they will be getting rarer as the years go on. Also, it would be nice to be able to know where you can get replacement parts easily. Besides, you can't have your forge name cast onto the side of a used one... ;)

I got an email about a month or so ago from another forum member about the possibility of casting some blower shells so they could make themselves a hand cranked blower. Even though he found an old one to refurbish, I decided to go ahead and make the patterns up and build one anyways. I don't know if there would be a lot of interest in them, or a market for them, but the only new hand cranked blowers I could find on the Web had "Made in China" on them somewhere. They were also fairly modern looking. I have been experimenting on and off with a molding method that used to be used for making large pipes and bells, called the "sweep" or "strickle" method. Here's the initial patterns for the blower shell; Yes, that is the full pattern for the shell, just some 1/8" hardboard. Basically you ram up a blank cope and drag and carve out the unwanted sand instead of using a solid pattern. Pretty neat method, and shows some potential for a lot of things. The surface finish leaves a bit to be desired, but I'm working on that. Here's the rough shells; I don't have pics of the mold, nothing really exciting about that anyways. I am going to use this first casting as a pattern to make the final patterns, more or less a three step process. After much grinding and sanding, and a bit of bondo (hides many a patternmaking boo-boo and sin...) here's the intermediate pattern; I will be casting the final shell patterns in the next few days, and starting work on the gears and gearbox. I am going to try cast gears, they might be a bit chunky at first but I think they will work okay, until I get set up with a dividing head and miller to make regular style gears. And yes, I am thinking of selling them, or at least the castings so you could finish your own. Let me know what you think, guys.

Hey Luke, I'd measure the shafts and go to the hardware store and just get replacement bushings for the whole works. It is for your use, after all, and function is the important thing. They would probably outlast you, and are easily replaced if they do wear out. You can, as far as I know, pour babbit around the complete diameter of a shaft, and just press it out. Smoke or graphite the shaft first and the babbit shouldn't stick. I've made some progress on the project we were discussing, and I have some new pics, and as soon as I get a new monitor for my home computer (I hope the heck that Goodwill has one, the durn thing is too old to put a new one on) I will be posting them here. I can't seem to upload them here on my work computer.

The nice thing about the ESD straps is that they are (check the manufacturing specs)fairly high resistance, and made of thin stranded wire for safety. If you are wearing one, and happen to touch a live circuit for whatever reason, the strap won't pass enough current to be dangerous and will burn out way before you get hurt. Using plain electrical wire won't protect you in this circumstance. ESD straps are also pretty darn cheap last time I checked.

You don't have to outrun the bear, just your hiking partner... :blink:

Okay, maybe it's just the mood I'm in, but this is the first thought that came into my head when I saw the title of the post, "But gawd your arms must be tired..."(insert rimshot here...) Sorry. Couldn't help myself. Probably would be cheaper and less trouble to buy one there and sell it before you come home.

Sounds interesting. How large of a panel is it?

That was definately moisture in the mold. Doesn't take much, and even a dry looking surface can have water trapped under the surface rust. Unlike a lot of backyard casters, I just use greensand for my ingot molds, quick, easy, and I have as many as I want by just ramming up another one. That is also a case of either the instructor skipping a step or the students forgetting it. They won't forget again, if they figure out what caused it. Horrible basic safety lapses. Of course, this was two years ago, I wonder if they've figured it out yet?

Not the easiest first casting by a long stretch. The biggest problem I see with it is that the easiest material to cast one out of would be cast iron, and for a host of reasons it doesn't make good anvils. Casting one out of steel of any size is beyond the scope of most (read 99.9%) backyard setups. Steel isn't easy to cast, from everything I've read and seen, and has a very narrow temperature window for casting. You just couldn't do it for the price of a good used anvil. The most efficient way to melt that much iron at once would be to use a cupola.

Excellent videos! I hope that you will be coming to Maine again before too long, I've talked to Adriian some about the class and he said it was great. Maybe it can become a regular thing...hint hint. Just out of curiosity, how many melts do you get out of a crucible, and are they SIC or just clay-graphite? If you only got a few melts it makes it some pretty expensive steel, crucibles aren't getting any cheaper.

Just scroll down a bit in this section, there are two posts on this. Here is the longer of the two: Pros and cons: Oil, pro, it can put out more heat than you could imagine. Blinding-white-inside-the-forge level heat. Prodigious amounts. Very possibly more than strictly neccessary. With my foundry setup I melt cast iron fairly easily and I'm not even really pushing the upper limits of my burner. Cons: If you don't get it running right, you have a mess and a smoke generator that your neighbors won't soon forget. I also have concerns about contamination of the metal with oil with the injector-style burners. You need a fairly good blower. You also need some way to pre-heat the forge (propane is the preferred method) before you turn on the oil. The setup can also be a bit bulky, and may not scale down easily. Propane: pro, easier and cleaner setup. It may be easier to control furnace atmosphere. Limited contamination of the metal. Multiple simple designs easily obtained. Cons: Potentially explosive gas if you set it up incorrectly. Cost of plumbing, regulators, and fuel. Waste oil is more often than not free. May be difficult to tune the burner. Possibly limited heat output depending on burner and forge design. Now, you can kinda get the best of both worlds if you set up your oil pre-heat with propane, in effect you have a blown propane burner at that point and you can run it that way if needed. All that being said, please note what I use for my foundry setup, if you get it running right, and get over the steeper learning curve, nothing beats oil with heat output except induction. I trust that I have now thoroughly confused you, and made your decision that much more difficult. If you have a ready supply of free oil, go for it. If you don't like dealing with mess, go propane. 6 of one, Half dozen of the other.

It looks to me like she/he (whatever) is just scratching the side of her /his face. Something tells me this isn't Capt. Kirk in drag... ;)

I can just see us all rushing to our favorite video game store to pick up up our new "Blacksmith Master" game for our Wii... Might be nice for those of us with naturally air conditioned shops in the middle of February. :rolleyes:

Looks like a vertical forge made out of a small freon tank or one of those disposeable helium tanks. You can see the valve boss on the top, he probably just cut off the handles. Reasonably easy to make, methinks. Hmm, I have about three of those small tanks ...

PaMike, I don't think pulling the tube back would help much, might even hurt. This style burner doesn't rely on atomization to burn, the oil flashes into vapor in the hot interior of the furnace, this is why a good preheat is neccesary. It might actually be a bit detrimental, coke might build up in the air tube and block airflow.

Yep, this is definately a job for sand casting, and aluminum is relativelty easy to work with. You can get set up to do it quickly and cheaply. If you would like more info, PM me and I will give you my email address if you have more questions.

Ok, this just upped Terry's cool factor in my mind by a large exponent. Love his books, and have gotten my wife and son hooked on them too. I wonder if it glows blue in the presence of lawyers? ;)

Nice thing about Maine is that the pests are, by and large, non-poisionous. Rattlers and scorpions and spiders, oh my! Does a skunk in the trash bin count? The removal was less than successful and I didn't use the foundry for a month or so...

A couple of pics of my gassifier from a few years ago: It does work, but this type has a steep learning curve and will produce copious amounts of smoke when it isn't quite there yet. Also, DON'T use one indoors or without good ventilation, the major gas produced is CO, and it will kill you if you aren't careful. Just had to point that out. I built that unit in a weekend out of junk, which is why it didn't last too long. It did prove the concept, though.