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I would be concerned about the clay content of your sand (if I recall correctly, that play sand is going to have little not no clay, or is at least not very consistent). I got this book for my Kindle and it seems pretty good, although I haven't had too much time to read it. It talks about sand types for different metals.

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I suggest take a class before you do yourself and family a serious mischief. Seriously your "diagram" shows very nicely you don't know enough to be playing with molten metal. This isn't the kind of thing to figure out yourself unless you like the idea of being a Darwin Award winner.

Frosty The Lucky.

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26 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I suggest take a class before you do yourself and family a serious mischief. Seriously your "diagram" shows very nicely you don't know enough to be playing with molten metal. This isn't the kind of thing to figure out yourself unless you like the idea of being a Darwin Award winner.

Frosty The Lucky.

What exactly about my setup is so dangerous?  I have poured a dozen or so castings without any unexpected results. I am curious to hear your thoughts. I obviously am not looking to get hurt, and understand there is inherent risk in this and try my best to be as safe as possible.  I am going to start including vents in future castings if that was what you were referring to being wrong with my diagram, and I am going to use a metal bucket for any lost foam castings as I don't like the idea of aluminum melting through the sides if something overflows or breaks through the sand containment. I have also planned on starting to use the green sand mold process instead of the lost foam casting for most of my projects.

 

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For one. You're attempting lost foam on shapes that should be green sand cast and in a couple cases open mold cast. How are you removing the foam?

For another. Your diagram shows a serious lack of understanding of how metal flows. A simple axe head hardly needs vents but sprueing it directly into the center with that kind of drop is a near guarantee of poor castings. Bronze is heavy and dense so it's going to erode the mold material where it pours onto it from a drop like that. It obviously wasn't an investment mold.

A metal shop 1 teacher wouldn't pass your form let alone let you ram it up.

I am not going to try to instruct you in casting metals with a higher melting temperature than say zinc. It's too dangerous without PPE and someone standing by the phone. You really REALLY need to take a casting class.

I'm not trying to be mean or as I was accused of recently being a know it all I don't want to see anyone hurt if I can help it. You have NO idea of what kinds of permanent, disfigurement and crippling injuries a coffee mug size crucible of molten aluminum let alone bronze can do to you. I've gotten about 1/4 tsp size splashes on me a couple times it doesn't stop hurting for about a week.

I'm not a caster even if I did quite a bit in school. What I do know is how dangerous it is and were I to attempt one of the couple projects I've been thinking about for a few years I'd pay the class fee and do it at a casting workshop one of our club members holds regularly. We're not living in some post apocalyptic world where life ad death chances are justified we're talking about for fun hobby project.

Please be safe I WANT TO LOOK at the pictures of some of your spectacularly cool castings down the road a ways. NOT read your obituary or your name on the prayer list.

Frosty The Lucky.

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15 hours ago, Frosty said:

 

Let me start by saying that I appreciate your concern but that's about where it ends. I have seen many of your other posts and can tell you have an elitist holier than thou attitude towards anyone that is not at an advanced crafting level. I find the tonality of your replies extremely condescending. It is one thing to provide some constructive criticism and advice to take a lesson however It's an entirely different thing to comment that I am going to kill myself and can't pass a metalworking 1 class to summarize your remarks. I have researched lost foam casting and am by no means an ignorant imbecile. Do I have room for growth and accepting constructive criticism absolutely but you sir have crossed the line by a very wide margin. 

I am a rather intelligent individual and an adult capable of making my own personal reward/risk assessment.  I am a chemist so I understand a great deal about the dangers and reactions that can occur when working with molten metals.

tone it down, you are on thin ice here

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Gentlemen

Please keep this civil , no need for anyone to be upset

I am not pointing fingers at anyone  .

Of late there has been a lot of ANGER in the forums & it needs to stop .

First & Last warning , if it continues I will close this thread & warnings given to all party's concerned .

 

Dale Russell

IFI Demi Admin / Mod86

 

 

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scote621

37 minutes ago, Dale Russell said:

Gentlemen

Please keep this civil , no need for anyone to be upset

I am not pointing fingers at anyone  .

