Hi Friend! In this video we're going to be melting some aluminium and casting some circular
clamps, a bit like these, to clamp onto a big old pipe, like this one here.
[claps] Lets do it! [intro music]
I've got this from a very old project, and it always feels a bit funny breaking up an
old project but I really could use this bit of material here.
[snap] There is plenty of wood I could use for this,
but when you are making a pattern, the problem with wooden ones is that you have to do all
kinds of finishing and painting, because green sand really wants to stick to wood.
That's why I am quite hopeful about this scrap material. I'm not actually sure what it is,
but some kind of water impervious plastic-y stuff. The other benefit of this is obviously
not having to worry about the grain direction at all.
[Music]
[Shock horror noise]
I'm just going to try and get rid of some of some of
the roughness on that, while keeping the draught angle, and I found this, that's basically exactly the right...
angle.
Now we're much smoother...
To put together the pieces of this pattern I'm just using hot melt glue as a, sort of,
gap filling adhesive. I big flat bit of metal like the table saw, really helps because it
keeps the pattern flat, but also the hot melt glue just wont stick to it.
So one of the molds is basically done. Looking at it I'm kinda happy with the way it is.
We will see whether it actually pulls out of the sand or not. Although it is going to
end up being two pieces, the idea was to make it one piece so it would fit on the lathe
nicely. I'm not sure about these bits here, I'm going to try and cast these two at a time
- if the flask will allow. Umm... Not so sure...
I'm not so sure about these bits here though.
I think maybe for the second one I'm just going to make them one solid piece instead
of having this sort of slimming out detail here...Those are the bits that are going to
kinda hold the shelves.
Veg Oil Guy. Check out his channel on youtube,
I'll leave a link below. He's got some great ideas. One of which is this feeder cup for
the molten aluminium. I'm perverting his idea slightly by using a yogurt pot and a cream
pot to create it.
So I am going to put my pattern against the metal plate here. Something like that.
This big plate s going to be something like a big heatsink so it will obviously cool it quickly,
and then I've got my feeder cups up above, and they should keep the aluminium nice and
warm, so ideally that will stay liquid and be continually feeding as it shrinks below
and not create any voids and that kind of thing..
The first thing I need to do is to get rid of this little, whatever that was there...
[angle grinder noise]
[other machine noises]
Maybe the sock is too thick [laughs].
There we go...
[Drums Music]
The moment of truth! Here we go.
Ok.
Yeah. So far so good.
I can see I could have packed the sand better round here.
[Tapping]
There we go. Wish me luck!
Ok. Ahh, It doesn't look too bad!
Lets leave aside the use of the tableware
here and just focus on my mistake of cutting the is runner - or gate (not quite sure what
you call it). In my post game diagnosis, as it were, I realised that I didn't make it
anywhere near big enough and as it was in contact with the chill (that big metal plate)
it's going to freeze up really quite quickly, meaning those feeder cups are essentially
useless because the material can't get thorough. So yeah, in future renditions larger gates
will be used. [compressed air blowing noise]
Another great youtuber on casting is Olfoundryman. "Ok that's too much."
I was inspired by his extensive use of compressed air when he's preparing his patterns, but
I soon gave up on that idea when I realised my air blower gun has two settings: either
ON or OFF, and nothing in between.
With the green sand mold all "ready" (scare quotes),
it was time to light up the forge. I was quite excited, it was a nice sunny day
and the humidity was low, so it was good conditions. And then the gas ran out... :(
[Jazzy Music]
Great, lets get to business!
[Furnace burner blasting noise]
[music]
[abrupt finish to music, furnace blasting noise]
[sound of gas turning off]
With the left over aluminium I was having
a bit of an experiment by filling some old glass bottles that were perfectly cylindrical,
thinking this might make useful, sort of, turning blanks. But actually the bottle just
kinda shattered everywhere. Luckily they were in sand though, so it didn't really matter,
it just meant lots of shattered glass, which was a pain to clear up, and sieve out of the
sand.
Ok. Look at that! It's remaining liquid there.
The chill obviously chilled it very quickly because those ones haven't risen up anything
like as much. Just as I though it was safe to put my camera away and walk away and carry
on, that one broke, spurting a little river of aluminium. [laughs] I then put back in
the melting pot.
As soon as the aluminium felt solid enough
I broke it out of it's green sand mold, which incidentally, really highlighted my lack of
any proper tongs.
[Loud Hissing]
The quenching I'm doing here is probably not
strictly necessary as it was so close to that big metal chill which will have cooled it
quite fast, and it's not a huge casting anyway. I'll talk more about the pros and cons of
quenching in a separate video about heat treatment.
[Hacksaw cutting the alloy sounds]
Here's a little tip for you. As well as wearing the face shield, do wear safety boots! I didn't
even realise this had happened, but you can see a dollop has landed there and melted through the lase
[oven door opening noise]
[Music]
It's just a question of filling off some bits,
like that, that sort of edge there.
In terms of the finish here: I'm not actually
sure which I prefer. After turning it on the lathe this is what we've got. And it looks
great there, but then if you have got any little voids, which unfortunately this one
has, then it shows up a lot! Compared to this which doesn't seem to have
any of those same kind of amount of voids to it (sorry for the grammar).
[Music]
[Belt sander noise]
[music]
[Music]
YES MATE! It's going to work a treat!
So here we are, well please with how that's working. Number one of six of these ridiculously
over engineered bracket things I want to make. I'm going to make some design changes on the
patter for the other ones, so that I don't need to do quite so much after casting machining
on the metal, and just to change the shape a little bit.
I'm going to do a video on the DIY heat treatment of cast parts like this as well, so check
that out. I'm sure you would do this whole thing differently,
and I'd love to hear how you would do it, please get in touch in the comments below
- I love to hear from you friends! Otherwise it's been a complete blast, thanks
for joining me and I'll see you in the next one.
[Music]