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I Forge Iron

Wooden Molds


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Hello all, first post and it's a fun one.

I realize that it's a dangerous procedure, my background is construction, fabrication and industrial design, so I am well aware of hazardous work environments. 

I have also invested in full foundry leather coat and leg guards, gloves, boots, full aluminised hood and respirator. 

So my reason for wanting to use wood as a mold is the imperfection and burnt in grain is the look I'm going for. 

Setup is a cast refractory cement chamber, rated up to 1600c, double gas burners, plinth, 12,5kg graphite crucible,

it's pretty cool because I've mounted in a large rolling cage, pneumatic assisted lid, emergency shutoff valve and wooden deck to protect all gas piping from crucible failure. 

Silicone bronze and copper will be my metals of choice. 

Has anyone tried wood before and with what results? I was thinking of pre-charring the wood to try and remove moisture? 

Any tips or ways to make it as safe as possible would be awesome! 

 

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I have mulled that over, but the problem is I want each casting to be unique and for each casting to change the mold with repeated use. 

But I might just got with your suggestion and change the mold manually.  

Thanks 

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One of the nice things about using an oilsand for molds, like petrobond, is that you can open the mold up and carve or tool the interior.  I had a friend who cast a small brass hammer for removing Japanese sword pegs. He used his son's wooden play hammer for the positive and then used leather tooling stamps to modify the mold and cast a very baroque looking hammer. (Which resulted in their instituting a limit on the amount of brass a student could cast in that class; as everyone else was doing jewelry and we were doing blade fittings!)

Another nice thing about the oilsand was that it is very fast to ram up a mold.  I've had times when we had a failed pour and by the time the new metal was molten and ready we had remade the mold! (We've also accidentally transferred fingerprints with clean new petrobond...)

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