Of late there has been a lot of ANGER in the forums & it needs to stop

I was not pointing my finger just at you , if you notice I also said

 

38 minutes ago, Dale Russell said:

First & Last warning , if it continues I will close this thread & warnings given to all party's concerned .

Dale Russell

IFI Demi Admin / Mod86

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I think you have greatly misinterpreted Frosty's intent and have read things into what he said. Frosty's concern stems from the fact that overconfident amateurs that end up horribly disfiguring or crippling themselves, especially with casting, has been so common in this hobby (and the professionals for that matter) that it is a cliché. It's not a matter or question of your intellect; the learning curve on the basic skill sets do not allow for too many, if any, mistakes. I myself am an amateur and I can tell you that if I hadn't taken the class I did, as little time as it spent on casting specifically, I would have probably done serious permanent harm to myself. I still have a great deal of trepidation approaching any pour (not that I have too many), even the small silver castings I'm doing on my workbench. Your mold design has all of the critical flaws that he pointed out no question and certainly shouldn't be lost-foam, but I'm not surprised too much that it worked (sort of) one time, or even ten times; it's not that improbable to flip a coin to heads a bunch of times in a row. Eventually, however, the flaw is going to express itself. The behavior that concerns people on here is that you designed this mold system and utilized it multiple times without checking it first with anyone experienced; you could post it on here, take it to a welding shop and see if anyone can help, find a farrier shop, a local foundry or blacksmith if you are lucky, or just get some kind of second opinion. Something would be better than nothing if for no other reason than to walk through your thinking out loud. I worked on a drill rig for a large portion of my 20s and I never met a driller that wasn't missing at least part of a finger; I still have all mine probably because all of those missing fingers made me very cautious. This is something you need to be doing with the utmost caution.

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I apologize for my over reaction. I should have counted to ten before replying to those previous posts.  

12 hours ago, David Durman said:

I think you have greatly misinterpreted Frosty's intent and have read things into what he said......

I agree. I over reacted with the temper of a younger man than that of which I am.  I clearly took it too personally. I have been doing more research and am going to be changing how I cast. No more single vent lost foam castings. I am going to get some real green sand and make a casting flask and utilizing a proper sprue/riser venting set up.  

I also want to reiterate that I am extremely careful when I pour, I am fearful of the crucible and treat it with the utmost respect.  I plan out my footwork and clear the area of any unnecessary debris tools etc. I have a real commercially purchased graphite crucible and as soon as I see any signs of wear I spend the cash and order a new one...just wanted to provide some context on the respect I do give this hobby. I am not just doing this half cocked.

I have looked but been unable to find any classes in this area unfortunately.

This area for the forum is the world of Planet Earth, perhaps if you added a general location/country  someone could offer  a direction.

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One thing for *EVERYONE* to remember  is that people are often replying to the entire world and not just the person posting and so assume the worst as far as knowledge, skills, equipment, etc to try to protect the least skilled who may read a thread years after the original posters have left it.  I mean I have a friend who has safely and properly done fire gilding---WOW but how many other people have access to an industrial rated and certified mercury scavenging hood. If we were to discuss the process here I'd be lambasting the very thought of trying this out in a home shop. So even if it's "your thread"; answers may be addressed to the world and not you specifically.

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Might I recommend checking out www.alloyavenue.com , specifically the forum section? It's to metalcasting what Iforge is to smithing. Lots of nice folks there, and a ton of info. Frosty is correct in many of the things he says, gating directly to the top of a casting is not normally done, it should be gated from the side or bottom. Also, aluminum bronze is not a beginners' alloy, it is very difficult to get right, and what you end up with is probably going to be somewhat brittle and harder than Japanese arithmetic. Also, bronze doesn't tend to play nice with lost foam, I highly recommend moving to greensand casting.

