Need someone to do aluminum casting

[WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith]

I was contacted today by a person wanting to have some aluminum casting done. He is in East Tennessee. Anyone interested PM me and I will pass the info along.

[Frosty]

If you don't get a response you might try high school or college metal shops if there is still such a thing. We cast a lot of aluminum in high school.

Another thought is to find a metal sculptor who casts, al is easier and less technically demanding than bronze. Heck, you could learn to do it yourself, it isn't hard you just have to do it correctly or it can go BAD.

Frosty The Lucky.

[wd&mlteach]

Frosty,
Good news! We still exist we are just now called technology education instead of "shop" class and our primary purpose is to teach process over product in hopes to achieve technological literacy.

I am lucky enough to have both a Johnson crucibal furnace and a separate tempering furnace, I love them. My crucibal is a 16# and from what I have seen around me, that is pretty standard for a high school or even a college metals program. The folks that do art metal casting at colleges sometimes have larger capacities.

WayneCoe, I do not know how big your contact needs to cast, but if it is over 16# I would check art programs as well. If the itemitems were less than 16#, would fit in my flasks, did not invole investments, you were in PA, and you did not mind high school quality work I would have my kids do it as a small production run. Then I would charge you $4 a pound, the current price for ingots, where I get them. However, that is just me and my program, I am sure not everybody out there would do that.

[WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith]

Frosty and wd, that was what I suggested to him. I think that the items are relitavely small and I also suggested that he register here and post a query. He has done a lot of resurch on this and watched a lot of YouTube videos. Maybe all of this will get him started anyway.

Thank you.

[chyancarrek]

What exactly is he wanting to have cast and how many?

[Bentiron1946]

"technology education"? Well we don't have any of that in our public high schools except for one in the whole district and they sure don't teach much. There for a few years if you wanted to learn how to cast anything you had to go to the art department at one of the community colleges but then all of sudden art was out and only one out of the some dozen or so community colleges had an art department that taught casting and then only in a half baked method. Now there is a commercial charter school that teaches "technology education" to children that the regular high school district doesn't want in their system, too much trouble to deal with, and there they don't learn a whole lot either, sad state of affairs I tell you. Metal working isn't one of the things taught either. You can do your own http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/index.html

[tzonoqua]

Here in the UK we have what is called "Design and Technology" part of the curriculum, in the Secondary School where I work we do pewter and ali casting, the students in year 9 make a pewter pendent, they design what they are going to make on the computer, and we have a computer controlled mircrorouter to "engrave" out their design into wood and then we cast their pendants in pewter. Then we also have product design courses where we basically introduce them to as many different production techniques as we can, ranging from welding to woodwork to vacuum forming and we have a day where we do sand casting in ali, and then they have a project where they design a bottle opener in the CAD program, create the model and sand cast it in ali. It's great fun, we've got an awesome little flamefast stationary crucible that is incredibly safe, (tips on the spot, no having to move the molten metal around) It's a lot of fun and the students are really engaged when we do "making"

Unfortunately we have miniscule budgets, and they cut them every year, so there's never enough money to invest in new equipment and our current government seems to want to do away with "design and technology"-- then they complain that our workforce is not skilled enough!!

[ianinsa]

- then they complain that our workforce is not skilled enough!!

Which is by and large true, much of it because of the very reasons stated. I empathise with the you.... You, none the less seem blessed with what you DO have! it must feel wonderfull to "start the fire" in a vessel that may one day burn everbright!

[Bentiron1946]

Colleen, Same here with education. A friend of mine in his late fifties has a machine company and just can't find young men that want to enter the field and those that do just can't handle the mathematics. He learned the trade in high school, it just isn't taught there anymore. He has to spend two years to train a high school graduate to do the math and learn the basics of using a CAD program before he can trust them with a real project to work on. Our state in particular is way behind in industrial education in the lower grades. It is not fashionable to work with ones hands today, everyone should go on to university after high school and that is just not true. I have a degree in Liberal Arts and so what? I have worked all my life with my hands, they are directly linked to my brain. What shame is there in using hands to make a living?

[wd&mlteach]

Bentiron, your friend is not alone in his problems. There is a false conception in my student’s minds and their parents as well. Most of them seem to possess the belief that working with your hands is somehow demeaning. That if you work with your hands, you must be a lesser person than somebody who does intellectual type of stuff. I do not know where it comes from whether it is parents, society, or the folks in the guidance department, but it is truly there. And it is almost impossible to beat. I had a kid this year come up to me mad as hornets because he did not want to go to college and parents demanded he go. He wanted to just work construction, build things and not be tied to a desk. He said that out of all of his classes in school he enjoyed mine the most because he felt as though he actually accomplished something tangible. This year that student made a gun cabinet and should be finished by the end of the month.

If you ever need a good book to read try:

Crawford, M. B. (2010). Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work. New
York: Penguin Books..

[Bentiron1946]

A great number of years ago a fellow came in my studio/shop to ask me to do some welding for him, I told him "No, but I'll show you how to do it your self, I'm not a fix it shop". He had a PhD and had sort of been forced into the university path by his father and mother both professors. He learned to do all of the basic blacksmithing skills and ended up getting all of the equipment for his garage at home. He said that making things was the most fulfilling experience he had in his life, it sure wasn't his academic career, nothing made him happier than making something useful out of iron. He sure wasn't stupid but his mind needed to connect with his hands. Man(humans) is a builder of things, a maker of things and I don' think it is natural for us to just sit and think all day. It is not natural for us to just sit and do that to the exclusion of all else. In our elementary schools they have now dropped even art, have curtailed PE to once a week and have begun to cut recess by five minuets per grade as you advance so that by the time you are 5th grader you are only getting ten minuets twice a day plus lunch half hour. Humans are by their very nature active and to deny them this is akin to punishment. It is also detrimental to our national health, for to many years the United States has relied on using those from outside the US and minorities to do the less skilled and labor intensive. I told my two sons that I was not going to push to be college graduates even though they had high intellects but to become what suited them best, be it a landscaper or an engineer. It may not have been the best advice but I would rather they have a job they like than feel a hatred for their chosen profession Still American secondary education, at least in AZ is letting it students down as far as vocational training is concerned. When I was in high school when you graduated you at least knew how to drive in a screw, hammer in a nail or saw a board. My children only know how to do that because I taught them. Their friends don't even know how to do that as their father's are a good ten years my junior and by the time they were in high school the "go to college" mantra was in full swing. I am now retired and my son's friend with the oldest father is only now just 55 and has bought a mini farm and is constantly asking me for advice and I sure ain't a farmer by any means and I can build a hen house, repair a barn, build a fence and lots of other things because I had shop in school. Shop is just not about a life time job it's also about learning to live a life, being your own man, doing your "thing" rather than always hiring someone else to it for you, it helps us to be independent of others.