Metalsmith21 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 What kind of artistic castings have you done? Ive got some ideas, but would it be better to carve them out of wood to prototype/ make a sand mold of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 You will never get a meaningful answer without more specific questions. I have some ideas about travel, should I walk, drive, fly, boat? Same principle, this goes for all subjects :) The size and shape of your castings will dictate what method and materials will be the most applicable. If you want to eyeball a physical prototype of the cast prior to committing to anything serious consider working in styrafoam with a hot knife or hot wire(the fumes aren't fantastic...should avoid breathing them), or if the scale and complexity exceed what styrafoam can handle bump up to something stiffer like wood or something in between To your first question; I have cast sterling jewelry by lost wax in investment and by gravity with delft clay. Drop us some more information or maybe even some sketches and I'm sure you will get some more useful responses from the casting gurus :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalsmith21 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 For the most part i was hopeing to pick the brains of the awesome community for casting aluminum items. And i do know of the soda can vs cast alum auto parts argument. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 What type of items? What size? What casting method(s)? How many? What precision? (Do you own a shrink rule?) What experience do you have? Remember that as typists many of us are pretty good with a hammer! It's quite frustrating to spend half an hour labouriously typing out industrial methods of lost styrofoam casting engine blocks only to have it tossed away with a "I'm only doing small scale jewelry with greensand!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I cast my Father an al. ashtray in jr. high school. I never did use the cast al. skull shift knob but it's probably still on a shelf in the folk's garage. Does that tell you anything useful? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Ah Frosty, the good old days when young kids could work with hot metal in school.... I loved casting alum in Jr high. I think I still have the school emblem plaque I made some where that I cast, then had to file sand and polish. Looking back even though it seems a trivial project I learned quite a bit about filing, sanding and finishing on that project, not to mention casting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalsmith21 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Sorry i wasnt more clear but i was looking for anything "artistic" reguardless of scale. Personaly i have planned to make some trinkets that can be held in ones hand no bigger than a dictonary. But im cirious what the rest of the community has done. playing with molten aluminum has got my attention currently, im just looking for insperation, for non industrual items. Anything from paper weights to 10 meters/feet tall ssculpuures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Remember the burn unit at Couinty Hospital at 24 St and Roosevelt is one of the tops in the country..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 have you wandered around backyardmetalcasting.com yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuge Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Man Guy, you hit the jackpot of grumpy old white dudes with this one. Good luck! Might have better luck with the google images. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: What makes you so sure of the race of the posters is white, and why should their racial profile matter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Actually as far as blanket question threads go I'd say that's pretty light on the grumping :) that's why I tried to pump for more info right off the bat. I know i don't have the answers, but I know there wasn't enough in the OP to get anything but grump from those that do = I would love to spitball things but I just don't have the chops in the scale and materials in question to make it worthwhile, iv only read through about half of casting book I picked up so far :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Which book? Lindsay used to have a ton of books on Al casting including the complete Gingery set. I did my first casting since Jr high at an out of hours casting class through the fine arts dept of a local university. It was hands on and we started casting the first class. *REALLY* helped to have someone up on the safety aspects of the craft as instructor. I consider molten metal to be much more dangerous than hot steel even if the hot steel is hundreds of degrees hotter! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Craft master series 'metalcasting' by C.W. Ammen. It was pretty reasonable from amazon. Really a shame that Lindsay went out of business, they had a lot of excellent material :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 One christmas my wife asked me for suggestions for a gift. So I grabbed the Lindsay catalog and marked up a bunch of the cheaper books on smithing and cast iron work knowing I'd be happy to get any of them. She bought me all of them I'd marked! This last Christmas I saw a stack of old "Workbaskets" a knitting/crocheting/tatting crafts mag (mostly from the 1850's but a few in the 1940s and 70's as I recall) I called to see if she wanted them and she said no so I bought all 50 of them for her and told her she could gift them on to her cronies in the fiber arts guilds she's active in. She spent the holiday season going through them and dividing them up into keep or give on. There must have been 8 in the give on pile! And she found the pattern her Grandmother had used to make a kid's toy for her back in the 40's. I know what the grandkids are getting this year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalsmith21 Posted March 23, 2014 Author Share Posted March 23, 2014 Awesome, i appericate the ideas, and ill have to see if i can find the books menrioned. Thanks everyone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Casting may be in my future. I have been collecting cans at work, and now have 15-55gallon drums full is smashed cans. Prices in NV are 1/2 of what I used to get in CA ( 75¢ compared to $1.80 a pound) and that got me to thinking of maybe casting them into something more valuable. I know a guy who does metal sculptures,and has all of the gear required. I need to hit him up, and see what I can work out with him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oof Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Biggundoctor, It may behoove you to take the cans in and swap them for an equal weight of cast aluminum. Cans produce a lot of dross and the alloy shrinks a lot when cast. mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Thanks for the heads up on the cans. Interesting, because even without the redemption value, cans bring more at the scrapyard than cast does. Last I checked cast alum. was only around 20¢ a pound. You would think it might be the other way around with those issues you mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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