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9 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

One thing for *EVERYONE* to remember  is that people are often replying to the entire world and not just the person posting and so assume the worst as far as knowledge, skills, equipment, etc to try to protect the least skilled who may read a thread years after the original posters have left it.  I mean I have a friend who has safely and properly done fire gilding---WOW but how many other people have access to an industrial rated and certified mercury scavenging hood. If we were to discuss the process here I'd be lambasting the very thought of trying this out in a home shop. So even if it's "your thread"; answers may be addressed to the world and not you specifically.

Fire gilding? Wow, indeed. Do you have any more detail on how that went, or a link? I'm mostly curious since I don't have a hood, but I'm going to be doing gilding with transfer leaf at some point in the coming months and am curious as to the comparison.

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9 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

One thing for *EVERYONE* to remember  is that people are often replying to the entire world and not just the person posting and so assume the worst as far as knowledge, skills, equipment, etc to try to protect the least skilled who may read a thread years after the original posters have left it.  I mean I have a friend who has safely and properly done fire gilding---WOW but how many other people have access to an industrial rated and certified mercury scavenging hood. If we were to discuss the process here I'd be lambasting the very thought of trying this out in a home shop. So even if it's "your thread"; answers may be addressed to the world and not you specifically.

That is a good point and one I had not considered.  

 

4 minutes ago, David Durman said:

Fire gilding? Wow, indeed. Do you have any more detail on how that went, or a link? I'm mostly curious since I don't have a hood, but I'm going to be doing gilding with transfer leaf at some point in the coming months and am curious as to the comparison.

I had not heard of this process before so I looked it up on the old google machine and the first line I read said:

"Fire-gilding or Wash-gilding is a process by which an amalgam of gold is applied to metallic surfaces, the mercury being subsequently volatilized"

Yup, I would hope that people immediately see volatilized mercury and go running for the hills, let alone trying this on their own, without a proper process/set up/ppe etc.

I work for a large environmental disposal company reviewing hazardous wastes for safety and regulatory compliance and assigning proper treatment technology methods to them (a desk job on paper but I see anything from oil and water to stuff that could kill you in a breath in horrible ways and have to flag it with appropriate notes for our workers in the field and at our plants).  Mercury may not kill you instantly but they do not mess around with it.  It has in the last few years become a huge PITA to dispose of, you literally can't buy it or sell it in the U.S when it comes to us for disposal if its in elemental form it gets put into storage indefinitely (sounds a bit like the issues with the nuclear plants and their spent fuel rods...)  Another example of it the waste water treatment standards for discharge to public waterways are in the parts per trillion for mercury in fact technically some of the public drinking water within safe limits for drinking has mercury levels higher then our waste water treatment plants have to meet in order to discharge it back into the environment.  think about that...

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55 minutes ago, scote621 said:

Yup, I would hope that people immediately see volatilized mercury and go running for the hills, let alone trying this on their own, without a proper process/set up/ppe etc.

No, I would expect most people would respond with a questioning look about 'volatilized' and would say, "Mercury's kinda sorta dangerous, right? They use to let us hold it in our hand when I was in elementary school". Coupling that with how good people are at talking themselves into something they want to do, it wouldn't be hard to imagine someone trying their hand at fire-gilding with an ersatz hood or even not one at all.

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1 minute ago, David Durman said:

No, I would expect most people would respond with a questioning look about 'volatilized' and would say, "Mercury's kinda sorta dangerous, right? They use to let us hold it in our hand when I was in elementary school". Coupling that with how good people are at talking themselves into something they want to do, it wouldn't be hard to imagine someone trying their hand at fire-gilding with an ersatz hood or even not one at all.

True, guess most people don't realize its not the direct contact with the liquid per se that is a concern, though don't get me wrong not saying to go out and play with it.  The major issue is the toxicity associated with inhalation of mercury vapor (Mad Hatter disease) or ingestion through contaminated food supply.  Along with its nasty habit of bio accumulation in the environment.

I can't tell you how many waste streams I have reviewed where a high-school or college lab had an instrument break or mercury spill in their sink.  They literally rip out the plumbing of the lab, there is no way they can clean it out once it goes into the drain and their discharge would never meet the EPA treatment standards again.

I was watching one documentary about gold mining in the amazon; huge chunks out there are completely unregulated and they have dredges looking for gold and using mercury and cyanide in their gold cleaning process and discharging straight into the river.  It was horrifying to me that this is still going on, and the people doing it know its bad, they just don't care they said as much to the film-makers.  Guess we shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt after all to your point...

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From what little I recall from documentaries, I remember that gold mining consumes a lot of mercury. I think, from looking around the class I took, watching casting and blacksmithing videos online, and elsewhere, since a lot of the terrible things are invisible gases, it is really hard to get people to seriously worry about them; getting people to wear a respirator around casting seems as hard as getting small time contractors to wear hardhats on a construction project.

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3 minutes ago, David Durman said:

From what little I recall from documentaries, I remember that gold mining consumes a lot of mercury. I think, from looking around the class I took, watching casting and blacksmithing videos online, and elsewhere, since a lot of the terrible things are invisible gases, it is really hard to get people to seriously worry about them; getting people to wear a respirator around casting seems as hard as getting small time contractors to wear hardhats on a construction project.

I hear you, I wear a dust mask at a minimum when I am near the casting furnace.  And I hold my breath when I am looking in or pulling the crucible out. I also stand upwind as much as possible.  I do not like the idea of inhaling that junk.

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Here is a 3M chart to figure what type of mask you need for different types of work if you want to go with disposables; a simple painter's mask isn't going to do much. I would invest in a respirator; it isn't too much more expensive than an appropriate disposable, just make sure you have the right kind of cartridges. 

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  • 5 months later...

Back when I started playing w metal, I decided casting would be easier and I wouldn't need any pesky classes. I did maybe 100 or more melts over time, survived (somehow), and here are some of the things I learned about.

1. Zinc fume poisoning.  2. Tin cans make lousy crucibles.  3. Some canisters have brazed in bottoms  4. Always allow for crucible failure.  5. Crucible failure in the furnace is a pain to clean up if you don't have a drain.  6. If you have a drain, be careful what it's over.  7. Crucible failure outside of the furnace HURTS.  8. Molten metal can bounce a long ways.  9. And will inevitably find something that melts or burns - skin, rubber gas lines, garden hoses, the bottom of your shoes (click click click when you walk.) 10.  Always shield rubber gas lines, and for preference, don't use them.  11. With propane always use a good regulator. 12. Terra cotta pots should not be involved in any kind of furnace. 13. Concrete doesn't do so hot either. 14. Even the "refractory mix" on backyardmetalcasting. 15. Spalling cement can hurt.  16.  Steam explosions in improperly packed furnaces.  17. Steam explosions in the crucible. 18. Steam explosions in the mold.  19. Water in the mold, good and bad. Mostly bad. 20. Preheating crucibles.  21. Preheating stock.  21. Making green sand.  22. Porosity issues from not making green sand properly  23. What the heck a vent and gate were. 24.  Charcoal briquettes are no good for casting.  25. Porosity issues doing lost foam.  26. About four wrong ways to make a propane burner, and one and a half right ones.  27. Propane burners don't behave the same in a furnace as out.  28. Plinths and how to use them.  29.  Making crucibles yourself is hard.  30. And refractory mixes REALLY don't work well.  31. Skip it and buy crucibles. 32. Mulling and such - apparently important.  33. So is a parting compound. 34. Wood continues to char long after you want it to, even when you pour low temp metals into it, no matter what you read on the net.  35.  Flux is important.  36. Especially with copper.  37. You can also get zinc poisoning from brass.  38. Milk does NOT help.  39. Some types of metal suck for casting.  40.  Those aluminum cans for example. 41. Wear eye protection.  42. And leather topped shoes. 43. And long sleeves. 44. Made of natural fibers (oops). 45. Muffin pan ingots are stupid.  46.  And get stuck in the pan. 47. Those pans may have liners that melt.

And then I also picked up a few things about safety, PPE, and a couple of technical bits about casting. But the most important thing I learned?

This would have been a heck of a lot cheaper and safer to learn from a class or an experienced friend.  The internet and the literature helped, but I was lucky as umm, heck that there were no long lasting serious injuries. Lots of little pointy owie ones though.

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